Efficiently redeeming chase ultimate rewards (chase sapphire reserve)

[frugalnacho]

Me and my wife just recently each got the chase sapphire reserve card.  We are going to easily meet the spending requirements and then some.  We should have $1200 worth of travel credit between the two cards ($300/ea card for 2016, and $300/ea for 2017), plus about $3,500 worth of travel by redeeming points.  We also will have about 190k points on my IHG hotel account that we can utilize.  We are planning to cancel the cards before the next annual fee of $450 is due.

I created another thread here for a different purpose and got some good information: http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/ask-a-mustachian/multiple-credit-cards-from-same-company/

I would like to take a vacation some time in 2017.  We are anticipating to be pregnant, so much of the tropical world is going to be out because of the zika virus.  Right now we are tossing around the idea of maybe going to hawaii, or maybe taking an alaskan cruise, but definitely aren't married to either idea.  A bonus to the alaskan cruise would be staying with some friends for free in seattle either before or after the cruise, and doing some stuff around that area.

We don't plan on doing any traveling before the end of this year, but I would still like to utilize the $300 annual credit for each card before our december statement of this year.  As was brought up in the other thread, and I've confirmed a few other places since, I can purchase an airline gift card which will then be immediately reimbursed to utilize those credits.  This will leave us with $600 worth of airline gift cards to use at a future date. 

I checked the chase ultimate rewards website for cruises, but it looks like very limited options (also all the cruise dates are nearly 2 years old).  No details are given other than you have to call and talk to someone rather than booking it online.  I hate talking to people on the phone, and I especially hate talking to someone in a situation like this.  I would much rather be able to look at all available options and shuffle it around to see what is the most efficient use of our points/dollars.  Does anyone have any experience redeeming their rewards for a cruise?  If I'm unable to redeem rewards for a cruise and end up having to pay out of pocket I feel like it's going to ruin the entire plan (ie it's going to cost us a bunch of money, and leave several thousand of rewards unredeemed).

The redemption for flights and rental cars seems much more straight forward and I can change destinations and dates to figure out what makes the most sense.  However I feel like I'm going to be committed to a single airline (the airline I purchase $600 in gift cards to this month - unless someone has a better option to utilize our 2016 credit without actually doing any traveling). 

We are definitely open to other suggestions on how to utilize/redeem the rewards for a different vacation as well. 

My main concerns right now are:

utilizing the $600 in travel credit for the 2016 year in the next 3 weeks without any actual traveling,
staying away from the zika virus at our destination next year,
minimizing actual cash spent and maximizing rewards redeemed.  Since we plan on eventually canceling our reserve cards before Oct 2017 we will also lose the 1.5X redemption bonus and transfer the points to the preferred card where we will only get 1.25x redemption on travel.  Not quite use-it-or-lose it, but our value will definitely decrease after that.

[fuzzy math]

Cruise ships will not let women travel past 25 weeks pregnant. Keep that in mind when planning. Alaska cruise season starts in May. Your timelines could work against each other.
Also I've cruised 3x and gotten the Norwalk virus 2x of those trips. Not a fun thing to encounter when pregnant.

[Slee_stack]

I've received credits on Rail Passes and Hotel stays thus far.  Do you use public transit?   Buy a pass or card.  Use Uber?  Set your CC as default on your app.


I've gotten most of our value out of UR points by booking hotels directly thru the UR portal (50% bonus on your UR dollars w/ Reserve). 

I tend to use airline miles for flights....almost always a better deal.

I have not tried cruises, but we have booked a couple 'activities' w/ UR points.  It was hard to find great deals though...I could often find better deals booking the activity elsewhere.

[Rubic]

I don't have anything to add to your specific circumstances, but I'd recommend
the following reddit sub:

https://www.reddit.com/r/awardtravel/

Be sure read the sticky "Award Tickets 101: How To Find The Best Redemption"
link before posting, or you'll be downvoted to Hades.

[frugalnacho]

Cruise ships will not let women travel past 25 weeks pregnant. Keep that in mind when planning. Alaska cruise season starts in May. Your timelines could work against each other.
Also I've cruised 3x and gotten the Norwalk virus 2x of those trips. Not a fun thing to encounter when pregnant.

Yes we are planning to hit it during the 2nd trimester, so in the 12-24 week time frame.

I've received credits on Rail Passes and Hotel stays thus far.  Do you use public transit?   Buy a pass or card.  Use Uber?  Set your CC as default on your app.


I've gotten most of our value out of UR points by booking hotels directly thru the UR portal (50% bonus on your UR dollars w/ Reserve). 

I tend to use airline miles for flights....almost always a better deal.

I have not tried cruises, but we have booked a couple 'activities' w/ UR points.  It was hard to find great deals though...I could often find better deals booking the activity elsewhere.

