Comments

1. Thanks for the article. I’d actually argue that Chase UR points are “better” than Amex due to the fact that you can churn (relatively) every 24 months (or 48 for Chase Sapphire cards). Whereas Amex has the “lifetime” (or 7 years if one must).

   But YMMV as it depends on what you’re accumulating the points for (which airline, hotel, etc.)

2. Thanks for this thoughtful analysis of a complex topic. To some extent, it’s a YMMV type of thing. Despite Amex having the most airline transfer partners and other advantages, I like Citi most because Hyatt is a transfer partner. I like Citi least because its points are card-specific: Cancel a Citi card and you’re in a “use it or lose it” position regarding its points.

3. Hyatt is not a Citi transfer option

4. Oops! Thanks for the correction, QP. I meant to write that I like CHASE best because Hyatt is a transfer partner.

5. Gary, providing info like this based on your analysis is your forte and reason enough to be a religious View from the Wing subscriber/reader. Just the table would be valuable, not even considering your commentary that goes into more nuanced considerations. Thanks very much for helping all your readers in this way.

6. Gary, this is an excellent overview and I’m certain that readers appreciate it.

   There is something to be said about simplicity . . . and the domestic harmony that stems from that simplicity. (Now, which card do I use for this purchase?)

   Along the same line, as you were suggesting, one must ask whether the incremental value of a given strategy 1) moves the needle enough or 2) is worth the extra effort.

7. One nice partnership AmEx has with Rakuten where if you have any AmEx card that earns unrestricted MR points, even a humble no annual fee Everyday card, you can set it up to get MR points instead of cash as a rebate, even if you use a different card to pay for that transaction. Combine that with occasional MR transfer bonuses and you can get a lot more out of the point option than a cash rebate from the site

8. AMEX is First – broad and frequent transfer bonuses which are really valuable.
   Chase is Second – easy to earn for small businesses and Hyatt as a transfer partner is wonderful.
   Citi is a Close Third – good program and some unique partners.
   Capital One – Recently this program has become valuable, but I already have three girlfriends and don’t know if I have the energy for a forth.
   Brex – less valuable than Capital One, and same issue.
   Bilt – Never heard on them.

9. Good analysis, and obviously depends on what your travel priorities are. Also where you live- if in a Delta hub, Amex points may be more valuable for you. In the DC area, with United and Southwest hubs, Chase might be more valuable.

10. Totally agree with Amex being the best. They are the easiest currency to use, give you a ton of opportunities to earn extra miles, transfer to ANA, and have consistent transfer bonuses to get outsized value. As someone else mentioned, Rakuten also gives thousands of extra Amex points each quarter (sometimes 10s of thousand for basically free). Nice article!

11. Actually after reading this I realized Citi and Cap One are best as all points are double.
    e.g., AF even with 25% bonus is only 62k per year with Amex business plus while Citi with double cash (or Cap One Venture) 2x is unlimited
    Rest of spend is 1x w Amex or 1.5x w Chase for everyday unbonused spend.

    So with an Amex Plat for benefits and a business Plus for 2x up to 50k
    A Chase SP for ability to transfer along with Ink cash for 5x and an unlimited for 1.5x
    A Citi Premier along with Double Cash
    and an additional Venture X – you can cover almost everything
    Total 8 cards – 4 with no fee covers almost all
    Upfront Cost Max 600+100+100+400 = max 1200 with benefits easily giving back 800 at once

12. The strategy stated at the end needs to have a caveat for the level of spend required to make all the separate annual fees worth it. As of right now I focus on Sapphire Reserve and a $95 /yr Amex Hilton card. Once travel picks back up (I can use a personal card for business expenses) I will reassess adding another high fee Amex but what’s the break even point on a $300-400 annual fee?

13. @ Gary. Consistency being a hobgoblin, the Venture X article seems to say that you applied & were instantly approved while this article says you plan to apply.

14. I was approved instantly!

15. The only hotel program with (sic) transferring to is Hyatt, and that’s a win for Chase and for Bilt. The problem is that each hotel point in other programs is too low value to make the transfer ratios make sense. Neither Hilton, IHG, nor Marriott points are worth even $0.006 apiece in my view, so even at 1:2 you’re getting at best about 1.2 cents per credit card point after transferring.

