Liquidating Chase UR
 

Hi, Im new here


Not sure if this is the right thread for this, if it’s not pls feel free to redirect me

I have about 950k chase UR (between me and wife) been accumulating for about 8 years. We barely travel so I don’t want to save them for that. We now have freedoms, inks and 1 preffered.
I was trying to hit a million but now I’m hearing some stuff about sapphire reserve value is changing and I don’t want to lose out.

So #1 - is there a difference in price per point if I sell it at 1 million vs 950k ?
#2 - is there a difference in how much I get per point based on what card I sell it from ? (My choices would be either freedom, preffered, or maybe get a reserved just to sell them for more money) if there is a difference then how much

#3 - is it risky to sell all my chase points? Will they shut me down? I have never sold any before

Thank you all for your help

Welcome to Flyertalk.

You can redeem the points directly through Chase for $0.01 each. If you redeem via Sapphire Preferred for travel through the Chase Travel Portal they are worth $0.0125/each. (If you already had a Sapphire Reserve Card the Travel Portal value would have been $0.015, but that does not apply to newly opened Reserve accounts.) Alternately, points can be Transferred to airline or hotel programs, and could be worth more that way, but only if you travel.

Thank you Mia. I understand i can liquidate them through chase for .01 and I don’t travel so the .0125 dosent help me. My questions are regarding selling them to a broker

A broker will most likely ask you to Transfer the points to an account in your own name at an airline program, and then to redeem from that program for a ticket in the name of a stranger. This will violate the airline program terms, and there will be an unambiguous link to you. Is this approximately what the broker has proposed?

I haven’t spoken to any brokers but I have read online that what you described is what they do. I am ok with that. I am asking in terms of financial questions

I have about 950k chase UR (between me and wife) been accumulating for about 8 years. We barely travel so I don’t want to save them for that. We now have freedoms, inks and 1 preffered.
I was trying to hit a million but now I’m hearing some stuff about sapphire reserve value is changing and I don’t want to lose out.

So #1 - is there a difference in price per point if I sell it at 1 million vs 950k ?
#2 - is there a difference in how much I get per point based on what card I sell it from ? (My choices would be either freedom, preffered, or maybe get a reserved just to sell them for more money) if there is a difference then how much

#3 - is it risky to sell all my chase points? Will they shut me down? I have never sold any before

what exactly are you ok with? violating the t&cs or getting your airlines & hotels loyalty programs terminated, awards cancelled, remaining points forfeited, and potentially not receiving payout from the brokers?

lol Im ok w violating the t&c as long as I get paid

If you suddenly out of nowhere transfered 1 million points to an airline and bought tickets for other people for the first time, there's a decent change that you'll be banned from those airlines and forfeit the points. I know people who've been banned. I don't think it's worth it frankly.

As for chase, I wouldn't want to do anything that risks getting credit cards shut.

Someone did a fraudulent transaction on my account 2 months ago and it's been a nightmare. Chase has been asking me to prove my identity every few days and it's been a nightmare because I have addresses all over the world and don't have a US number. So I sound shady every time they have to verify my identity

Yesterday they told me I had to go in person to an outlet to prove my identity. Luckily for me I'm actually in the US right now and can do this easily. But I'm not sure if be able to live life without chase credit cards.

I have foreign credit cards but the US ones are the best. To mitigate my risk, I'll probably open Citi and amex ones this week.

I personally wouldn't do anything that'd risk 1) getting shut by Chase 2) losing all points.

But brokers I've heard usually do pay.

this is very true

not sure about this, because since OP will most probably transfer to an airline and the airline detect fraud and ban him? so chase maybe unaffected

im not so sure about this. if you get banned by the airlines, and the award tickets are revoked, then im not so sure tha broker wil pay you. also, i have heard a few stories where the brokers just hang their customers out to dry when things go south, most likely when the seller got caught, so customers paid but didnt get a ticket or was given an alternative that they didnt want. giventhe shady nature of their business and stories like this, i see every transaction as a huge risk

you are 100% violating the t&c, but you are not 100% getting paid

If the points just come from chase to an airline, there's a chance the airline will cooperate with chase

If you barely travel why accumulate so much spend on a card that accrues UR points instead of straight cash back in your pocket?

do you happen to know otherwise? i know of people who have been banned from some ffps (mostly sq and cx, af also) and none of their bank accounts (not chase) is affected. i also see no mention of bank accounts being shut down when reading acedotes of people who got banned from ffps

i also find it a stretch that bank will shut down customers for this. dont forget that from chase's perspective, everything up until the transfer is legit. airlines have spotty fraud detection and often do little to no investigation. sometimes they even use their ffp as leverage when in dispute with the customers. can chase and do chase really want to shut down customers based on that?

