Chase Archives - asthejoeflies

Mar 26 2018

Four Reasons to consider passing on the Chase Iberia Credit Card

Like I wrote about last week, at one point in my miles and points career I applied for cards I didn’t need. That was all well and good when we didn’t have kids and could fly off to Europe for the weekend. It’s less ideal now that our time is limited. One thing I wish I had seen during my “Phase 3” heyday were more reasons not to apply for the shiniest new credit cards out there. So I’ve written this post about reasons to avoid the Chase Iberia credit card with that in mind. If you’re looking for reasons to talk yourself out of this card, this post is for you!

Now let me get this out up front: this is a perfectly good card and will fit a lot of people’s situations. However, every single review you read of a new credit card spends 90% or more of its time talking about what’s good about the card. This post will spend 90% of the time highlighting what’s not so good about the card, but let me get the other 10% out of the way. 50,000 Avios can be very useful to families who live in cities that have good AA space, transferring to British Airways is useful if not cumbersome, and the card not being subject to 5/24 is great.

Alright, let’s get to the reasons why I’m avoiding the Chase Iberia credit card. You can also consider these reasons to be wary of the hype.

1. It’s not really a 75,000 Avios sign up bonus

The first thing I think consumers should be aware of is the advertisement of the sign up bonus being 75,000 Avios rings a bit false to me. You earn 50,000 Avios after $3K in spending, and the other 25,000 after $7K in spending. If you have reliable MS or reselling methods, that 75K might be worth it. But if you’re a bit more average, like myself, 25K for 7K of spending isn’t amazing. I’d rather do 7K spending with my Chase Ink at office supply stores and earn 35K Ultimate Rewards.

Here’s the tricky thing that I need to remind myself. Even though I know I probably wouldn’t earn the 75K total if I applied for this card, just seeing it advertised as 75K has a subtle effect on how I view the card. I know better, but advertisements, which I’d is how I’d characterize 80% of the Chase Iberia credit card posts out there, have one job, and that’s to psychologically fool people into buying products. So I personally need to mentally adjust when I’m reading the hype, and I think others should do the same.

Just remember the opportunity cost of spending an extra $7000 to earn that extra 25K Iberia Avios. It definitely will be worth it to some, but not all. But it’s really a 50K sign up bonus with a 25K spending bonus. At least that’s how I identify it.

2. Avios (both Iberia and British Airways iterations) can be difficult to use in your situation

I used to love British Airways Avios. Even post devaluation, I found being able to take AA flights for slightly cheaper to be invaluable. Then a funny thing happened, AA tightened up all their award space and I had a bunch of kids. Now all of a sudden I’m searching for four tickets during peak school vacation times. Finding nonstop flights that fit those criteria can be very difficult.

One highly touted usage of British Airways Avios is the ability to redeem for flights from the West Coast to Hawaii for 12,500 per segment. That is indeed a great deal! Except:

They say Avios are great for the West Coast to Hawaii, but that’s contingent on award space

Things get better in September but your kids are probably back in school.

Update : counterpoint from @lsjbrooks

That space does my family very little good but hopefully it helps yours

Looks like you cherry-picked that LAX-Hawaii space. It looks decent in late July and most of August, especially non-HNL. Only east-coast Hawaii casuals go to Oahu 😜
— Tim (@ljsbrooks) March 26, 2018

Anyway, sometimes Avios can be super useful, but I generally haven’t found them to be as useful as the internet says they are. You have to get pretty creative, and if you don’t have a lot of time to do your research, you may just be chasing a shiny new sign up bonus that you don’t have the time to put the work into to use properly. Also, if you’re busy, you might not want to go through the hassle of transferring from Iberia to British Airways. It’s only like, two steps, but there’s the 90 day waiting period yada yada yada…I have found as my time has become more precious these small nuisances add up.

