Chase Ultimate Rewards points are perhaps the most valuable points out there. Thanks to their flexibility and transfer options, we regularly give Chase Ultimate Rewards one of the best valuations in our monthly valuations. There are plenty of great ways to earn Ultimate Rewards points and even more fun ways to redeem them for award flights and hotel stays.
In this post, we’ll show you all of Chase’s transfer partners, how to transfer Ultimate Rewards to these partners, and much more. After reading our guide, you’ll be ready to book an amazing getaway!
Chase Airline Transfer Partners
The Chase Ultimate Rewards program currently has 11 airline transfer partners — the latest program, Air Canada Aeroplan, was added in August 2021.
Points transfer to all these airlines at a 1:1 ratio, which is one of the reasons Ultimate Rewards points are so valuable.
| Chase Airline Transfer Partner | Min Transfer | Transfer Ratio
(Chase > Airline) | Transfer Time |
| Aer Lingus AerClub | 1,000 | 1:1 | Almost Instant |
| Air Canada Aeroplan | 1,000 | 1:1 | Almost Instant |
Air France-KLM Flying Blue
| 1,000 | 1:1 | 1 hour |
| British Airways Executive Club | 1,000 | 1:1 | Almost Instant |
| Emirates Skywards | 1,000 | 1:1 | Almost instant |
| Iberia Plus | 1,000 | 1:1 | Almost Instant |
| JetBlue | 1,000 | 1:1 | Almost Instant |
Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer
| 1,000 | 1:1 | 1-2 days |
| Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards | 1,000 | 1:1 | Almost Instant |
| United Airlines MileagePlus | 1,000 | 1:1 | Almost Instant |
| Virgin Atlantic Flying Club | 1,000 | 1:1 | Almost Instant |
Aer Lingus AerClub
Major Hub: Dublin (DUB)
Airline Alliance: None, but has airline partners
Aer Lingus is a part of the International Airlines Group (IAG), which also includes British Airways, Iberia, and Qatar Airlines, so you’ve got some flexibility when it comes to how you redeem your Aer Lingus AerClub Avios. That said, its award chart isn’t quite as valuable as many of the other Chase Ultimate Rewards transfer partners.
However, it does offer a couple of solid sweet spots for those looking to travel to The Emerald Isle. On off-peak dates, you can book a one-way ticket from the U.S. East Coast to Dublin for 13,000 Avios in economy or 50,000 Avios in business class.
Air Canada Aeroplan
Image Credit: Air Canada
Major Hubs: Calgary (YYC), Montréal (YUL), Toronto (YYZ), and Vancouver (YVR)
Airline Alliance: Star Alliance
Air Canada Aeroplan is easily one of the best Chase transfer partners for premium cabin award tickets thanks to its lucrative partner award chart.
For instance, you could fly one-way in business class to South America or most European destinations for 60,000 points. If you prefer to fly to Asia in business class, that would be 85,000 points so long as the distance covered is less than 11,000 miles.
Further, Aeroplan can be exceptional for award bookings because of its low taxes and fees on many partner tickets, and you can add a stopover on any itinerary for just 5,000 more points.
Air France-KLM Flying Blue
Major Hubs: Paris (CDG), Amsterdam (AMS)
Airline Alliance: SkyTeam
Another excellent option for economy and business class tickets between the U.S. and Europe is the Flying Blue program. Redemption rates are already quite reasonable, with solid award availability as well. You can often find one-way economy tickets to Europe for as low as 22,500 miles and one-way business class tickets for 56,500 miles.
While those rates are decent on their own, the Flying Blue program offers Promo Rewards each month that can drop the award ticket price for select routes by 25% to 50%, allowing you to get stellar value out of Flying Blue miles.
British Airways Executive Club
Major Hubs: London Heathrow (LHR), London Gatwick (LGW)
Airline Alliance: Oneworld
British Airways Executive Club gets a lot of flack in the points in miles community due to the large fuel surcharges for both economy and business class tickets between the U.S. and Europe. However, British Airways Avios can be incredibly useful for short-haul tickets that can often be relatively expensive.