I have no firsthand knowledge but I'm literally sitting in a chase outlet now to prove my identity because I've been flagged for fraud on 10+ transactions in the last month. They won't let me open credit cards or transfer points easily.

it sounds like you are flagged for fraud for credit card transactions which is 100% chase's business. this is completely different from airlines flagging you for fraud

If you transfer your points to a broker and then use it to instantly buy tickets in another person's name, you are likely to get the airline to cancel those tickets, keep the points and then you dont get paid from the broker. This is why you sholdnt do anything that violates the T&Cs.

Take your $10,000 and move on

The underlying question is "Does the broker even pay more than 1 cent per mile"? If not this is all academical

Well, I think if the airlines see fraud in the accounts from point transfers that originated from chase point transfers, there is a decent chance they'd cooperate with chase as a partner. Noether side wants to see fraud.

I doubt a broker will pay so much that it's worth risking everything, esp a credit card, bank account. But everyone has their own risk tolerances.

now that i think about it there are 2 potential options but you need to do more research on it

1) book a ticket via chase travel portal, get the airline to take over the ticket (which you may have to pay) and cancel for a credit. then sell that credit at some discount. for CSP, you can get up to 1.75cpp and it could be worth your while to downgrade that and sign up for the CSR, so that you get the 100k + $500 SUB and get up to 2cpp

2) wait for a transfer bonus to aeroplan, get the chase aeroplan card, so you have 20-30% + 10% from aeroplan card. then use the pyb feature

Can you elaborate on this? To my knowledge, airline credits are linked to a specific passenger name.

so first off i mentioned OP need to do more research on it

for exmaple, aa's trip credits can be booked for anyone, and it is possible to convert flight credit to trip credit. the problem is you may not be able to book aa tickets at 1.75 or 2cpp. since OP has CSP, he at least can at 1.25cpp. you are more likely to find such tickets for UA, but you cant use UA's credit for anyone afaik. im not too sure if that can be converted to travel certs which can then be used for anyone, but i did a quick google and it seemed someone managed to do so previously

Agreed, but inasmuch as free123cc mentioned that they are infrequent travelers, they may not realize that this is a potential pitfall. I think that if we are going to suggest ways to net more than $0.01/point we need to at least sketch out the risks. Thank you for doing so in your reply.

good point. a few more things that i think OP should look out

1) do not buy basic economy
2) do not buy refundable, as the refund will/may go back to chase, which may create more problems
3) the credits can expire, e.g. aa credits expire after 1 year although there are ways to extend it
4) there are some small costs along the way that should be considered as well, a fee for airlines to take over the ticket, sometimes there is also a cost to convert the credits to the right one, cost to extend an expiring flight credit, cost (time and discount) to sell the ticket

im not sure these cover everything but it is a start and there are more reserouces and help in the chase and airlines subforums. option 2 is the safer option, although the return is potentially lower and you need to wait for the transfer bonus

one other thing is the opportunity cost of accumulating ur points for 8 years is the interests or investment returns that OP could have earned had he redeem the points earlier. this is moot now, but something that op can ponder upon moving forward

ok thank you everyone for your replies

not sure if im covering anything but here goes

i have heard there are reputable brokers that will not screw you and can pay around.013

i most probably will be willing to take the risk

my main question still stands. if i sell from a freedom/preffered or reserve would i get differetn rates?

thanks

If the broker requires you to transfer the points to an airline account, this can only be done from a Sapphire Preferred (or Reserve, or INK Preferred) account. This means you will need to Combine the points from Freedom to your Sapphire Preferred account.

Read here:

FIRST: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/chas...solidated.html

THEN: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/chas...-accounts.html

Reserve to grocery store (V or MC) then PYB. About infinity times better of a solution.