In terms of using the Avios for Iberia flights, I’ve had my eye on BOS-MAD on Iberia in the summer (it’s seasonal) for years now, but have never found enough seats for my family. We’d love to go back to Madrid, and you’d think the Iberia credit card could get us there, but in reality…probably not.

3. It’s another card to keep track of in your sock drawer

The earn potential on the card out of the sign up bonus isn’t very exciting. Most people don’t fly Iberia regularly so it won’t be worth it to spend $30K to get a $1000 voucher. (Though at 3.3% back, it’s not bad if you do I guess). But most people aren’t going to be spending on Iberia or British Airways flights regularly, so this card will only earn you 1 Avios per dollar. Obviously you can do better just by using any Sapphire Card which will earn you a minimum of 1 Ultimate Reward point per dollar which you can of course transfer to Avios.

So, most people will just get this card for the sign up bonus and sock drawer it – that’s not going to be worth the hassle for a lot of people.

4. Is the card worth going past 5/24?

A lot has been made about the fact that the Iberia card isn’t subject to Chase’s 5/24 rule. For some people, that’s great because if you’re “LOL/24” you have no chance to ever get back under so any hit of that sweet, sweet Chase is worth it. However, 24 months isn’t that long in the game – I’ve been dropping closer to 5/24 over the past 12 months. We’ve kept my wife permanently below 5/24. So is this card really worth adding to your 5/24 total or putting you over?

Ultimately, the miles and points game is a long game – so make sure you keep that in mind as you make your decisions.

Final Thoughts

If I’m being perfectly honest, I thought there’d be more compelling reasons to avoid the new Chase Iberia card. Turns out, the reasons are mostly subtle, meaning it’s likely a pretty good card! I thought I’d try a new angle while analyzing the credit card, so I don’t know if I’ll do another post like this in the future. In the end, I think my post has at least convinced me that I’m personally going to pass. Because the fact of the matter is, there aren’t many compelling reasons to get this card either. These days I like to keep my credit card applications to the ones I really want, and I’ll stick with that for now. If you’re looking for a more traditional review, DoC’s got you covered.

How about you, does the Chase Iberia card have a new space in your wallet? For the next month or so at least? Let me know in the comments!

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Feb 28 2018

Using bank points to book cash flights and travel: a primer

The miles and points game has definitely changed over the past few years. These days, you may get more value using points to book cash flights instead of stressing searching for award space. Bob Dwyer detailed the rise of bank points in this great post on Saverocity. Then he went ahead and ranked the major flexible currencies over at Milenomics.

The other day, I found out some people I knew spent $500 farming out a reservation to an award booker. Said award booker merely used their points to book cash flights through Chase travel and booked one extra leg using Avios and called it a day. If you plan to earn hundreds of thousands of points, please at least know how to cash them out for cash flights.

This post aims to assist you with that. Up front let me say it won’t be completely comprehensive, I’m no DoC. But I’ll hit some of the main currencies you can use for cash flights and give a quick primer on how to go about doing that. Hope it helps you get the most out of your points.

Shortcuts:

Chase Ultimate Rewards
American Express Membership Rewards
Citi ThankYou Points
US Bank Flexperks
Bank of America Travel Rewards and Preferred Rewards

Chase Ultimate Rewards

Max cash value for travel: 1.5 cents per point (with Chase Sapphire Reserve)

Ultimate Rewards Earning Cards: Sapphire family, Ink family, Freedom family

How to use points to book cash flights and travel

The simplest way to book travel with cash using Ultimate Rewards is to use the Chase travel portal online. Your Ultimate Rewards earning cards should display the balance, if not, click “see balance”, then “redeem”. Then go to “Use Points” in the menu and “Explore and Book Travel”. From that point, the interface looks exactly like Orbitz or any other OTA.

If you want to do something fancier like book a cruise or buy Disney tickets, you’ll need to call in. You can find the number at the bottom of the “Explore and Book Travel” page. I’ve also included the numbers for the cards I have here:

Chase Sapphire Reserve: 1-855-234-2542

Chase Ink or Freedom: 1-866-951-6592

With the Reserve you’ll get 1.5 cents per point, Ink or Sapphire preferred 1.25 cents per point, and 1 cent per point with the Freedom.

