Chase UR vs Amex MR: One Experience
 

Just looked at booking an intra-Japan flight in business on JL. For the same flight, the MR site was $50 more per ticket. Given that my UR points are redeemed at the 1.5 rate, UR is a big savings here.

Is this typical, or just time/date/carrier dependent?

Thanks!

I don't know the answer to your question, but I would also be looking at the cost of redemption options from some airlines to which one can transfer MR/UR points. BA charges a lot for intra-Japan redemptions, but Finnair -- to which BA Avios can now be transferred -- appears to charge just 14,500 Avios for an intra-Japan, Business Class redemption.

Thanks for that reminder/information.

If your plan is to book flights via the Chase Travel Portal or AMEX Travel and redeem points, Chase will always come out ahead — except for the case where you have a Business Centurion Card.

What you have to really compare is how much spend you had to make to get the redemption you want. For example. If you need 10,000 MR to book a flight via AMEX Travel and it takes $2500 in spend to get those 10,000 MR, but you only need 6000 UR to book that same flight with Chase but it took you $3000 to get those 6,000 points, then AMEX comes out ahead.

That said, the best value for MR is almost always via transferring to a partner airline and booking via airline rewards. Of course flexibility great decreases when you go that route.

Thanks for your insights.

In looking at the portals, I was surprised with the differences in dollar pricing.

Unfortunately, for the particular flights about which I am interested, several of the partners I checked don't offer reward tickets.

Thanks again.

Thank you for the alert. For some people, MR can be redeemed at 1.5 (Biz Plat) or even 2.0 (Centurion) while they can only get 1.0 from UR (no CSR or CSP or Ink Pref).

In addition to being time/date/carrier dependent, it’s probably even more dependent on card assortment holdings.

Is that accurate? If one does not have a CSR or CSP or Ink Pref and thus booking via Chase portal will be at 1.0, would not a Biz Plat (35% rebate, ~1.5) or a Biz Gold (25% rebate, ~1.33) cardholder come out ahead by booking through the AmEx portal?

Sometimes the best value for some people is redeeming MR at 1.33 or 1.5 or 2.0, particularly for Delta where some awards require a bajillion Skypesos SkyMiles.

Boy, did I ever make an error on this one! I went back to book today, and found out that I was comparing apples and oranges (2 person booking vs. 1 person).

The correct pricing was that Amex quoted $288 for two people on my one-way, and Chase quoted $466 for two people. What an incredible difference in dollar price. In terms of points, Amex was 28K points, where Chase wanted 31K points. Booked using MR points and save my huge bounty of UR points for my next big roundtrip.

Thanks again.

Oh yeah, been there, done that :(. Too may times, especially more recently, I hate getting old :D!

As an obviously passionate points redeemer, please be reminded that for both MR and UR redemption values can be very different based (in part) on which credit card accounts you have open.

Thanks. Yes,I only have the Plat, so not so good. My UR points are redeemed from my JPMR, which has been pretty good with the 1.5 multiplier of my >2 ppd earning rate based on my spend pattern.

You’re welcome, thank you!

FWIW (re Amex cards): Centurion (possibly not a viable option for many people) 50% rebate (2 pennies per mile), Biz Plat 35% rebate (~1.5 pennies per mile). That 35% rebate is the main reason some of us keep a Biz Plat open considering the $695 AF (easily partially offset by $200 airline fee credit).

(Biz Gold rebated ended February 2024.) Pay-with-Points flights. BUSINESS Centurion 50% refund, Platinum 35% (2024)

Looks like "chase will always come out ahead" failed in this case.

Yes. Interesting side note: I recently did a multi-leg pan-Asia trip in J on JL, booking with IAP. I saved thousands compared to the JL website. I suspect Amex gets preferred pricing on JL, even without IAP fares. Thus, they offered a significantly discounted rate on my intra-Japan trip compared to Chase Travel.

Sometimes what’s true for wives and/or girlfriends is also true for airfares: My mama told me/'you better shop around. (lyrics)

Well, Chase will always come out ahead, except in instances where AMEX has an extremely discounted rate vs. what's available elsewhere. I've never seen a disparity like that before, but the disparity doesn't really have anything to do with MR vs. UR. The $288 is available with cash--and I'd probably book it with cash instead of redeeming points.

Head to head, regardless of earning process and without a UR and/or MR card higher redemption rate card, will Chase ALWAYS come out ahead? If so, is it based on better negotiated rates, better negotiated discount, lower fees, something else? If so, can the percentage lower be predicted? Thank you.