    The relative “values” of points currencies, by which their relative “worth” is incorrectly implied, have absolutely nothing to do with why transferring UR points to Hyatt points 1:1 is more favorable than transferring UR points 1:1 to HH, IHG or BonVoy points. Rather, it is because, arbitrarily, Hyatt’s points scale goes only up to 45K, while the points scales of the other programs go up to 2x or 3x higher values, precisely to discourage members from earning points (e.g., UR) elsewhere and redeeming them for free stays at the expense of the chains’ own points and bottom line!

    I already debunked the claim before in this space, which in that incarnation was that:

    A single Hyatt point is the most valuable major hotel currency. It doesn’t take nearly as many points to book a top Hyatt property as it does to book a Hilton for instance. The most expensive Hyatt standard room is 35,000 points (leaving aside partner hotels and timeshares), compared to 95,000 at Hilton and 100,000 at Marriott.

    However, trying to access that thread leads to “Oops! That page can’t be found, which means that after having been rinsed clean, the bogus claim is simply being recycled. So, let me try another, shorter proof that again shows the claim to be pure nonsense.

    Reductio ad absurdum:
    Transferring 45K UR points 1:1 to Hyatt points would allow one to book an award night at Hyatt’s very best (category 8) hotels. Transferring 45K UR points 1:1 to Hilton would allow one book an award night at a mediocre Hampton Inn by Hilton in China, at best. By the same logic as in the quoted claim(s), it means a top-category Hyatt hotel is equivalent to a mediocre Hampton Inn by Hilton in China. Right? Conversely, doesn’t that imply that very top Hilton hotels that would require transferring 120K-150K UR points 1:1 to Hilton points to afford are much more “valuable” than very top Hyatt hotels? If not, then why not? After all, the very same number of UR points that cost exactly the same in hard currency to acquire were transferred to the two points currencies of the two programs…

    Inquiring minds wanna know!

16. Cleaner…

    I already debunked the claim before in this space, which in that incarnation was that:

    A single Hyatt point is the most valuable major hotel currency. It doesn’t take nearly as many points to book a top Hyatt property as it does to book a Hilton for instance. The most expensive Hyatt standard room is 35,000 points (leaving aside partner hotels and timeshares), compared to 95,000 at Hilton and 100,000 at Marriott.

    However, trying to access that thread leads to “Oops! That page can’t be found, which means that after having been rinsed clean, the bogus claim is simply being recycled. So, let me try another, shorter proof that again shows the claim to be pure nonsense.

    Reductio ad absurdum:
    Transferring 45K UR points 1:1 to Hyatt points would allow one to book an award night at Hyatt’s very best (category 8) hotels. Transferring 45K UR points 1:1 to Hilton would allow one book an award night at a mediocre Hampton Inn by Hilton in China, at best. By the same logic as in the quoted claim(s), it means a top-category Hyatt hotel is equivalent to a mediocre Hampton Inn by Hilton in China. Right? Conversely, doesn’t that imply that very top Hilton hotels that would require transferring 120K-150K UR points 1:1 to Hilton points to afford are much more “valuable” than very top Hyatt hotels? If not, then why not? After all, the very same number of UR points that cost exactly the same in hard currency to acquire were transferred to the two points currencies of the two programs…

    Inquiring minds wanna know!

17. DCS, I think the discussion of points value is significantly larger than what any blog has ever discussed.

    Blogs will talk about destination X and soon enough destination X becomes overrun and a place no one would want to visit. Blogs will talk about a points opportunity / strategy and soon enough the points opportunity / strategy gets shut down.

    Along this line, a commenter to one of the blogs said that the truly adept points masters will keep quiet about their strategies as they don’t want them shut down. I think the adept points masters are talking quantum mechanics while we in the blogs are talking about Newtonian physics . . . and enthralled by orthodoxy. Quid tibi vis dicam. Quid tibit vis facem.

    I think that beyond simply booking a hotel award stay, there’s *how* the award stay is booked. And, I think *how* leads to redemption values that are meaningfully greater than the numbers discussed in any blog article. But, the adept points masters aren’t going to share *how*. If they share, it gets shut down and no one benefits. I understand and respect what this commenter said — it’s Darwinian.

    So, when I see any discussion about points value, I sense the participants are missing something.

    Peer through the looking glass Neo.

18. PS

    In defense of Gary relative values, his lead-in says, ” . . . the thinking process can help you figure out which program is the right one for you.” This is consistent with the quantum mechanics analogy in my prior comment — the position of the electron (value of points) is completely dependent on the observer.