You often save money using points to book cash flights instead of trying to figure out how to redeem them for award seats. Here is a simple primer for the different options out there and the value you can get. — This type of interface should be accessible even if you’re not a travel hacker

American Express Membership Rewards

Max cash value for travel: ~1.5 cents per point (with Business Platinum Rebate)

Membership Rewards Earning Cards: Platinum cards, Gold cards, Green cards, Everyday cards, Blue business cards

How to use points to book cash flights and travel

Membership Rewards points can be used to book cash flights online. Click the top left menu and navigate to “Travel”. Click on “Book a Trip” and again you’ll be at an Orbitz type search engine. One nice thing about American Express is the ability to search for cruises online. Not all cruise lines are represented (notably Disney), but that is a nice touch.

If you’d like to book over the phone, just call the number on the back of your card and indicate you’d like to book travel. That will connect you with a travel agent.

Membership Rewards get a standard value of 1 cent per point. The one exception is if you use your Business Platinum card you get a 35% rebate on your points, giving you approximately 1.5 cents per point.

Citi ThankYou Points

Max cash value for travel: 1.25 cents per point (Premier and Prestige, though there are differences)

ThankYou Points Earning Cards: ThankYou cards, ATT Access More (no longer available)

How to use points to book cash flights and travel

Again, booking online is the easiest. Scroll down to “Rewards” at the bottom of the screen after you log in. Click on “view rewards and redeem” on the account of your choosing. You’ll have to select the ThankYou account you are using again (if you have multiple), and then at the top menu navigate to “Travel” => “Flights” (drop down menu). Or hotels or cars, as you like it.

You can book on the phone via the number on the back of your card, indicate you’d like to book travel. Remember with Chase, Amex, and Citi, you can use your points to book Disney hotel packages. If you want to book a cruise, this is the only way to do it. Ask specifically for the cruises and tours department.

If you have the Citi ThankYou Preferred, you get an even 1 cent per point on everything. The Citi Prestige gives you 1.25 cents per point on flights only, Citi Premier gets you 1.25 cents per point on all travel, including cruises.

US Bank Flexperks

Max cash value for travel: 1.5 cents per point

Flexperks Earning Cards: Flexperks, Altitude

How to use points to book cash flights and travel

So, of course, you can do the whole online portal thing, but US Bank has introduced a much better way to redeem your points as of last week (unless you have the Amex). Frequent Miler broke the news that you can redeem via Real Time Mobile Rewards. You’ll want to login to US Bank, then go “My Rewards” => “Redeem Rewards & Access Card benefits” => “Card Benefits” => “Real Time Mobile Rewards” => “Activate”.

Then, whenever you make a travel purchase, you’ll get a text asking if you want to redeem points for it. It automatically calculates at a value of 1.5 cents per point. Brilliant. That means if you buy direct from the airline/hotel/car rental, from Orbitz, wherever, you can redeem your points for it. You aren’t a slave to US Bank’s travel portal and their prices.

Of course, if you’d like to book over the phone, call the number on the back of your card. The math is simple for Flexperks, you get 1.5 cents per point redeemed.

Bank of America Travel Rewards, Premium Rewards

Max cash value for travel: 1 cent per point

Rewards Earning Cards: Bank of America Travel Rewards, Bank of America Premium Rewards

How to use points to book cash flights and travel

Bank of America Travel Rewards

While you only get 1 cent per point when redeeming, people love Bank of America Travel Rewards because you can earn up to 2.625% on every dollar spent (if you have over $100K in Bank of America accounts). Online, just click on your credit card account => “view my rewards” => “redeem points”. Travel Rewards is a “zapping” kind of system. After you’ve made a travel purchase, you can choose to redeem points against that purchase in the form of a statement credit. The minimum you can redeem for is 2500 points ($25).