For instance, U.S. domestic nonstop flights under 1,150 miles on American Airlines and Alaska Airlines cost just 9,000 Avios in each direction, along with low taxes of just $5.60. This can take you between destinations like New York and Miami, Chicago and Houston, or Seattle and Los Angeles.
Emirates Skywards
Usually, the cheapest way to fly Emirates first class is to use Japan Airlines miles. Image Credit: Cherag Dubash
Major Hub: Dubai (DXB)
Airline Alliance: None, but has airline partners
While Emirates Skywards offers some of the most sought-after award redemptions for business and first class on its signature A380, and more recently its game-changer first class on the 777, the airline has also gone through a recent string of devaluations that have made this award more expensive through higher fuel surcharges.
Fortunately, one great sweet spot remains that allows you to fly Emirates’ fifth freedom routes between the U.S. and Athens or Milan, for 85,000 miles in first class one-way, or an incredible 90,000 miles round-trip in business class, with significantly lower taxes and fees.
Iberia Plus
Major Hub: Madrid (MAD)
Airline Alliance: Oneworld
Another entry into the Avios family is Iberia Plus. Unsurprisingly, its award program has a decent amount of overlap with the others, but its award pricing between the U.S. and Spain presents an incredibly sweet spot for award travelers.
It’s common to see many U.S. carriers charge 30,000 points to fly between the U.S. and Europe in economy class, but Iberia charges just 34,000 Avios to fly between the U.S. and Madrid in business class on off-peak dates — one of the cheapest ways to get across the pond in business class.
JetBlue TrueBlue
Major Hubs: New York (JFK), Boston (BOS)
Airline Alliance: None, but has airline partners
JetBlue is a low-cost U.S. carrier that is known for its great inflight product both in economy and its Mint business class seats.
However, since its TrueBlue loyalty program ties award redemptions to the cash cost of the ticket, you’ll usually receive just 1.1 cents per point towards Mint redemptions, and 1.3 to 1.4 cents per point on economy tickets.
This can be a better deal than booking through the Chase Ultimate Rewards portal for Chase Sapphire Preferred cardholders with a 1.25 cent per point redemption rate, but a poor choice for Chase Sapphire Reserve cardholders with a 1.5 cent per point redemption rate. That said, you can often get much more value out of your Chase Ultimate Rewards points using other transfer partners.
Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer
Image Credit: Singapore Airlines
Major Hub: Singapore (SIN)
Airline Alliance: Star Alliance
While you might overlook Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer as an option for domestic travel, as a Star Alliance partner it offers great award pricing on domestic United flights, including 17,500 miles for flights between the U.S. mainland and Hawaii, and 27,500 miles for flights between the U.S. and Europe.
Singapore miles are also your only option if you want to book a highly sought-after ticket in Singapore Suites class between the U.S. and Singapore or its fifth freedom route between the U.S. and Frankfurt.
Southwest Rapid Rewards
Major Hubs: Atlanta (ATL), Baltimore (BWI), Chicago (MDW), Dallas (DAL), Denver (DEN), Houston (HOU), Las Vegas (LAS), Los Angeles (LAX), Oakland (OAK), Orlando (MCO), Phoenix (PHX)
Airline Alliance: None
Southwest is the world’s largest low-cost carrier with an award program in Rapid Rewards that’s similar to JetBlue in that it operates on fixed value redemptions, allowing you to usually get between 1.3 to 1.4 cents per point on your redemption that is tied to the cash cost of the ticket.
Since you can often get much more value out of your Chase Ultimate Rewards points than this, we generally advise against transferring to Southwest. However, one sweet spot is for those who have the Southwest Companion Pass, as your redemption value doubles on tickets where your companion flies with you for free.
United MileagePlus
Major Hubs: Chicago (ORD), Denver (DEN), Houston (IAH), Los Angeles (LAX), Newark (EWR), San Francisco (SFO), Washington DC (IAD)
Airline Alliance: Star Alliance
In addition to being one of the most well-known Chase transfer partners for U.S. flyers, United MileagePlus also benefits from being able to book award travel on fellow Star Alliance airlines with low taxes and fees. In terms of booking tickets on its own metal, now that United has moved to dynamic pricing, getting outsized value using its currency isn’t quite as easy as it once was.