Live in suburbs of detroit, never use public transit.  Never use uber either.

I don't have anything to add to your specific circumstances, but I'd recommend
the following reddit sub:

https://www.reddit.com/r/awardtravel/

Be sure read the sticky "Award Tickets 101: How To Find The Best Redemption"
link before posting, or you'll be downvoted to Hades.

Thanks, will check it out.  I also found this thread: http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/welcome-to-the-forum/chase-sapphire-reserve-100-000-points-signup-bonus/

after I created this one.  I am only about 7 pages into it thus far, but it has a lot of good information regarding the card.

[Catbert]

If you book a cruise with this cc you can use up your $300 credit to offset part of the deposit.

[frugalnacho]

If you book a cruise with this cc you can use up your $300 credit to offset part of the deposit.

But then I'm paying out of pocket (albeit $300 less than full price) for a cruise when I'm already short on cash (I just paid $900 for annual fees, and am planning to spend roughly $20,000 over the next few months).   Then I'm left with close to $3,500 in travel rewards when the only other thing I'll need is about $700 worth of flights.  Since I'm already spending so much I would like to utilize the rewards to pay for most (if not all) of the trip and minimize the amount of non-rewards I need to spend.

[Catbert]

I also hate talking on the phone.  But in this case I think you need to call UR travel folks and ask a couple of basic cruise questions:  what cruise lines can you book using points?   Is it all cruises on those lines or just some?  Is the list of available cruises somewhere on-line?

If it helps, when I talked to the UR travel folks they sounded US based.     

[frugalnacho]

I also hate talking on the phone.  But in this case I think you need to call UR travel folks and ask a couple of basic cruise questions:  what cruise lines can you book using points?   Is it all cruises on those lines or just some?  Is the list of available cruises somewhere on-line?

If it helps, when I talked to the UR travel folks they sounded US based.     

Yea I will just have to bite the bullet and call them.  I don't want to call them up with no points on my account though, so I'll wait until they post.  I've already made the purchases needed, so we should have around 210,000 points on our cards by our next statement.

[frugalnacho]

Just an update, I purchased $300 worth of delta egift cards and was reimbursed for my 2016 annual travel credit.  Did the same on my wife's account.  Now we have $600 worth of non expiring gift cards towards delta in the future.  Will hopefully be using our 210k points (and our annual 2017 travel credits worth $600) for our vacation next year, and saving the egift cards for some unplanned vacation in the future.

[arebelspy]

For anyone else looking for the same thing: AirBnB gift cards can be good, too.  They don't work on long term stays (where you get the monthly discount, 27+ nights), but if you're planning a week to three week stays, they're awesome, and eligible for Chase Sapphire's travel credit.

[erutio]

Are you able to combine Chase Sapphire Reserve points from two different accounts for one travel purchased?

[arebelspy]

Are you able to combine Chase Sapphire Reserve points from two different accounts for one travel purchased?

Depends on the connection between the accounts, but, for example, you can transfer points between spouses.

[Rubic]

For anyone else looking for the same thing: AirBnB gift cards can be good, too.  They don't work on long term stays (where you get the monthly discount, 27+ nights), but if you're planning a week to three week stays, they're awesome, and eligible for Chase Sapphire's travel credit.

I wasn't aware AirBnB gift cards didn't work on long-term stays.  Good
to know because I was about to redeem some Barclay Arrival+ points.

For short term stays, does it matter what denominations you purchase
them in?  (i.e. one $500 gift card vs. 5 $100 gift cards)  Does the excess
gift amount carry over to your next stay?

[arebelspy]

For short term stays, does it matter what denominations you purchase
them in?  (i.e. one $500 gift card vs. 5 $100 gift cards)  Does the excess
gift amount carry over to your next stay?

Nope, yep.  It all gets credited to a gift card balance basically, that debits down when you pay for stays.

[frugalnacho]

Are you able to combine Chase Sapphire Reserve points from two different accounts for one travel purchased?

Depends on the connection between the accounts, but, for example, you can transfer points between spouses.

You can transfer chase points from any account you own to any other account you own.  You can transfer points from the CSR to another CSR in the same household, it doesn't need to be a spouse.

[shuffler]

For anyone else looking for the same thing: AirBnB gift cards can be good, too.

Didn't work for me.
        "You cannot claim gift credit that you purchased."

... does the gift "card" need to be purchased through a shill account or something?

[arebelspy]

Huh, I couldn't tell you.  Mine automatically credited me as travel credit.  Weird.

[fh2000]

I also just received Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card.

Reading the card holder benefits, I see that if you book a cruise with this card,  there are:
Trip cancellation, Trip Delay reimbursement, Emergency Evacuation that interest me.  If you book the same cruise using the points, I would assume that those card holder benefits would not apply.

Anyone has experience in this area?