0.013 isnt much better, and could be worse, than what i suggested above. those are also much more legal, and arguably less risky

op hsa almost 1mil points, so that is $12.5k. if OP spends around $500 a month on groceries, it will take more than 2 years to finish spending it. in the meantime, OP accumulate more points and the pyb feature might change

I think the suggestion is to buy VISA/MasterCard gift cards at a supermarket, use PYB to offset the charges. The Supermarket category is only valid until 9.30.2025, but could be renewed. There is the hassle of buying ~$12,500 worth of gift cards in 45 days, and then there are the headaches which often arise when using those gift cards.

Does Sapphire Preferred have the same PYB categories/ratios? If not, there Is also the expense of upgrading from Preferred to Reserve.

Am I missing something ?

Why not just take the $9,500 as cash ?

they also come with activation fee 7.95 per $200 or $500. im also not sure if chase will shut you down for spending $12.5k in grocery stores in a short period of time

CSP can only redeem for charities and af

The preffered only has select charities at .125, groceries are at .1 for pyb

for the poster who asked why not just take cash, it’s bec I am greedy and want more money and know I can get it

my core question is - for those who have experience selling chase UR, will I get the same money if I sell from my preffered or if I get the reserve can I get more per point ?

thanks

Think everyone told you her/his opinion. Why don’t you contact brokers yourself?

unsubscribed

Not if you will be Transferring the points to an airline program. The transfer ratios are identical.

in the past, i would say it's the same. but csr can now redeem at up to 2cpp on chase travel but csp only up to 1.75cpp, i have no experience with miles brokers, but this could be a viable option for the brokers; less risk, more availability and while they may earn less per transaction, they could complete more transactions quickly, resulting is overall more payout. so csr points are technically more valuable even when selling to broker, but whether they will pay more for it is another matter

True, in an alternate scenario where the broker would ask free123cc to book a ticket for a stranger through Chase Travel, rather than transferring to an airline program. The broker needs to be able to sell the ticket for less than the airline's published price. The spread between $0.013 and $0.02 doesn't seem adequate, but I imagine that dynamic pricing of frequent flyer awards has already reduced the broker's margins.

Still, I wouldn't upgrade from Sapphire Preferred to Reserve on speculation. Let the broker tell you if there is a valuation difference, and exactly what you would need to do.

Everything INCLUDING the transfer to the airline is legit - Chase has no restriction on transfer to airline and offers it as a welcome option for redemption as long as the account is in the primary or AU cardholder's name so I agree that Chase has no reason to get involved here.

Where the OP can run into an issue is (as has been previously mentioned) when those miles that are in their name are used to book flights for random people and their mileage account gets flagged and shut down for doing too many third party bookings. This is rampant with AA, Alaska, Virgin, and others, and I'm sure more airlines are going to crack down going forward.

I wouldn't upgrade based solely on points boost of the Reserve and then relying on a broker giving more $$ for that. Perhaps would have done it to lock in 1.5cpp value on the CSR but it's too late for that now.

The best value for the OP to liquidate their points without needing to go through a broker or getting into trouble and violating any T&Cs is to book travel for other people (friends, family, co-workers, etc) on their Preferred via Chase Travel at a value of 1.25 cpp (or up 1.75 cpp if they're lucky) and those people pay the actual price which they would have paid anyway when booking themselves. There is no rule against booking travel for others using Chase UR points and they have more than 2 years to cycle through the points.

Thank you everybody for taking the time to answer and trying to help me

i sincerely appreciate it!

I will reach out to a broker directly and find out more

Make sure that broker does not issue you a 1099 when you get paid. And you will need to ask to have 2 separate checks, because depositing a check over $10k is going to trigger the bank to let government knows about it. If you end up paying tax on $12k, you maybe better off just taking the $9.5k.

Trying to evade reporting by making a series of smaller deposits is called Structuring, and that is illegal. Depositing large checks is not illegal.

Nonetheless, it's a valid point that cashing out credit card points is not a taxable event, but selling those points might be.

Not usually, but there was the case a few years ago, where the couple made hundreds of thousands off of buying Visa gift cards and cashing them out. I believe the final ruling was they werent actually getting a rebate on their purchase so it was taxable