Where to use my 450K Chase points?
I started travel hacking earlier this year and I have over 450K Chase points between me and my husband. We do have 2 kids so I’m not sure if booking business class is even an option for us with that number of points for 4. I would like to go to Europe (open to all major countries) or Australia next year, but we’re also locked into the school schedule (free June to mid August or winter break) as they are at an age where they can’t miss school anymore. We’re not overly picky on where to go but wanted to get the kids out to see more of the world after our recent trip to Asia. My husband has United platinum so he leans towards wanting to fly United so we can get upgrades. He has another 60-80k and I have about 40k United points as well to play with. But it seems United never has very many good deals on points travel that I’ve seen other than having very long layovers to some locations. We also have status on Marriott. We are in Bay Area. What are some good options or destinations we can look at where we might be able to score some good deals during height of summer season? Otherwise I feel like I should put all my hacking on pause till the kids are out in college for us to enjoy off season travel on business.
I think using it on Hyatt hotels might be best value for points. If you don’t care about business class or marriot status
check out thepointsguy ?
If you have date restrictions, the best redemption is to book with points on the Chase portal. Use the CSR portal to get 1.5x
I've found it really hard to use points for flights because there are too many restrictions. Hyatt has pretty good transfer rate though (got worse for 2024 but still pretty good). We booked a suite in Kauai for like 150k points for a week
How long did it take to earn that much point?
9 months.
Just curious how did you manage to have that many points in a year?
Took about 9 months between 5 cards with me and spouse. A couple cross referral bonus as well we had a lot of home repair experiences and travel which we planned ahead of and got cards before payments.
Wait for a good partner transfer offer, I’ve seen +50% for IHG. Paying for airfare with points is not as worth it, worth pointing out that United is a points parter with Chase.
I’ve been a points scammer for many years now and it feels like hotels are probably the best use of your horde. Airlines are just too much work now.
10-15 years ago the travel points churn game was amazing. Nowadays I just buy domestics tickets with the UR portal for 1.5x. Too much effort and not enough availability for international flights with points.
Don't spend so much mental energy on this shit.