How To Prevent Miles From Expiring By Using Chase Ultimate Rewards

If there is one thing I hate about frequent flyer miles and hotel points, it is that they expire!

In an attempt to get as many free miles and points as possible, anytime there are any free miles or points up for grabs, I always get them regardless if I have every flown the Airline or stayed at the Hotel.

Typically these free points and miles just end up sitting there. Eventually after a while due to inactivity some of them expire.

Thanks to AwardWallet, I no longer have to worry about miles and points expiring without notification, however I am now left with the problem of trying to keep all these miles and points alive.

This becomes especially challenging when you factor in all the friend and family accounts I also manage on AwardWallet.

AwardWallet sent me an email last month saying my Mom’s Hyatt points were set to expire on July 24th, although me being an idiot, I forgot to take care of right away and put it off until today when I logged into AwardWallet and saw that her 2,000 or so Hyatt points were set to expire tomorrow!

2,000 points isn’t really a ton of Hyatt points but because my Mom actually earned them by staying at Hyatt and since Hyatt doesn’t really “give away” free points that often, I thought I would try to prevent them from expiring.

The other reason I thought it was important to save my Mom Hyatt’s points is because I am sure in the near future I will have both my Parents sign up for the Hyatt Visa from Chase since it offers 2 free nights at any Hyatt worldwide.

If both my Parents got the Hyatt Card, then that would be 4 free nights worldwide, which can easily be redeemed for stays at Hyatt properties that cost over $1,000 a night.

I am in the process of writing a in-depth piece on the Hyatt Card, so I won’t go to in detail here, however if you are interested in the Hyatt Card, please click below.

Detailed Overview Of The Hyatt Card

The Perks Of Ultimate Rewards

One of the best parts about Chase’s Ultimate Rewards (UR) program is that certain Chase Cards have the ability to transfer your UR points to various Airline and Hotel partners.

These Cards are the Chase Sapphire Preferred and Chase INK Bold.

Although the regular Chase Sapphire and Chase Freedom both earn Ultimate Rewards points, you cannot transfer those UR points to any Airline or Hotel Partners.

Basically with the Chase Sapphire Preferred or Chase INK Bold, it is like you have the earning ability of 9 different Credit Cards in your pocket.

Detailed Overview Of The Chase Sapphire Preferred

Detailed Overview Of The Chase INK Bold

Instead of having a separate British Airways, United, Southwest, Hyatt, Marriott, & Priority Club Credit Card to earn points in their respective programs, with the Sapphire Preferred or INK Bold, you can earn Ultimate Rewards Points and then when you are ready, transfer your points to any of those partners at a 1:1 ratio.

Chase Ultimate Rewards Partners:

• United Airlines
• British Airways
• Southwest Airlines
• Hyatt 
• Marriott
• Priority Club
• Ritz Carlton
• Korean Air
• Amtrak

In my Mom’s case, she needed Hyatt points, so being the nice Son that I am, I simply logged into my Chase Ultimate Rewards Account and transferred some Hyatt points to her.

The nice thing is that via Chase Ultimate Rewards you can transfer your Points into the accounts of anyone as long as you have their account number and name.

They don’t have to be a family member, or even related to you.

So if your friend needs some United miles, you can simply log into Ultimate Rewards, put their name and United MileagePlus number in the box and transfer over some United miles for free.

Also the minimum amount of Ultimate Rewards Points you can transfer is 1,000 and you have to transfer in increments of 1,000, so you couldn’t do 1,234 points, you would simply have to round up and do 2,000 points. 

How To Transfer From Ultimate Rewards

After you log into your Ultimate Rewards account, simply click on the Transfer tab on the top bar and then from the drop down menu, pick the program you want to transfer into.

After you select the program you want to transfer your points to (in my case Hyatt), simply add in the person’s account number and name on the account  (I just copied it from AwardWallet), then enter the amount of points you want to transfer and hit “Transfer Points”.

A confirmation screen will pop up, just double check your order and hit “Transfer Points”.

 As soon as your order goes through, you will see this confirmation page below and your Ultimate Rewards balance will be updated to show the deduction of points.

Now what is really neat about Ultimate Rewards is that most of the transfers are instant.

So as soon as I had my confirmation above, I updated AwardWallet and the Hyatt points had already transferred!

Chase Ultimate Rewards Transfer Times

After seeing how quickly the Ultimate Rewards points posted in my Mom’s Hyatt account, it got me curious about the transfer speeds of the other Ultimate Rewards Partners.

I did some quick research and found an awesome chart that Daraius from Million Mile Secrets did back in March, so I have posted his chart below for your reference. 

I believe when he complied this chart, he was having some issues with Korean Air as the Chase system wasn’t working, however when the system finally decided to work and let him transfer his Ultimate Rewards points, it was an instant transfer.

These transfer times are useful to have handy if you are trying to make a last minute booking and need some points in a hurry. 

Recap

Hopefully with the help of AwardWallet and Chase Ultimate Rewards, you should never have any points or miles from British Airways, United, Marriott, Priority Club, Hyatt, Korean Air, Amtrak, or Southwest expire again!

-Parag