How To Transfer Your Chase Ultimate Rewards® for Best Value

One of the most lucrative ways to redeem your Chase Ultimate Rewards® is to transfer them to one of Chase’s travel partners. 

In other words, convert 1,000 Chase points into 1,000 points with Southwest, United, IHG, Marriott, etc. 

But when would it make sense to do that? And how do you do that?

Why Transfer Chase Points?

While you can redeem your Chase Ultimate Rewards® for a trip through Chase Travel℠, it’s not always the best value.

Chase offers a feature called “Points Boost” on some of its cards that lets you redeem points for up to 1.75x–2x their value through Chase Travel℠ — but the boost is only on select airlines, routes, and cabin classes.

Otherwise, the value drops to just $0.01 per point. 

If your preferred route or destination isn’t eligible for Points Boost, then transferring to partner airlines and hotels can often give you much better value.   

Which Chase Cards Can Transfer Points? 

As of publishing, there are four Chase credit cards (two consumer cards and two business cards) that can transfer points directly to travel partners:

• Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
• Chase Sapphire Reserve®
• Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card
• Sapphire Reserve for Business℠

You can also use a little-known feature of “combine points” to use points from Freedom-branded credit cards with transfer partners (provided you also have a Sapphire or Ink Preferred card):

• Chase Freedom Flex®
• Chase Freedom Unlimited®
• Chase Freedom Rise® Credit Card

The Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card is Chase’s entry-level travel rewards card. It has a moderate fee and boosted earning rates on travel and dining.

You also get a robust suite of travel insurance (including trip cancellation and trip delay) and up to 1.75x points boost on premium cabin tickets on select airlines through Chase Travel℠.  

For the value it packs, the Sapphire Preferred remains one of the most popular travel rewards cards on the market.

The Chase Sapphire Reserve® is the Preferred’s big sister, commanding a steep annual fee but offering higher-value perks in return. 

You’ll get a $300 annual travel credit, complimentary airport lounge access, a credit towards Global Entry/TSA PreCheck®, travel insurance, and more. 

The Reserve’s other big perk is that your Chase Travel℠ redemption bonus rises to up to 2x the value.

So while the fee may be hard to stomach, you can easily squeeze that much value out of the Reserve on an annual basis. 

The Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card is tuned to help business travelers maximize rewards. 

For a moderate annual fee, you’ll get a boosted earning rate on travel/shipping/advertising, some decent travel insurance, and up to 1.75x boost on points redeemed through Chase Travel℠. 

The Sapphire Reserve for Business℠ is Chase’s newest credit card.

It comes with a ton of business-minded benefits, like lounge access for you plus two guests, credits for business services like ZipRecruiter and Google Workspace, a credit for Global Entry/TSA PreCheck®, and travel insurance.

It also offers up to 2x the value on points when you redeem them through Chase Travel℠.

The card does come with a hefty annual fee, but if you frequently travel for business, you could earn back the value through all the perks.

How Chase’s “combine points” feature helps you maximize rewards

As mentioned, Chase doesn’t allow holders of the Freedom-branded credit cards (Chase Freedom Flex®, Chase Freedom Unlimited®, and Chase Freedom Rise® Credit Card) to directly transfer points to Chase’s travel partners. 

You can, however, use a lesser-known feature called “combine points” to move points from a Freedom card to, say, a Sapphire Preferred or Reserve, and then transfer them. 

To illustrate, here I am in my Chase Ultimate Rewards® dashboard looking at my Freedom Unlimited card. I’ll go to Rewards details > Combine points…

… And then I’ll move, say, 5,000 points to my Chase Sapphire account!

Once points are in your Sapphire account, they can be transferred to travel partners or redeemed for bonus value via Chase Travel℠. 

This discovery led to the popular “Chase Trifecta,” a strategy where you use the Chase Freedom Unlimited® and Chase Freedom Flex® to rack up points on everyday expenses — and then move them to your Sapphire Preferred account for an instant value boost. 

READ MORE: How To Earn Credit Card Points Fast for Travel

List of Chase Transfer Partners

As of writing, there are 14 total Chase travel partners that accept point transfers. 

You can see the current list (and current promotions) by visiting Chase Ultimate Rewards® > Travel > Transfer points to partners. 

Airlines

• Aer Lingus
• Air Canada
• British Airways
• Emirates
• Air France KLM
• Iberia 
• JetBlue
• Singapore Airlines
• Southwest
• United Airlines
• Virgin Atlantic

Hotels

• IHG Hotels & Resorts
• Marriott Bonvoy
• Hyatt

Points must be transferred in 1,000-point increments, and ratios are all 1:1 — meaning, for example, if you transfer 4,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards® to IHG, you’ll get 4,000 IHG One Rewards points. 

