CMHFlyerOH

Does the Chase Freedom Card allow any sort of conversion to airline miles? I know the (now defunct) Chase Rewards Plus allowed conversions to Continental, BA, and United.

sdsearch

Defunct? Allowed (past tense)???

I have one in my wallet, and continue to earn 4+ UA miles (after conversion from points) at gas/grocery/drug with it (despite rumors well over a year ago that that was about to end). And, yes, I could transfer to BA or CO if I preferred instead (I just choose to transfer to UA). And I just logged in to Chase, and it still shows the Chase Rewards Plus logo above my account, still explains that I earn 5 points/dollar at GGD, can transfer to several airlines, etc.

AFAIK, it's not open to new cardholders, but then, neither is Diners Club (a much more major card) for quite a while now (as the extremely long transition to new ownership continues plodding along).

CMHFlyerOH

I based the "defunct" statement on 4 data points. I, my sister, my dad, and my partner were all forced over the past 18 months to switch to Chase Freedom or Saphire. In all four cases, we asked to keep our card with its current terms, no dice. Consider yourself very lucky.

dmitri

When I go to Ultimate Rewards FAQ (Chase Freedom rewards program) there is an entry:
I wasn't able to figure out which cards are eligible and which are not...

tassojunior

Amtrak (1:1 to CO with $200 Amtrak spend)

No fee ever.

There are 30K promos floating around.

sdsearch

Strange juxtaposition of words "to CO" and "ever".

Since CO will cease to exist as such in about a year (once it's merged into UA), and CO is the only airline Amtrak can transfer to, it's too early to know whether there will be any airline transfer possible from Amtrak in another year or two. It could be UA, or it could no airline at all.

I thus wouldn't necessarily recommend getting an Amtrak card now if you want a card for the long term for airline miles.

And the $200 Amtrak rail spend is a requirement for any kind of transfer out of that card. So it's not like if CO goes away and you decide you just want to dump what you go into some hotel points that you'll be able to avoid the $200 Amtrak rail spend.

beltway

I just had a long chat with a Chase supervisor who (unlike the snippy CSR who kept answering questions I wasn't asking) explained this in detail.

Short version: there's really no such thing as an "upgrade."

Long version: Chase's use of the word "upgrade" here is highly misleading. What they mean is "you can ask to convert your Freedom card to an entirely different Chase product like Sapphire Preferred, which allows you to earn points that may be converted to miles."

The good news: According to the supervisor, if you already have the Sapphire Preferred card, you can call Chase and ask to have Ultimate Rewards/Freedom points moved over to your UR/Sapphire account. Points can allegedly be moved in any amount, so no minimum or fixed increment. (Of course, UR/Sapphire transfers to miles can only be done in blocks of 1000.) Freedom -> Sapphire point transfers cannot be reversed.

dldkjones

If so, then having both cards you can use the Freedom card to rack up points at 5 per $ on the rotating quarterly bonuses and then transfer them to miles at the same rate after transferring through the Sapphire program.

beltway

Correct, which is why I labeled this good news.

Of course, the Freedom category spend is capped at $1500 (7500 points) per quarter.

dldkjones

What about Chase Ink business card? Click through ad on FT reflects that it too is in Ultimate Rewards with points conversion to FF programs.

beltway

My guess is that this would work for any other Ultimate Rewards card product, but why guess? The only way to know for sure is to call Chase.

trikotret

I actually emailed them about my ink business card and they said I can transfer to other airlines

mia

Only to two airlines.

However, I believe the question is whether points earned with a Chase Freedom or standard Sapphire card (which do not allow airline transfers) can be transferred to an Ink Ultimate Rewards account. It's the double transfer, from one Chase program to another, and then to an airline, that is new information.

sdsearch

Actually, as I see it, three airlines, except one of them will take a year or longer.

Ie, if you want to transfer to UA, just transfer to CO and wait for UA and CO to merge FFPs (in 2012). As long as you don't need your UA miles for more than a year, UA and CO miles are about the same thing.

Joe1690

I have both a freedom and an ink credit card and am able to transfer points between both of them instantaneously online. As such, I would imagine that the ink bold and ink plus would work the same way and then you could transfer them to the respective travel partners.