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Earlier this year I went on my honeymoon to the Maldives and flew Qatar Airways QSuties and stayed at both the Six Senses Maldives and St Regis Maldives. The original plan was actually to fly them roundtrip in/out of Chicago and I booked us two roundtrip tickets via Amex Travel for roughly $2300.
You can read the full review here
Ordinarily, I transfer points out to partners, but I carry an Amex Business Platinum that offers a 35% refund on premium cabin redemptions as a benefit and when tickets price cheap enough, it changes the calculus.
Learn More$2300 = 230000 Amex points less a 35% refund of 81000 = 150k Amex points. These tickets also earn points, and since I had Alaska MVP status I’d earn 25k Alaska miles each way. So spend 150k Amex points and earn 50k Alaska miles for a roundtrip ticket. No brainer imo…
The Problem?
The refund never posted…and I inquired with Amex about it roughly a month later. To put it in perspective… ordinarily the refund is completed after you take the first leg – at least that’s been my experience. It could take 4 to 6 weeks, and Amex iterated on this go around that it could take 12 weeks, but that has been the exception not the rule.
The same thing happened to my wife. We used points out of her account and they never posted either.
They hadn’t posted two months later and I followed up on the investigation that had been opened.
I was going to wait until the new year to inquire again, but here’s the weird thing. I checked both of our accounts today, and voila, we both received our credits! How weird is it that both accounts were resolved on the same day?!
Moral of the story…
Don’t trust the system will automatically credit your account. If you run into this problem, make sure you have screen caps and the card that the points were deducted from, and just keep inquiring. In the end, all was squared up, but if you were in need of the points for another trip you’d be waiting for quite some time.
Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.
Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
Welcome Offer
75k Ultimate Rewards after $4k spend in 3 months
*you may find an elevated offer walking into a branch – see below
Annual Fee
$95
Points Earned
Transferrable Chase Ultimate Rewards
- 75k Ultimate Rewards after $4k spend in 3 months
- Worth $937.50 in Chase Travel℠ and way more if you maximize transfer partners
- Some people have seen Chase branches offering the following:
- 75k Ultimate Rewards After $4k spend in 3 months + 10k Ultimate Rewards after $6k in 6 months
- 5x on all travel purchased through Chase Travel℠
- 3x on dining, including eligible delivery services for takeout & dining out
- 3x on select streaming services
- 3x on online grocery purchases
- (excluding Target, Walmart and wholesale clubs)
- $50 Annual Chase Travel Hotel Credit via Chase Travel℠
- The begins immediately for new cardmembers and after your account anniversary for existing cardmembers
- 2x on all other travel
- 10% Anniversary Bonus
- Every year you keep the card, your total spend will yield a 10% points bonus. If you spend $10k in a year, you’ll get 1k bonus points
- Chase Sapphire Preferred continues to redeem at 1.25c in the Chase Travel℠ and the slew of other benefits remain in tact including Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver ( primary ), purchase protections, etc.
- Points are transferrable to 14 Ultimate Rewards partners
- Redeem in Chase Travel℠ for 1.25 cents per point
- No foreign transaction fees
- Suite of Travel and Purchase Coverage
- Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver is my favorite
- Get complimentary access to DashPass which unlocks $0 delivery fees and lower service fees for a minimum of one year when you activate by December 31, 2024
- $95 Annual Fee
We keep an up to date spreadsheet that lists the best ever offers: You can find that spreadsheet here.
Historically 80k is a very, very good offer and hit in both 2022 and 2023. In 2021, we saw the offer hit an all time high of 100k. Who knows if that will ever come back.
Main Cast:
Cards that earn flexible points and should be used on the bulk of your purchases.
Supporting Cast:
Cards that earn fixed points in the currency of the airline/hotel and can not be transferred at attractive rates. These cards yield benefits that make it worth keeping, but not necessarily worth putting a lot of your everyday spend on.
The Chase Sapphire Preferred® is exceptional starter card and offers transferrable Ultimate Rewards, and pairs well with other Chase cards.
If you carry this card alongside Chase’s cashback cards like the Chase Freedom Flex℠and Chase Freedom Unlimited® or the business versions: Ink Business Cash® , Ink Business Unlimited® you can combine the points into Preferred account and transfer into hotel and airline partners
Annual fee is quite low at $95 a year + you get a 10% anniversary bonus on points + $50 hotel credit in Chase travel.
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