However, it does offer the incredibly valuable United Excursionist Perk, which allows you to tack on a free one-way flight on round-trip bookings for no added miles, so long as the flight is within the same region. For example, you could fly from the U.S. to Istanbul, Istanbul to London, and London back to the U.S., and your Istanbul to London leg (a 4-hour flight covering 1,500 miles) costs no added miles.
Virgin Atlantic Flying Club
Major Hub: London Heathrow (LHR), Manchester (MAN)
Airline Alliance: None, but has airline partners
The second largest carrier based out of the U.K., Virgin Atlantic doesn’t participate in an airline alliance but offers several great partnerships that award travelers can take advantage of.
One of which is booking Delta One business class awards between the U.S. and Europe for just 50,000 miles one-way, which is far less than what Delta would charge using its own miles to book these awards. You can also book ANA first class awards between the U.S. and Japan for as low as 55,000 miles one-way.
Chase Hotel Transfer Partners
Ultimate Rewards can also be transferred to 3 hotel rewards programs. Like Chase’s airline partners, all transfers to hotel partners occur at a 1:1 ratio.
IHG One Rewards
Headquarters: Denham, England
Number of Properties: ~6,000
The IHG One Rewards program recently went through a revamp, but as a dynamically-priced program, it seldom makes sense to transfer your Chase Ultimate Rewards points.
For instance, we value IHG One Rewards points at 0.5 cents per point, so any redemptions above that level are generally considered to be a good value. Given that, it wouldn’t make sense to transfer Chase Ultimate Rewards points, which are worth a minimum of 1.25 cents per point through the Chase Ultimate Rewards travel portal, to a program where getting half of that value would be considered a good deal.
Marriott Bonvoy
Headquarters: Bethesda, Maryland
Number of Properties: ~8,500
As with IHG, we seldom advise against transferring your hard-earned Chase Ultimate Rewards points to Marriott Bonvoy where nights at top-tier hotels can cost upwards of 85,000 to 100,000 points per night. Not only is it fairly easy to get more value out of other Chase partners, but you’ll also find that you’d likely be better off booking a Marriott hotel through the Chase Ultimate Rewards travel portal than transferring to Marriott directly.
World of Hyatt
Image Credit: Hyatt
Headquarters: Chicago, Illinois
Number of Properties: ~1,200
If you thought Hyatt would be similar to the other 2 hotel programs, think again. The World of Hyatt program is one of the best Chase Ultimate Rewards transfer partners and a darling in the points of miles community thanks to the value its award chart offers.
While the program recently went through a devaluation with the addition of peak pricing, even the most expensive award nights in the portfolio don’t exceed 45,000 points per night. This means you can book free nights at top-tier Hyatt hotels for roughly half of what programs like Marriott and Hilton often charge for similar hotels.
Hot Tip: Use our transfer partner tool to see how many points you’ll get when you transfer your Chase Ultimate Rewards to partner airlines and hotels!
Earning Ultimate Rewards
With several Chase card options available, there are ample opportunities to earn Ultimate Rewards points that can help you book your next trip.
Recommended Chase Cards (Personal)
Business owner? See our list of the best Chase business credit cards.
Chase Shopping Portal
You can also shop through the Shop through Chase portal to earn extra Ultimate Rewards points when making purchases online. This is an easy way to boost your earnings on purchases you would make anyway.
How To Transfer Ultimate Rewards
Once you have some Ultimate Rewards points and are ready to transfer them to a partner to book your next big vacation, here are the simple steps to make the transfer process easy.
Step 1: After logging into the Ultimate Rewards site, select the appropriate card. If you want to transfer points, you will need to select a premium Ultimate Rewards card with an annual fee — these include the Chase Sapphire Reserve card, Chase Sapphire Preferred card, and the Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card. You can combine Ultimate Rewards points under your chosen card from others that don’t have annual fees.
