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MMMondayMemo: Use Transitive benefits to your advantage
Each Monday Miles has decided to drop a tip, hint, tutorial, trick that maybe you’ve missed or haven’t heard before. If you’re an expert in this field, some of these may be things you already know, but there are a lot of beginners out there who are just getting their feet wet. This week the Monkey Miles Monday Memo shows how to use transitive benefits to your advantage.
What are transitive benefits?
To put it simply: If A=B and B=C then A=C
We all learned this at some point in school, perhaps in Geometry, but I find it far more useful in my everyday life to apply this property to points. In fact, I usually refer to them as the ‘transitive property of ballerness’ because understanding how you can maximize your conversions equates to high levels of baller feelings.
Typically I look at “C” and reverse engineer how to convert into it
Let’s say you want to fly on China Airlines business class. We know that it is a member of SkyTeam and thus partners with all of those airlines. So you could transfer points into one of those airlines in order to to fly on China Airlines. The ones that pop up in my mind are: Delta, Air France, and Korean Air because their points can be easily used to redeem on China Air. There are others, but these are easiest to use as an example.
A ===> B ===> C
Chase Ultimate Rewards ===> Air France & Korean Air ===> China Airlines
American Express MR ===> Air France & Delta ===> China Airlines
Citi Thank You ===> Air France ===> China Airlines
SPG ===> Delta, Air France, & Korean Air ===> China Airlines
OMG my baller feelings are already percolating just LOOKING at China Air Biz =)
The Marriott/Starwood Merger has create lots of Transitive Bennies
What I’ve written already:
- Amex Platinum to Marriott Gold
- SPG Platinum to United Silver
- Marriott status challenge to get SPG Platinum in 9 stays
There are more that I will touch on, but let’s look at more examples of using the transitive property of ballerness:
Use American Express MR to fly Virgin Atlantic by transferring into Delta
If you transfer your points to Virgin you’ll pay huge fees, but transferring to Delta you’ll only pay $5.60 from the states to london
AMEX MR ===> DELTA ===> FLY VIRGIN
I can attest… I felt BALLER paying $5.60 for this flight
You could use SPG to transfer into American to book Etihad Business Studio
SPG are some of the best points to use for airline redemptions. Every 20k SPG you transfer yields 25k in the destination program. There are a few exceptions to his rule, but generally speaking, this is the case. From the US to Middle East is 70k AA one way.
60k SPG ===> 75k American Airlines AAadvantage ===> Etihad Business Studio
Etihad is one of my favorite business class products in the sky.
The list goes on and on but you get the idea. Use transitive benefits to your advantage
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
Earn 60,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.
Annual Fee
$95
Points Earned
Transferrable Chase Ultimate Rewards
- 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, 2027.
- $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.
The responses below are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.