veda815

I am planning a trip to Greece from 8/30-9/8 and hoping to take advantage of my Chase Reserve points for the airfare.

There is a lufstansa flight that best fits my schedule for $1k cash or 68k chase points. But what I wonder is could I get a better deal if I transfer my points to an airline? I am not tied to the lufstansa flight if there is a better point deal I can get by transferring. Any ideas appreciated.

guv1976

If your schedule is flexible, Google Flights is showing a BOS-ATH roundtrip fare with Iberia for just $714, for travel 8/30-9/8. If that fare is bookable by Chase, it should cost you just 48,000 UR points. But if you must travel at the times that Lufthansa flies, I doubt that you will do much better -- unless LH lowers the fare on those flights before you purchase.

Yoshi212

The "best use" when it comes to transfer & redemption is the one with low/saver level award availability. The only way to known this is by searching. Take a look using the UA search to see what is available. Search doing 1 way awards for better search responses. For Skyteam I find the Air France portal to be a bit better than DL but DL can be better for DL flights. For OneWorld you'll want to avoid AA & BA flights across the Atlantic since they have high fees. Look for Iberia or Finnair (out of JFK or ORD) using the AA and/or BA portals.

guv1976

While just about anything is possible, if the OP can get his LH itinerary for 68,000 UR points + $0 cash, I think it is unlikely that he would do better with a miles transfer. And if the IB itinerary for 48,000 points + $0 cash is acceptable to him, I'm confident that he would not get a better deal with a miles transfer.

Whether he should use his UR points for 1.5˘/point redemptions, or save them up for a future miles transfer where he could realize better value, is a whole separate discussion.

dukerau

Agree with guv above, but to provide a little more context to OP:

There are two ways to redeem Reserve points for flights -
1. book via the UR portal
2. transfer to airline miles and redeem for award flights

You're quoting #1 , which is a very simple value proposition - with the Reserve card, points are worth 1.5cents each. Hence a ~$1,000 flight costs ~68k points. Option 2 is much more complex but can be more lucrative. However, for economy flights, it rarely is. Airline programs differ on how many miles they charge for the same route, but most of the time, US-Europe round trip in economy is 60k miles, then you also have to pay taxes (often in the ~$100 region round trip for US-Europe), and sometimes there are additional fees and fuel surcharges, the latter of which can be several hundred dollars. This is why guv is precisely quoting 68k points + $0 for your option 1, because the alternative (option 2) would be 60k + ~$100. I'm grossly generalizing here, as the price isn't always 60k (some programs charge only 50k but usually with fuel surcharges that nullify the miles savings), but hopefully this explains why everyone is saying you're better off using the 68k for your Lufthansa route (or 48k for Iberia) rather than exploring award tickets.

Where miles shine is when booking international business/first class. Consider that US-Europe usually costs ~$3-5k in business class, so booking via the UR portal would cost ~200k-333k points. If you can find award availability on United or its partners, you can transfer 140k points to United and redeem them for round trip business class. While you'd have to pay the ~$100 in taxes, you're saving over a ton of points, so it's easily worth it.

Yoshi212

You're not wrong but the OP asked about points transfer to an airline and if they could get a "best" deal so I addressed that specifically. It's possible but the two fares on option are quite good as is.