Bank of America Premium Rewards

Bank of America Premium Rewards works like an online travel portal. Click on your card => “view my rewards” => “redeem points” => “redeem (Travel)”. You’ll be brought to an online booking portal where you can search for flights, hotels, and cars for 1 cent per point.

Hopefully you can combine points between these two products in the future

Final Thoughts

I didn’t include the Capital One and Barclays Arrival cards because I no longer carry them, but they both work in a “zap” your purchase fashion. So basically you can redeem against a travel purchase with points for a statement credit.

Hopefully, you already knew all this and only use this post for reference. Or better yet, you’ve got all this memorized. If not, please remember you can use your points to book cash flights! Use points first, as Freequent Flyer says, and cash last.

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Feb 26 2018

Quick Hits: Get a Chase Disney Debit card for a free meet and greet

Rachel Berkey, a moderator at the Award Travel 101 Facebook group, inspired me with this tip. One of the benefits touted with the Chase Disney credit card is a free meet and greet at Epcot Center, amongst other ancillary benefits. However, the Chase Disney debit card offers the same benefit, doesn’t waste a credit card application, and can be obtained easily for current Chase bank account customers.

I signed up for a Chase checking account years ago and use it occasionally. Since Chase doesn’t have branches in Massachusetts (yet!), I always assumed product changes and the like would be pretty difficult. Why? Because whenever I tried to do the product change to a Disney debit card online it said “product not available in your area.” I assume that’s due to the no branches in MA thing.

I’m not sure you can even sign up for a Chase checking account online if there is no branch in your area, but somebody please correct me if I’m wrong.

Changing your regular Chase debit card to a Chase Disney debit card

Anyway, if you find yourself in a situation like me and want to change your debit card to a Disney debit card for the free meet and greet, follow these simple steps.

Call the Disney Visa Debit Card Customer Service line: 1-877-388-5726. I got the number from disneydebit.com.
Press 2, other options
Press 3, open new account (even though you already have a Chase account)
Press 1, personal accounts
Press 1, new account (again, even though you already have one)
Tell the representative you want to switch to a Disney debit card

That’s it. A simple five minute phone call and a week later your Disney debit card will show up in the mail.

Disney Debit card benefits

The debit card mostly has the same benefits as the Disney credit card, without the Disney dollars earning. I can basically boil it down to two benefits that matter (1.5, really). But again, changing to the card is free and has no practical effect on your account with Chase aside from gaining these benefits. The benefits are:

Free character meet and greet (including Photopass photos) at Epcot (Disney World) or Disney’s California Adventure (Disneyland)
10% off at various stores and restaurants

There are quite a few random restrictions on the stores and restaurants you get the 10% off at, so make sure you read the fine print. Or don’t, the card is freeeeeeee. My biggest “issue” with the 10% food discount is you have to use the debit card to get it, aka no points. Too much math for me.

The debit card also offers various random discounts at random places, but they’re too niche to consider valuable for all. But definitely valuable for some.

Let’s finish up by talking about the meet and greet. It’s the whole reason why I think the Chase Disney debit card is worth the five minute phone call.

Did you know that the Chase Disney debit card is free for Chase checking account holders? Find out how to get a Disney debit card and five minutes and how to use it for a FREE character meet and greet. — Freeeeeee photo

Epcot Center Meet and Greet

The entrance to the free character meet and greet sits right near Journey to Imagination with Figment. Basically walk up towards the jumping fountains and you should see it to your left.

Let me just detail why this meet and greet is great.

Little to no lines, I had three parties in front of me, which is the most I’ve ever heard of.
Free Photopass photos, meaning you don’t have to pay for the photos. If you don’t want to pay for Memory Maker but want at least a few photos with some characters, this is a great option.
The character meet is Mickey and a friend, and you get to take pictures of them together. That’s always fun since most (though not all) meet and greets are just one character at a time.