    Separately, consider that you’re staying at a hotel outside the U.S. You can use an Amex, Bilt, Capital One, Chase, Citi, or other credit card to pay for the stay. You have them all. For the purpose of this discussion, let’s level the playing field and say that 1) all cards earn the same number of bank points, 2) all cards have the same transfer partners (assume the same value), and 3) none have foreign transaction fees. Which issuer would you use? On the surface, everything is equal. But, it’s not. It matters which card you use. So, which would you use and why?

19. I think that beyond simply booking a hotel award stay, there’s *how* the award stay is booked. And, I think *how* leads to redemption values that are meaningfully greater than the numbers discussed in any blog article. But, the adept points masters aren’t going to share *how*. If they share, it gets shut down and no one benefits. I understand and respect what this commenter said — it’s Darwinian.
    So, when I see any discussion about points value, I sense the participants are missing something.

    — Joe Reno

    @Joe Reno – Most of what you stated is irrelevant to my beef with what objected to, except what quoted above, which I partially agree with, especially the bolded part.

    Discussion “participants”, including self-anointed “travel gurus” who ought to know better, simply misunderstand points currencies at the basic concept level. You sort of alluded to it, but much of the misunderstanding or confusion arises from the fact that virtually everyone lumps together two distinct concepts, which I will elaborate on in my in-preparation magnum opus on the ‘demystification’ of hotel loyalty points currencies, of which I will just give glimpse below. The short of it is that the usual caveat about how everyone values points differently stems from lumping together the following two concepts:

    1. There are nominal values of points currencies (i.e., the “face” value of each points currency denomination), which are fixed, can be calculated analytically and are, thus, objective. These are the values of points currencies that bloggers publish and can be arrived at by making hundreds of dummy bookings and then calculating the values of points as the average of (nightly revenue room rate divided by the number of points required for an award night in the same room) over all dummy bookings. The two methods (analytical calculations and average of hundreds of dummy bookings) yield identical results, if done just right, and what they show is that all major hotel points currencies are worth exactly the same, despite having different nominal values.

    2. Then there are redemption values of points currencies, which are not fixed because they do not exist until points have been redeemed through a highly subjective process that depends on *how* and for what each individual redeems their points (this is what you alluded to).

    If one gets 180K HH points as a signup bonus for the HH AMEX Surpass card, then one can say that the nominal cash value of those bonus points is (valuing a HH point ‘nominally’ at 0.5cpp):

    180,000 HH point * $0.005/HH point = $900.

    On the other hand, there are many highly subjective ways that those 180,000 HH points can be redeemed. Some people would dread flying across the world to redeem those points for an award stay on some Indian Ocean atoll with strange sounding name, but I would do such a redemption, I have done such a redemption, and I am doing such a redemption again in about a year. For that upcoming award stay on the far away atoll with strange name, I will be paying 120K HH points per night for a standard villa that would cost $1,829 per night, excluding taxes. Therefore, I can ‘estimate’ the nightly redemption value as

    $1,829/120,000 HH points = $0.015/HH point,

    i.e., 3x more than the nominal value of 0.005/HH point.

    Of course, my actual redemption value for what will be a 5-night award stay will be much higher because steep taxes and other fees are excluded from the total cash value above and I will get the 5th award night free.

    Thus, at least for me, the cash value of those 180K bonus HH points would be $1,820 and change, i.e., twice as much as bloggers would estimate based on their nominal or “face” values of hotel points currencies, which are actually not too bad, especially if averaged across bloggers.

    In short, one of the major sources of confusion about points currencies is that virtually everyone lumps together two distinct concepts: (a) nominal or “face” values of points currencies, which are fixed, can be calculated objectively and show that all points currencies are worth exactly the same; and (b) redemption values of points currencies, which do not exist until points are redeemed according to personal preferences and/or circumstances and are, therefore, highly subjective.

    G’day.

20. Separately, consider that you’re staying at a hotel outside the U.S. You can use an Amex, Bilt, Capital One, Chase, Citi, or other credit card to pay for the stay. You have them all. For the purpose of this discussion, let’s level the playing field and say that 1) all cards earn the same number of bank points, 2) all cards have the same transfer partners (assume the same value), and 3) none have foreign transaction fees. Which issuer would you use? On the surface, everything is equal. But, it’s not. It matters which card you use. So, which would you use and why?

