How You Can Save on Domestic Flights With 75,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards Points

Both the Chase Sapphire Reserve^® and the Chase Sapphire Preferred^® Card are fantastic travel rewards cards. If you have 75,000 Ultimate Rewards points in your stash, they can take you just about anywhere you want to go on your next vacation, thanks to the excellent list of Chase transfer partners.

In this guide, we will break down some of the best ways to use your Chase Ultimate Rewards points to score big value on domestic flights using the Chase transfer partners. While some redemptions are straightforward, others require knowing where to look.

But rest assured, at the end of this guide, you’ll be ready to book flights like a pro in no time.

Chase Transfer Partners and Airline Alliances

Before we dive in, a quick note on how to use the Chase transfer partners on the Chase Sapphire Reserve card and the Chase Sapphire Preferred card to your advantage.

When looking at the list of partners, you might think that the only 3 domestic flight partners are JetBlue, United, and Southwest — and you’d be right.

However, it is possible to book flights on most of the major U.S. carriers, including American, Alaska, and Delta, by redeeming your Chase Ultimate Rewards points.

This is done by making use of frequent flyer programs that share a major alliance, including Oneworld, SkyTeam, and Star Alliance.

These alliances function as a group airline partnership, which allows you to use points or miles to book flights on its partner. Therefore, when we refer to using miles from one program to book a flight with an entirely different airline, it is because those 2 airlines are alliance partners.

Booking American Airlines and Alaska Airlines Flights Through British Airways

American Airlines, Alaska Airlines, and British Airways are all part of Oneworld. But while American and Alaska use dynamic pricing for their flights, tying the number of points needed for a flight to the cash price of the ticket, British Airways uses an award chart.

This is great for award travelers because the number of points needed for a specific route is always the same regardless of how expensive the cash ticket is. This is useful because it allows you to book short-haul tickets that might otherwise be expensive in cash for a relatively low number of points.

Here is a look at the number of British Airways Avios you’ll need to book an economy or business class flight on American or Alaska based on the flight distance.

Here are some example flights you could book at each distance band:

• Boston (BOS) to Washington D.C. (DCA) for 8,250 Avios
• Philadelphia (PHL) to Miami (MIA) for 11,000 Avios
• Chicago (ORD) to Las Vegas (LAS) for 14,500 Avios
• New York (JFK) to Los Angeles (LAX) for 16,000 Avios

Booking Delta Air Lines Flights Through Virgin Atlantic

Similarly, instead of paying dynamic pricing on tickets directly through Delta, you can book these same flights through the Virgin Atlantic program, as both are SkyTeam partners.

This pricing allows you to book short flights like Los Angeles to San Francisco for as low as 7,500 points and longer flights like Boston to Seattle for just 22,000 points.

Booking United Airlines Flights Through Air Canada Aeroplan

You can book flights on United using the same process as the previous examples through their Star Alliance partner, Air Canada. Here is a look at what the Air Canada partner chart looks like for flights within North America.

Booking JetBlue and Southwest Flights

Booking flights through JetBlue and Southwest are unlike any of the previous examples. This is because both are fixed redemption award programs, where the number of points you’ll need to book your award ticket is tied to the cash cost of the ticket.

With JetBlue, you’ll usually receive somewhere between 1.3 to 1.4 cents per point for economy flights, and 1.1 cents per point for JetBlue Mint flights. With Southwest, you’ll usually receive between 1.2 to 1.4 cents per point on your redemptions.

These redemption rates can be underwhelming compared to other options, but there are still instances where you can use both programs to get great value.

For instance, cardholders of The JetBlue Plus Card or The JetBlue Business Card get 10% of all of their redeemed JetBlue points credited back to them. This effectively increases your redemption rate on JetBlue economy tickets to 1.4 to 1.55 cents per point.

Similarly, those who use the Southwest Companion Pass receive buy-one-get-one tickets on Southwest flights, including award tickets. This means that any time your companion travels with you, you effectively double your redemption rate, giving you 2.4 to 3 cents per point in value.

Booking Flights Through Chase Travel

While not the highest value option, the easiest and most flexible option is using your points directly through Chase Travel.

When you use your points this way, you can book any flight you’d like on any carrier without needing to worry about award space.

Better yet, the issuer gives Chase Sapphire Preferred card holders a 25% bonus and Chase Sapphire Reserve card holders a 50% bonus when redeeming points this way, making each point worth 1.25 cents and 1.5 cents, respectively.

Additionally, you aren’t just limited to booking flights through Chase Travel. You can also book hotels, rental cars, cruises, and essentially any other travel-related purchase you can think of.

Final Thoughts

There are no shortage of great options when it comes to redeeming Chase Ultimate Rewards points. 75,000 points is a decent amount that can help you book hotels, flights, and more for excellent value.