Yes

Airlines, for now, generally don�t discriminate by booking channel when it comes to booking channels, like hotels do. So yes, you earn miles and get your status benefits. But you also get �the services� of an OTA, which can be a negative as you may now have to deal with a middleman (your travel agent) for certain changes to your ticket.

I�ll grant you the mobile-wallet point, but IMO earning 3 UR/$ for travel spend (via Ink Preferred) beats 4.5% in credits.

Yes.
I imagine it depends on the OP�s future expected UR earnings & plans for UR redemption. A typical AC TATL J award to Europe on a partner airline will run you 85K (booked at flexible/refundable level); with frequent travel and/or multiple pax, you could burn through 2MM UR pretty easily.

This is true for Frequent Flyer credit and benefits, but it is not always true for fare availability. Airlines sometimes offer Web Specials (or similar) which are only available on their own website, and there are other fare classes that agencies may not be able to sell depending on their GDS. Example: Corporate travel is about to get harder: lower fares to be removed from legacy GDS

Sure it does, as long as one can redeem for more than 1.5�/point in value (without foregoing certain status perks). The problem is that the OP is having trouble achieving that kind of value with his UR points.

True, but I was primarily thinking of elite benefits, which is what the question was about. You are absolutely right, though, that booking through the Chase portal or similar has its pitfalls. It�s worth reviewing the relevant threads here. E.g.,

Booking Flights, Rooms, Cars, Cruises, Activities through Chase/cxLoyalty portal.

That's definitely interesting to know. I can't believe I've been in the points game for so long but still don't know about this, guess I've not had any reason to book non-direct for a long time.

Did you take into account taxes, and possible resort fees when comparing your booking. One thing I see people forget is that resort fees at Hyatt are waived on reward stays. At some properties this can be an additional $60/night in savings. And in some Cities the taxes are a large chunk as well. Just comparing the base room rate, to the points rate, isnt an accurate comparison.

Yes, I always go to the checkout page to see the actual total price when comparing

I’m shocked that no one has mentioned the Chase air Canada card with pay yourself back, 10% bonus for having the card stacked on a transfer bonus of 20% from a few months ago would give you 1.63 cents per chase point (an Air Canada point is worth 1.25 cpp when used for pay yourself back).

OK maybe no one mentioned it because next year in 2025 the cap on travel is 50,000 points, but for 2024 there was no cap (let’s hope they extend this and throw in some transfer bonuses.

This year I got globalist by staying with Hyatt for about 30 nights, all on points (save three from biz trip), and was still able to burn about 380,000 Air Canada points (70K from SUB and 240K or so chase points transferred with 30% bonus)- for a total of $4750 cash back. Terrific for botique hotels(Langham, Michelin hotel in Venice), and I still have 800,000+ chase points to transfer to Hyatt for future travels!

For Hyatt I like to get 1.7 cpp but if I had a ton of points and needed to pay for airfare (I use Amex biz plat), then I’d get the sapphire reserve and redeem for 1.5, that would be my minimum threshold for redemptions.

oh that sounds like a good option too. Never even looked into that card honestly. If they don�t impose the 50k limit next year then I�ll get the card