That’s it! A short line for a cute meet and greet with free photos. You can do this once a day for up to six people, and just need to flash your card when you get in. I don’t even think I had to swipe anything, just show the card, so…

Final Thoughts

If you already have a Chase checking account, switching to the Chase Disney debit card is fairly easy. If you plan on opening a Chase checking account and ever going to Disney World or Disneyland, consider grabbing the Disney debit card version. You get some nice benefits, your kids get to take a few pictures, and you get to download them for free. Everybody wins!

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Can’t get enough Disney? Check out our Disney planning podcast, Disney Deciphered (latest episode embedded below)!

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Jan 03 2018

One weird trick when using bank points at Disney (and a call for datapoints)

This post was written by Robert Dwyer, who you can follow on Twitter or find at his blog Wellesley Wine Press. He wrote up some thoughts on using bank points (or credit card points) for a Disney hotel stay. Below you’ll find some good tips about how to go about using your points to pay for a Disney vacation. Thanks to Bob for helping to provide content when I’m lazy! 🙂

Joe did a nice job summarizing the approach of using bank points for a Disney hotel stay, usually Chase Ultimate Rewards or Citi Thank You Points (How to pay for Disney hotels and tickets with points). And perhaps bundling park tickets with it as part of a package.

I think the topic is worth discussing in more depth.

The thinking is it’s hard to get discounts on Disney so if you can accrue points for a penny a point or less you’re getting a deep discount. 1.5 cents per point of value with the Chase Sapphire Reserve for example. If you’ve got the Citi Premier you’re getting a 1.25 cents per point. And if you’ve got both the Citi Premier and Prestige you’re getting even more value thanks to 4th night free.

Of course, if you can earn the points for less your discount is even better. Given how voracious the Disney community is for Disney Gift Cards when discounted as modestly as 5-10% I think 33%+ is actually spectacular.

While comparing notes with Joe I was doing a bunch of searches for upcoming trips. I found the prices quoted on Chase’s portal were consistently ~5% more expensive than on Disney’s site. This bothered me because it eats away at the per-point value I’m getting out of my hard earned rewards.

The trick

So I did something we normally don’t recommend: I called.

Whether you’re dealing with Chase or Citi, call the phone number listed in their respective redemption portals and ask for the Cruises & Tours department.

Chase:

To speak to a Chase Travel Specialist, please call 1-855-234-2542. Advisors specializing in flights, hotels, car rentals and activities are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Advisors specializing in cruises are available Monday to Friday, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. ET, and Saturday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. ET.

Citi:

ThankYou Service Center
1-800-THANKYOU (842-6596)
Monday to Friday8am to 1am ET
Saturday and Sunday9am to 9pm ET

Why Cruises & Tours?

If you want to book a travel package (say a Disney hotel stay that includes park tickets, or a dining plan) you’ll need to talk with the Cruises & Tours department. They handle more complicated bookings like these, seemingly behaving more like a full service travel agent than the reps who just book the same hotels and flights you see yourself online.

Even if you don’t want to bundle park tickets or a Disney meal plan it could be worth contriving a package (say by adding a rental car to a hotel stay) because the Cruises & Tours reps seem more empowered to get better rates than what’s in the portal.

My experience

I called the Chase Cruises & Tours department and got a helpful agent right away.

I described the trip I wanted to take: Disneyland Hotel Club-Level with Park tickets.

I saw a price of $717/nt on Disney’s site:

Consider using bank points at Disney to save money on your vacation. Here are some tips on how to maximize your savings by using points for a Disney Vacation. — Yes, $717/nt is pricey but we don’t go cross country to Disneyland often

The Chase portal was consistently about 5% higher across all room types. $752.18/nt in this case:

Incidentally, Citi’s portal (run by the same people, but with different inventory) was $759/nt:

I asked the rep if she could match the price I saw on Disney’s site and bundle Park tickets with it to make it a vacation package. She took my information and said she’s call me back. About a half an hour later she called me back with good news: She matched the price she saw on Disney’s site down to the penny and bundled in Park tickets to make it a package. Sold!

