How To Turn 100K Chase Sapphire Preferred Points Into a 2026 FIFA World Cup Trip

The 2026 FIFA World Cup is in full swing, and for soccer fans, it’s a rare bucket-list event that you plan years in advance to attend.

Whether you’re hoping to see Lionel Messi lead Argentina in Dallas, watch Cristiano Ronaldo and Portugal take the field in Miami, cheer on Team USA in Seattle, or attend the World Cup final on July 19 in New Jersey, one of your first questions is how you’re going to get there.

Earning 100,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points from the new elevated welcome offer on the Chase Sapphire Preferred^® Card‘s can provide you with a big head start. While 100,000 points probably won’t cover every expense associated with a World Cup trip, it can still help significantly with flights, hotels, or both if used strategically.

Here’s how you can turn those points into a trip to the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

Why the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card Makes Sense for World Cup Travel

The Chase Sapphire Preferred card is one of the most popular midtier travel rewards cards on the market, and it’s easy to see why. Right now, it’s featuring its all-time best 100,000-point welcome offer:

• Earn 75,000 100,000 points after spending $5,000 on purchases in the first 3 months.

The card has a reasonable $95 annual fee, valuable travel protections, strong bonus categories, and access to Chase Ultimate Rewards — one of the most flexible points currencies available. But the real power of the card comes from its transfer partners.

You can transfer Ultimate Rewards points to programs including World of Hyatt, United MileagePlus, Southwest Rapid Rewards, Air Canada Aeroplan, Virgin Atlantic Flying Club, Marriott Bonvoy, and IHG One Rewards. That flexibility matters during an event like the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

Let’s say you plan to attend Portugal vs. Colombia in Miami. If flights are expensive but Hyatt hotels still have award availability, you may decide to use most of your points for lodging. On the other hand, if you’re heading to Seattle to watch Team USA play Australia and find excellent award space through United or Aeroplan, it may make more sense to use points for flights.

If you’re able to meet the minimum spending requirements quickly, having access to 100,000 Ultimate Rewards points may be exactly what you need to book last-minute travel to the World Cup. The ability to pivot between airlines and hotels makes Chase points especially valuable as demand and prices fluctuate throughout the tournament — here are some tips to maximize your rewards.

1. Start With the Match You Want To Attend

Before transferring a single point, start with the match you’re planning to attend. Having a specific 2026 FIFA World Cup game in mind gives your points a purpose and helps you stay focused as you compare flights, hotels, and redemption options.

Maybe your goal is to follow Team USA through the group stage and beyond. Maybe you’re hoping to watch your favorite national team play in multiple cities across the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Or perhaps you’re less concerned about who’s playing and more interested in experiencing the atmosphere of a quarterfinal, semifinal, or even the final.

Once you’ve settled on a match — or a handful of matches — you can start building the trip around it. That’s when it’s time to look at flights.

2. Use Seats.aero To Search for Award Flights

Once you’ve decided which match you want to attend, it’s time to figure out how you’re getting there.

One of my favorite tools for this is Seats.aero, which lets you quickly search for award availability across multiple airline loyalty programs. For 2026 FIFA World Cup travel, that’s especially helpful.

Let’s say you want to see the United States play Türkiye in Los Angeles on June 25. In that case, you could search from your home airport to Los Angeles (LAX), while also checking nearby airports like Orange County (SNA), Burbank (BUR), Ontario (ONT), Long Beach (LGB), or even San Diego (SAN) if you’re willing to drive.

From there, Seats.aero lets you filter by transferable points program, so you can select Chase Ultimate Rewards and focus on airline partners that work with your points. In this example, you could find award flights arriving the day before the match for as little as 8,200 points or roughly 16,400 points round-trip.

That means a 100,000-point Chase Ultimate Rewards balance could potentially cover airfare for multiple people, several 2026 FIFA World Cup trips, or leave you with more than 80,000 points to put toward hotels.

Maybe your dream is attending the 2026 FIFA World Cup Final on July 19 in New Jersey. Using Seats.aero, you can search flights from your home airport to the New York City metropolitan area, including Newark (EWR), New York (JFK), or New York (LGA), and quickly compare award options across Chase transfer partners.

In my search, I found flights into the New York area starting as low as 5,000 points each way, arriving a day or 2 before the final, leaving plenty of a 100,000-point balance available for hotels and other 2026 FIFA World Cup expenses.

3. Don’t Ignore the Chase Travel Portal

Chase’s transfer partners usually get the most attention, and for good reason. They can provide excellent value. However, the Chase Travel portal shouldn’t be overlooked.

Let’s say you’re planning to attend a match and cash fares are relatively inexpensive from your home airport to the host city where the match is being played. In that scenario, booking through Chase Travel could make more sense than transferring points to an airline partner, especially if the itinerary qualifies for Chase’s Points Boost feature.