That said, Chase almost always has a promo running where you can get 25% (or more) bonus redemption value with at least one of its transfer partners. 

READ MORE: How To Travel for Free With Credit Cards

How To Transfer Chase Ultimate Rewards® to Travel Partners

Chase makes the process of transferring points pretty simple, although there are a few hoops to jump through if you’re doing it for the first time. 

1. Log into Chase Ultimate Rewards®

To start, log into Chase Ultimate Rewards® by heading to ultimaterewardspoints.chase.com. 

From here, choose the credit card that has the transfer capability (remember: Sapphire Preferred, Sapphire Reserve, Ink Business Preferred, Sapphire Reserve for Business): 

In my case, that’s my Sapphire (no. 2). 

2. Head to Travel > Transfer points to partners

From here, you’ll select “Travel” > “Transfer points to partners” from the top navigation.

At the main transfer dashboard, you can:

• See current promotions
• See a complete list of Chase’s transfer partners
• Filter to only see airlines, hotels, promos, or programs you’re already enrolled in (i.e., programs where you’ve already given Chase your membership number and login credentials) 

3. Choose a transfer partner

Let’s say you’re looking to transfer some points to Air France KLM to help cover a flight to Paris. Click on the row for Air France KLM, and you’ll be brought to the enrollment screen: 

4. Link your partner account to your Chase account

Chase needs your Air France KLM membership number to transfer the points to the right account.

If you don’t know your membership number (or don’t yet have one), head to the Flying Blue website (Air France KLM’s membership program), log in or create an account, and grab your membership number. 

Once you give Chase your Flying Blue membership number, you’ll be brought to the terms and conditions screen. 

Basically, Chase is warning you that transfers are one-way, and once your points are out of Chase’s hands, they’re subject to Air France KLM’s terms and conditions. 

5. Choose a point amount in increments of 1,000

Next, it’s the big moment! Chase will ask you how many points you’d like to transfer. 

As mentioned above, all transfer ratios are 1:1 (unless there’s a promo), and transfers must be made in increments of 1,000 points. 

After clicking Next, you’ll be brought to the confirmation screen to review your transfer details, including your pending balances for each account. 

6. Submit your transfer

Click Submit, and you’re all set! You’ve successfully completed your first Chase transfer. 

Chase claims that transfers can take anywhere from one to seven business days, but in my experience, some partners like United and Air Canada are pretty instantaneous. I’ve heard that Emirates can take longer. 

All told, it’s probably best to initiate the transfer ASAP if you’re looking to book travel sometime in the next week. 

When Is It Worth Transferring Chase Points? 

Generally speaking, it might be worth transferring Chase points to a travel partner if: 

1. The points are worth more after the transfer; and
2. You already have something in mind to spend them on once transferred; and
3. You don’t mind losing the option to redeem them for cash.

To illustrate, let’s look at an example of a well-executed transfer. 

Let’s say Mei wants to book a $500 economy flight to Montreal to visit her mom. She has 50,000 Chase points in her Sapphire Preferred account, so she has a few options at her disposal: 

1. Book using her credit card
2. Book via Chase Travel℠
3. Transfer points to Air Canada first, and then book the flight directly using Air Canada

Let’s go through each option. 

Even though her Sapphire Preferred earns rewards on travel, she’d rather use points instead of real money — so that rules out option no. 1. 

As for option no. 2, her 50,000 points are worth $500 via Chase Travel℠ (or up to $875 if there’s an eligible cabin and route available through Points Boost), so she could easily cover the $500 flight.

But when she goes to Air Canada’s site, she finds a direct flight from Atlanta to Montreal for just 20,000 points. What a steal! That definitely makes the most sense. 

So she heads back to Chase, transfers the 20,000 points to her Aeroplan account, and books directly through Air Canada. Thanks to a well-planned transfer, she booked a $500 flight using just 20,000 points (or the equivalent of $200). Awesome! 

FAQs

Wrapping Up

Transferring points is one of the best ways to redeem your Chase points. The basics are easy — just log into Chase Ultimate Rewards®, choose Travel > Transfer, pick a partner, and move your points. 

Once you’ve picked out the perfect flight or hotel booking, a well-timed transfer can stretch the value of your Chase Ultimate Rewards® to up to 4 cents a pop, saving you hundreds (or even thousands!) in the process. 

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Disclosure: Opinions expressed here are the author's alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, hotel, airline, or other entity. This content has not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of the entities included within the post.