Does this work for other hotel chains?

I don’t know. I have some datapoints that say it does not work for other scenarios. I saw a price for Hyatt timeshare property that was $349/nt on Hyatt’s site and about $100/nt more in Citi’s portal. I called and the rep told me to pound sand. That the prices were what they were and if I didn’t like it I could pay cash.

What’s been your experience?

Does calling Cruises & Tours open up hotels not bookable online?

No, it doesn’t. I called Chase back a few weeks later looking for that same Hyatt timeshare. Although it was available in the Citi portal it was not available in the Chase portal. The rep I spoke with, coincidentally the same exact rep who helped me out with the Disney booking, was unable to find the Hyatt timeshare in their booking channels.

Can I stack Citi 4th night free with Park tickets?

I don’t think so. But it’s worth a shot. I think as soon as you try to combine a 4th night free hotel booking with a package you get out of the 4th night free realm. The closest you can come to leveraging 4th night free for a hotel stay that’s more than just a hotel is to book an all-inclusive hotel.

I don’t have great expectations for the food & beverage options at the Disneyland Hotel Club Lounge but I did justify it in my mind by thinking we’d be getting 1.5 cents per point towards a bit of food & beverage in the lounge.

I’d be interested in hearing if anyone was able to get Citi 4th night free (essentially 25% off, before taxes) with any kind of package.

Can I stack Disney Annual Passholder/DVC/other discounts with bank point redemptions?

That’s a great question. I think you can, though I’ve never done it myself. I haven’t done it myself because I’ve never had a discount available for the hotel/room type I’m looking for coincide with my vacation. I say “I think you can” because Disney’s site says to book with Disney or call a travel agent to take advantage of the offer. Chase and Citi effectively act like travel agents when they make these bookings. So I think they’re possible.

Any datapoints on this?

Bottom line

If your goal is to take your family to a Disney Park, stay on-site and use bank points it’s worth trying to maximize the redemption. I find it harder to get discounts on Park tickets and dining than airfare and hotels. And it’s relatively affordable to earn URs and TYPs. So it’s a redemption I can justify in my mind.

I’d love it if I could stack Citi Prestige 4th night free with a meaty 30+% off Disney discount with 1.25 cpp uplift and bundle in Park tickets and Free Dining while I’m at it. That’s not possible but it’s always fun to try to get as close as possible.

Ping me on Twitter @RobertDwyer if you’d like to connect. I’d love to compare notes on this stuff.

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Jun 22 2017

How to save money on Disney tickets and hotels using points

It’s great travel hacking together with friends, especially when it comes to workshopping ideas. For ideas on how to save money on Disney, I always find myself working with Robert Dwyer, who put me onto the idea of using Thank You Points to book a Disney cruise. We’ve been chatting about upcoming trips and wanted to figure out whether you can use points for Disney tickets and hotels. Turns out, you can, sometimes for a big savings. Note, this post may be too in the weeds for some, so e-mail me if you have questions!

Before I get to my research, let me answer some questions or comments I know I’ll get. First of all, you definitely can get more “value” out of your points. If you use your Ultimate Rewards points to book Lufthansa first class, you can come out ahead in terms of raw cent per point value.

Did you know you can use points for Disney tickets and hotels? You can save lots of money by paying for a Disney vacation with points not cash, here's how. — A trip to Disney can be expensive, but you can pay with points instead of cash if you’d like

But as Bob constantly reminds me (and I think he stole it from Milenomics), book the trips you want to take. Or in the case of families, book the trip your family wants to take. “Value” is a spectrum that takes into account monetary value and entertainment value by the end user (i.e., your kids and loved ones).