With Points Boost, Chase Sapphire Preferred cardholders can earn up to 1.5 cents per point on select hotels and flights, meaning some Chase Travel bookings may offer better value than a traditional award redemption.

For example, if you’re planning to attend England vs. Ghana in Boston on June 23, don’t automatically assume transferring points to an airline partner is your best option. In my search, I found a one-way JetBlue flight from Chicago (ORD) to Boston (BOS) for $153 using Points Boost.

At a redemption rate of up to 1.25 cents per point, that flight would cost a little more than 12,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points through Chase Travel. If award flights through transfer partners cost more than that, booking through Chase Travel could be the better value.

The best redemption isn’t always the one with the highest cents-per-point value. It’s the one that gets you to the 2026 FIFA World Cup while saving as many points as possible for the rest of your trip. Before transferring any points, compare both options. You may be surprised which one comes out ahead.

Hot Tip:

One of the most overlooked benefits of booking flights through Chase Travel is that airlines generally treat these reservations as paid tickets. That means you’ll typically earn redeemable miles and, depending on the airline, elite-qualifying miles or points just as you would if you purchased the ticket directly with cash. In other words, you can redeem Chase Ultimate Rewards points for your 2026 FIFA World Cup flight and still earn rewards toward your next trip.

4. Use Hyatt Points To Offset Sky-High World Cup Hotel Rates

After flights, hotels are likely to be your next biggest expense. And during the 2026 FIFA World Cup, they may cost more than your airfare. That’s where World of Hyatt comes in, arguably the most valuable Chase Ultimate Rewards transfer partner.

Major events like the 2026 FIFA World Cup often send hotel rates through the roof, but Hyatt’s award pricing remains relatively stable even as cash rates climb. That can create an opportunity to get more value when redeeming Chase Ultimate Rewards points.

Let’s say you’ve managed to secure tickets to Portugal vs. Colombia in Miami on June 27. With this expected to be the final World Cup tournament for the legendary Cristiano Ronaldo, it’s easy to see why the match is among the most anticipated of the group stage. Chase Ultimate Rewards points won’t help you secure a seat inside the stadium, but they can help offset one of the highest costs of the trip: your hotel.

I found more than a dozen Hyatt properties in the greater Miami area available for as little as 12,000 points per night.

That means you could spend a long World Cup weekend in Miami for just 24,000 Hyatt points and still have roughly 76,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points left over for flights, future hotel stays, or another World Cup match later in the tournament.

Hot Tip:

For new Chase Sapphire Preferred cardholders who opened their accounts on or after June 15, 2026, the transfer ratio to Hyatt 4:3, which means 24,000 points would require 32,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points. The transfer ratio is still 1:1 for Chase Sapphire Reserve^® and Sapphire Reserve for Business℠ cardholders.

5. Use MaxMyPoint To Track Hotel Award Availability

Award availability with hotel rooms can change constantly. Hotels release additional inventory, travelers cancel trips, and rooms that weren’t available yesterday can suddenly appear tomorrow.

That’s why I like using MaxMyPoint. Instead of checking Hyatt’s website multiple times a day, you can set alerts and get notified when award nights become available. It’s a particularly useful tool during a high-demand event like the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

During an event as popular as the 2026 FIFA World Cup, flexibility and patience can be just as valuable as the points themselves. Sometimes, the difference between paying cash and booking with points is being the first person notified when a room becomes available.

6. Decide Whether To Use Points for Flights or Hotels

There’s no single “best” way to use 100,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points for the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

Maybe you find an incredible flight redemption through a Chase transfer partner and use your points to get to the match. Or perhaps airfare is relatively affordable, and you decide to save your points for Hyatt hotel stays instead. In some cases, a mix of both may make the most sense.

That’s why I like thinking of the Chase Sapphire Preferred card’s 100,000-point welcome bonus as a 2026 FIFA World Cup travel budget rather than a single redemption. Depending on how you use them, those points could cover your flights, a hotel stay, or both.

The goal isn’t necessarily to maximize every last cent per point: It’s to reduce your out-of-pocket costs as much as possible and make a 2026 FIFA World Cup trip more affordable. With a little planning and some flexibility, 100,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points can go a surprisingly long way.

» Related: How This Hyatt Perk Saved Me Hundreds on a World Cup Hotel

Final Thoughts

The 2026 FIFA World Cup is shaping up to be one of the most expensive sporting events that many fans will attend. The good news? A 100,000-point Chase Sapphire Preferred card welcome bonus can go a surprisingly long way.

While your match ticket may be the biggest expense, those points can help cover flights, hotels, or both, making a 2026 FIFA World Cup trip much more affordable.