How I’m Using 75K Chase Points for a Winter Beach Getaway

While the lion’s share of the attention has been on the revamp of the Chase Sapphire Reserve^® and the introduction of the Sapphire Reserve for Business℠ Card, we shouldn’t overlook the venerable Chase Sapphire Preferred^® Card. It has a small update that is quite significant.

In the past, the card’s typical welcome bonus offer was for 60,000 bonus points after meeting minimum spend requirements. Now, that baseline has been increased to 75,000 bonus points, a significant bump for a card packed with earning potential, perks, and benefits, all for a very reasonable cost.

With just the points earned from achieving the minimum spending requirements, you can plan a fantastic trip. Today, I’ll show you the value of 75,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points for travel.

Chase Sapphire Preferred Card — Overview

Since its launch, the Chase Sapphire Preferred card has been a favorite among award travelers, and it’s easy to see why. It’s a great card to use every day, as it offers high earning potential, a valuable rewards program, travel protections, primary rental car insurance, practical everyday credits, and no foreign transaction fees — and it only charges a $95 annual fee.

Here’s a brief overview of what you’ll earn with the card, some of its perks, and other highlights:

• Earn 5x points on travel purchased through Chase Travel, Lyft purchases through September 30, 2027, and select Peloton purchases over $150 (through December 31, 2027)
• Earn 3x points on dining, select streaming services, and online grocery purchases (excluding Target, Walmart, and wholesale clubs)
• Earn 2x points on all other travel purchases
• Earn 1x points everywhere else

The card also has a unique 10% cardmember anniversary bonus, which earns you a 10% bonus on your total spend in the past cardmember year.

Even better, the Chase Sapphire Preferred card comes with some great extras, including a complimentary DoorDash DashPass subscription (activate by December 31, 2027), an annual $50 statement credit for hotels booked through Chase Travel, no-additional-fee authorized user cards, and more.

Chase Sapphire Preferred Card’s New 75K-Point Welcome Offer

Before now, 60,000 Ultimate Rewards points was the standard welcome bonus offer for the Chase Sapphire Preferred card upon meeting minimum spending requirements. However, the floor has been raised:

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

Based on our valuation of Chase Ultimate Rewards points at 2 cents apiece, the 75,000-point welcome offer translates to a value of $1,500 — but it’s often possible to get much more than that if you redeem your points right.

How To Redeem Ultimate Rewards Points

Ultimate Rewards points are some of the most powerful transferable points you can earn. Transferable means you’re not limited to using your points in a single program with an airline, hotel chain, cruise line, or car rental agency.

Instead, the Ultimate Rewards program has an impressive list of airline and hotel transfer partners to which you can transfer points and then redeem them through whichever program will give you the most value for each point. Remember that many programs offer transfer bonuses, allowing you to stretch your points even further!

Chase Ultimate Rewards has the following airline and hotel partners:

You can transfer Ultimate Rewards points to each of these partners at a 1:1 ratio, meaning your 75,000 Ultimate Rewards points can become 75,000 Virgin Atlantic Flying Club points or 75,000 World of Hyatt points, for example.

Let’s see how I’ll redeem 75,000 Ultimate Rewards points from the Chase Sapphire Preferred card for a much-needed beach vacation this winter.

Using 75K Chase Points To Book a Beach Vacation

I have enough experience with the Chase Ultimate Rewards program to have “go-to” programs for flights and hotels. For flights, I’ve used Air Canada, Air France-KLM, British Airways, United, and Virgin Atlantic plenty of times.

But for hotels, I’ve primarily stuck to World of Hyatt, thanks to the superior redemptions that program offers over the other available hotel partners.

Booking 2 Nights at a Beach Resort in Puerto Rico

I started my search with World of Hyatt because I knew that if I could find a suitable hotel with points, I could very likely “reverse engineer” flights to find something that worked within the hotel availability limits.

With this in mind, I started exploring Hyatt’s resort map tool. I zoomed in on the Caribbean region, knowing I wanted a resort on a hot and sunny island. As I passed over Puerto Rico, I paused. It’s been years since I’ve been to the island, and I love its culture, the people, the food, the stunning natural beauty, and so much more.

Even better, I knew I had a great World of Hyatt option for a resort: the Hyatt Regency Grand Reserve Puerto Rico. As a Category 5 World of Hyatt property, award nights are bookable for 17,000 points per night off-peak, 20,000 per night for standard nights, and 23,000 for peak nights.

Since I wanted a quick weekend in Puerto Rico, I was OK with a 2-night stay. This meant I was looking for off-peak availability at best, or standard at worst, to leave me with enough points to book a flight.

Sure enough, plenty of weekend nights were available at standard 20,000 points per night, which would eat up 40,000 of my Ultimate Rewards points, leaving me 35,000 points for a flight.

I confirmed the availability I wanted was there and then transferred the points. I logged back in to my World of Hyatt account, performed my search again, and booked 2 nights for a total of 40,000 World of Hyatt points, transferred instantly from Chase Ultimate Rewards.

Booking a Round-Trip Flight to Puerto Rico

Next, I had to find a flight. I used seats.aero, an award search tool, to help give me an idea of flight availability around the dates I had booked at the Hyatt Regency Grand Reserve Puerto Rico.

Much to my surprise, I saw great rates through JetBlue TrueBlue, a program I had never transferred to before this. With flights going for fewer than 15,000 points each way, I couldn’t overlook it.

Unlike American Express Membership Rewards points, which transfer at an inferior 1:0.8 ratio, Chase Ultimate Rewards points transfer to TrueBlue at a simplistic 1:1 ratio, allowing them to go further. The outbound leg cost me just 12,000 TrueBlue points:

The return was a bit more at 13,700 points. Even though the flights were in basic economy, I was OK with it, as I plan to pack incredibly light — I don’t need much more than a few T-shirts and a bathing suit, after all!

I repeated the process I had just completed with Hyatt: I confirmed the availability on JetBlue’s site, logged out of my TrueBlue account, transferred 26,000 Ultimate Rewards points (transfers must be in increments of 1,000 points), logged back into my TrueBlue account, and confirmed the flight!

Final Thoughts

Earning the welcome bonus on the Chase Sapphire Preferred card provides you with more than enough points to book an incredible trip. If you take the time to learn about the intricacies of the Ultimate Rewards program and the best ways to maximize your points, you can book trips such as these for little to no money out of pocket.