Secondly, I may hear comments that transferable point currencies have “better” uses. They most certainly do. But some people sit on seven figures worth of miles and points (like business road warriors). Sometimes you just want to burn points. And, most importantly, using points for Disney tickets and hotels saves you from using cash – which theoretically should help your financial future in the long run (see my discussion with Noah from Money Metagame on the podcast).

Alright, let’s take a look at how to use points for your Disney vacation. TL;DR – Chase Sapphire Reserve gets you the best value. If you’d like the quick version on how to use Chase points, see this guide I wrote on using your Chase points for Disney tickets!

The basics: book through travel concierge

So before I get to brass tacks and numbers, let’s take a look at the basics in theory. There are three major transferable currencies: American Express Membership Rewards (MR), Citi Thank You Points (TYP), and Chase Ultimate Rewards (UR). Each currency can be transferred to airline partners for the aforementioned “better value.”

However, you can also use each currency to book travel. When booking airfare, you get a minimum of 1 cent per point with all these currencies. So a $200 plane ticket costs 20,000 points.

In addition to booking airfare, which can be done online, you can also call the number on the back of your card and ask to book a vacation package using points (or cash if you prefer). This gets you transferred to a department that can put together a Disney vacation for you. As long as you have the right type of credit card, you can pay for part or all of this vacation with points. The devil is in the details: depending on your card you can get different value for your points.

So let’s take a look at which card issuer gets you the most value for your points when redeeming for Disney hotel and ticket packages. I’ll first go through a case study, what the vacation package costs in cash from Disney, and then I’ll show how much it costs in each of the three point currencies.

Case study – Family Suite at Disney’s Art of Animation with 4 day base tickets (2 adults, 2 kids)

For my case study, I picked a random 5 night family suite stay in August at Disney’s Art of Animation for two adults and two children (3-9). I added 4 day base tickets to that (no park hopper). Here’s the breakdown in costs.

As a package: $3199.11

A la carte: $1745.15 (room) + $1448.40 (tickets) = $3193.55 <= tricky Disney!

A la carte: $1745.15 (room) + $1303.56 (4 day tickets but must visit each of the four parks once) = $3048.71

$3000+ is a lot of cash to lay out for a five night vacation, even if it’s a family suite at Art of Animation. So let’s take a look at what it’d cost if booked in points, starting from “worst” value and ending with the “best”. (In quotes because you need to factor in how many of each currency you have, opportunity cost, etc. etc.

Buy Disney tickets and hotel packages using AMEX Membership Rewards (OK)

All American Express Membership Rewards cards, even the no annual fee ones, allow you to use points to pay for your travel. The problem is, the most you can get is 1 cent per point when redeeming for airfare (plus the 50% rebate with the Business Platinum). Making things worse, you get even less than that when booking for other types of travel, like Disney.

To book a Disney vacation package, call the number of the back of your card and say you want to redeem points for travel. If asked, specifically try to get transferred over to cruises and vacation packages (they generally go together). Then feed the agent your dates and type of ticket desired. They will quote you a price in dollars and in points (if you ask for the latter).

I poked around this page from AMEX and found that the most you can get for points redeemed towards vacation packages is 0.7 cents per point.

AMEX wanted to charge $3199.11 in cash. A rate of 0.7 cents per point means the vacation costs ~450,000 Membership Rewards points. If you compare that with the ability to cash out your Membership Rewards as gift cards for one cent per point or for airfare, you might consider calling that $4500. Unless you’re swimming in MR, I prefer the other options.

Buy Disney tickets and hotel packages using Citi Thank You Points (Better)

Since I only have the Citi Prestige and Preferred, I can only get 1 cent per point for non-air travel at the most. Like AMEX, I called the number on the back of my card and said I wanted to book a hotel vacation package with points. If you hold the Citi Prestige, make sure you say “with points”, otherwise they’ll send you to the cash booking agents (incorrectly assuming you want to use your fourth night free).

