Now that you earned some points you have to redeem them. Travel hackers seek to get the most amount of value from their points as possible. There are several ways to redeem miles and points but you’ll want to make sure you are getting the most value possible. Each points currency has a different value. That’ll be for another post but you want to understand what that value is. Some people are focused on getting the highest value possible but you shouldn’t feel the need to match when anyone else does. In the end you have to be comfortable with what you are using your points for.
Redeeming airline miles is pretty simple. You want to get a flight or upgrade your seat, you use the miles as currency to do so. Different flights will cost a different amount of miles. The best use of miles will be on international trips but that doesn’t mean domestic trips won’t have good value, it’ll just be harder to find. As always, do the math to see what makes the most sense. Hotel points work exactly the same ways.
Credit card points are a little different. You can usually get cash for them but that is always a poor redemption value. The most lucrative way is to transfer to travel partners. That’s what makes credit card points like Ultimate Rewards, Thank You Points and Membership Rewards so valuable – they’re flexible. If all you had was Ultimate Rewards from Chase, you can transfer some to United to book a flight and some to Hyatt to book a hotel on one trip but then transfer them to a different airline and different hotel chain for your next trip. This really opens up more opportunity to use your points. Of course, not every airline and hotel chain participate in each program. This is again why it is important to plan; you want to make sure you are in the right ecosystem for where you want to travel.
Consider this example. You live near Atlanta which is a massive Delta hub. As a result, you primarily fly Delta and you have some miles with them already. Spending a bunch of time, money and effort to get a lot of Chase Ultimate Rewards for flights might not make any sense for you because Delta is not a transfer partner. So again, plan out what you are going to do so that you can make the right decisions from the beginning.
Transferring points is easy. You’ll need an account with the transfer partner. So let’s say you wanted to transfer your Ultimate Rewards to Hyatt. You’ll create a World of Hyatt account if you don’t already have one. It’ll take just a few minutes and you’ll get an account number. You then go to your Chase account, look for where it says transfer, select Hyatt and then put in how many points you want to transfer and your account info. Hit the button and you’re done. Some transfers, like Hyatt take almost no time at all. Others could take a day or two. It’s too much to get into for right now but just understand that the transfer time varies. After a few minutes, refresh your Hyatt account and you’ll see your points. You can then use those points to book your hotel.
Keep in mind that transferring points are usually a one-way street. If you transfer to Hyatt and then realize you are not going to book a hotel, you won’t get those Ultimate Rewards points back. They’ll by stuck there with Hyatt. Thus, you should verify that there is availability for the place you want and only transfer the amount of points you need to actually book.
Now that you understand how to earn and redeem points, we need to discuss how to know when you’re getting good value.