Combine the points earned from your Chase cards together. Image Credit: Chase
Step 2: Select Transfer to Travel Partners under the Earn / Use drop-down menu.
Click Transfer to Travel Partners to begin a transfer. Image Credit: Chase
Step 3: Choose your desired airline and select Transfer Points.
Chase’s airline transfer partners. Image Credit: Chase
You can also select from Chase’s hotel partners using the same steps.
Chase’s hotel transfer partners. Image Credit: Chase
Step 4: If you haven’t already added your frequent flyer number or hotel rewards number, you will be prompted to do so.
Save your frequent flyer number for a quicker transfer experience next time. Image Credit: Chase
Step 5: Once you have linked your airline or hotel account to your Ultimate Rewards account, choose how many points you would like to transfer. Transfers must be done in increments of 1,000.
Select how many points you’d like to transfer. Image Credit: Chase
Step 6: Confirm the number of points you’re transferring and complete to transfer.
Review your details and confirm. Image Credit: Chase
Step 7: Head over to the appropriate airline or hotel program’s website to book your award flight or award stay.
Booking Travel With the Chase Travel Portal
Sometimes, making your flight or hotel booking through the Chase travel portal can make a lot of sense. With the Chase travel portal, the points needed for specific redemption are tied to the cash cost. So, if a flight or hotel stay is relatively inexpensive, to the point where the point cost ends up being less than going through a transfer partner, then the Chase travel portal is a perfect option.
If you have the Chase Sapphire Reserve card, each Ultimate Rewards point is worth 1.5 cents when booking through the portal. If you have a Chase Sapphire Preferred card or Ink Business Preferred card, each point is worth 1.25 cents when booking with the Chase travel portal.
Similar to the transfer process, you simply select Travel under the Earn / Use Points drop-down menu.
Check out an example of a travel portal booking below:
Image Credit: Chase
This round-trip economy class booking with Star Alliance airline United from San Francisco (SFO) to Honolulu (HNL) costs as few as 7,900 Ultimate Rewards points.
Should You Transfer to a Partner or Book Through Chase?
Let’s think about the booking discussed above. If you were to book this same itinerary by transferring the points to Chase partner United Airlines, it would cost 12,500 miles. In this case, booking through the portal would be a much better deal.
Bottom Line: To ensure you get the most out of your points, it’s important to check both the portal and transfer options when searching for flights.
Other Ways To Use Your Points
The Chase travel portal allows you to book hotels at the same 1.5 cents per point for cardholders of the Chase Sapphire Reserve card or 1.25 cents per point with the Chase Sapphire Preferred card or Ink Business Preferred card.
You can also redeem your points for gift cards to merchants including Airbnb, Lowe’s, Home Depot, and Amazon. Additionally, you can redeem your points for statement credits. Unfortunately, these options are a very poor use of points in terms of value, and we do not recommend them!
Combining Ultimate Rewards From Different Accounts
Combining Ultimate Rewards from your different Chase accounts is a simple process. In the menu bar, you will see the points you have earned on your selected card. If you hover over the points available, you will see a drop-down menu of your cards and the available points from each.
Select Combine Points to consolidate your points under a single card. If you have the Chase Sapphire Reserve card, keep your Ultimate Rewards points there since they’ll be worth a minimum of 1.5 cents each.
Hot Tip: You can also combine points with 1 other household member. This is a great way to pool points with your significant other for a great redemption.
Redeeming Ultimate Rewards
Using your Ultimate Rewards points for travel is the best way to get the most value out of them. With multiple transfer partners and countless ways to redeem points for travel, it can be overwhelming!
We’ve compiled multiple lists of the best ways to use your Chase Ultimate Rewards for some incredible travel experiences. See below:
Final Thoughts
The Chase Ultimate Rewards program should be a staple in your points-earning strategy. If you are just starting your miles and points journey, we recommend earning Ultimate Rewards initially. Check out our Beginner’s Guide to get started on the right track.
Chase Ultimate Rewards points are easy to earn, easy to redeem, and can get you excellent value when you use them properly. Before you know it, you’ll be taking a trip of a lifetime … and then doing it again!