Citi also quoted me $3199.11 (the same as the Disney package and AMEX), so using Thank You Points would cost me 319,911 points. Better, since you’re getting the same value you could get for gift cards. But you’d still get less value than you could get for airfare (about $4000).

Now I couldn’t confirm this because I no longer hold the card, but I’m guessing like with my cruise deposit, Thank You Premier holders can get 1.25 cents per point. That means if you hold a Premier card, you can book this hotel room and ticket package for 255,929 points. Now we’re talking, since the equivalent in airfare would only be $3199.11.

Buy Disney tickets and hotel packages using Chase Ultimate Rewards (Best)

So I went through the same song and dance with the Chase phone agent, though I should note I spent the least time on hold with them. Chase offered the same Art of Animation room/ticket package for $3251.31 (sorta weird that it’s a shade more).

However, if you have the Chase Sapphire Reserve, you get to apply the 1.5 cents per point valuation when booking this package. That means that Reserve cardholders would only need to pay 216,754 points for this package. That could get you the same value in airfare, but if you redeemed for cash, that many points would only get you $2167.54. So in that sense you can “save” the most this way.

I also checked Port Orleans: Riverside. Again, Chase charged slightly more ($2875 vs. $2867 that Disney wanted), but again you could get the 1.5 cents per point with the Reserve so it would cost 191,667 points.

If you are an Ink or Sapphire Preferred holder, you can get 1.25 cents per point when booking these packages.

Can you buy tickets without the hotel?

One thing to note: you can save a lot (cash OR points) by staying off Disney property. So if it were possible to use points to buy tickets alone, that would be huge.

AMEX and Citi flat out told me this was impossible, but it seems like Chase is a YMMV situation. A phone agent told both Robert and myself that we had to book hotel and tickets together. However, one of the CSR agents I have been e-mailing with quoted me $1450 for tickets (same as Disney a la carte) OR 99,666 points. Two other people have told me they’ve been successful buying tickets using points from Chase, so it seems like a YMMV situation but one worth checking out.

How to decide whether to pay with points or cash

Like I said at the top, I’m sure some people say they would never use their points for this purpose. I can see how people might see this as an extreme version of buying magazines with your miles. Let me offer a couple of counterpoints to this logic.

First of all, when people rave about how transferable point currencies are great because they are so flexible, this is that flexibility in action. Points are not cash. While MR, TYP, and UR all can be redeemed for cash or cash equivalents, in many instances you can likely get more value out of using points this way.

Secondly, these points currencies are valuable but that doesn’t mean using them this way is a waste. Take Chase Sapphire Reserve as an example. Yes, you could use 200K points to book $3000 worth of flights. But, um, what’s the difference between that and using it to book $3000 worth of Disney? Take the trips you want to take!

You could also use those 200K points to more or less book one round trip seat in Lufthansa first class. That indeed would cost like $10,000, but you’d be flying alone without your family. I’m not saying that’s not a good use of your points, all I’m pointing out is that value is in the eye of the beholder. With Chase Ultimate Rewards, there’s so much value to be had that sometimes it’s tough to decide how to use your points. Just make sure you use them!

To me, it comes down to this. Cash can be used for other things. You’ve earned these points to (most likely) save money on your travel. If you use them this way, you’re fulfilling that goal.

Final Thoughts

Membership Rewards, Thank You Points, and Ultimate Rewards points can all be used to book your Disney vacation. They give you the chance to save cash by leveraging your point balances to pay Disney’s prices. These redemptions won’t be for everyone. Still, consider them if you’re trying to cut down cash costs on your Disney trips. And in many cases, Chase Ultimate Rewards comes out as the clear winner.

I still need to try a few things out. Does adding airfare to an AMEX or Citi booking unlock the 50% rebate (AMEX business platinum) or the 1.25 cpp (Citi Prestige)? Or does the airfare get added separately? Also, can you use this for packages in other Disney properties, like Hong Kong or Paris?

What are your experiences with booking Disney vacations using points? Hit up the comments and share your stories.

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