    That is a softball. If the hotel outside the US is a Hilton property, I will use the incomparable HH AMEX Aspire card to earn HH points directly because it is the program that I patronize. If the hotel is not a Hilton property, I will use the Chase CSR to earn UR points that I can transfer to the two airline FF programs that I patronize, UA and SQ. I will never ever transfer bank points to hotel points (not even to Hyatt points) because it is a waste of highly transferable currencies, when, based on my choice of hotel loyalty program, I can easily earn hotel points with my co-branded hotel cards.

    You probably expected a different answer, but what I just stated is my real answer because that is exactly what my strategy is in practice.

    Which card would you use?

21. The point of the question was to uncover an aspect about issuers that affects the economic value garnered by the card holder (that is never discussed on blogs) as opposed to specific cards.

    I’ll step back behind the looking glass and let ponder those who thirst . . . if there be any.

    Good night and good luck.

22. I am not at all of the opinion that bloggers are hiding ‘trade secrets’ from their readers. They are simply not as knowledgeable about points currencies as they ought to be considering that it’s what they do for a living. Why attribute to malice what is simply due to limited knowledge?

    G’day.

23. I am not saying that the bloggers themselves are hiding anything. I agree that they’re not covering an issue or strategy because they don’t know about it. So, no malice.

    But, I am saying that there are non-blogger members of the community out there who have found / invented superior strategies and who are not sharing. And, I find no malice in these people not sharing.

    Imagine that airline X’s reservation system has a flaw. The flaw allows a person to book long-haul first class for the price of long-haul business class. Someone discovers the flaw. If that person spills the beans so everyone can benefit, airline X will learn of the flaw and fix it.

    Recall the PayPal debit card that would be linked to any credit card in one’s PayPal wallet? A person could make a “debit” transaction through Plastiq (or another service) and be charged for a “debit” transaction while earning points on the credit card linked to the PayPal debit card. The blogs picked it up and within a couple months it was shut down. The moral of the story is that if someone finds an exploitable flaw, tell no one. Otherwise, it’s gone.

24. @Reno Joe — I have no idea why you are focusing on exploiting programmatic flaws instead of focusing on exploiting official programmatic benefits by fully understand what is or is not offered and the associated T&C and then taking advantage of it. It’s called playing the game with a “full deck.”

    My general feeling is that (a) there are not that many ‘flaws’ out there just waiting to be exploited and (b) those that are discovered are generally fixed so promptly that they benefit very few.

    Hunting or waiting for ‘flaws’ that can be exploited is no way to play miles/points game…

25. I appreciate Gary’s post and the discussion here. But isn’t so much of this subjective?

    For example, I just splurged on a couple of Hyatt and Hilton redemptions, going for a premium suite at the former and a boutique hotel’s best suite at the latter. I used far more points than regular rooms at those hotels would have required. Plus I transferred some Chase points to Hyatt to make the former happen. And I did this despite the possibility of my top status at both hotels might have gotten my wife and me upgraded.

    Still, for our circumstances it made sense to me. These are both special trips (for my wife’s birthday and for our first overseas trip – knock on wood – since Covid started). Plus, we’re not young, and we’re not getting any younger. And we still have health airline, hotel and credit card points balances in our accounts.

    Someone with a different outlook, points balance, age or whatever could justifiably view what I chose more negatively. Which is why I get back to YMMV.

26. @Steve – One aspect of it, like your recent ‘splurging’, is subjective, i.e., YMMV. Another aspect of it, which include bloggers’ valuations of points currencies, is not at all subjective and is the one that also universally misunderstood and misused, as everyone lumps together the two distinct aspects, as I described up-thread in DCS says: March 1, 2022 at 9:38 pm.

27. @DCS Ok. I see the distinction you’re making. Thanks.

28. Why would anyone put their rent on a Bilt card at 1X, when all of the other currencies have cards that would earn at least 1.5X for everyday purchases that would also cover rent? If the landlord takes Mastercard already, there’s no point.

    The only Bilt scenario that doesn’t apply to cards is paying via their alliance. There’s no opportunity cost in that case, as there’s no card-based alternative other than Plastiq which isn’t a great alternative at current prices.

29. Why are these posts with debunked content suddenly being recycled? None of the debunked claims will become true just because they are repeatedly recycled, y’know…

    G’day.

30. A question for the update of this post. In your “hotel Transfers” section, you don’t even mention that Citi Thank You points 1 for 2 transfer to Choice. Using your own value for choice points, that would give you a value of 1.2 cents per thank you point, not far off from the 1.4 cent Hyatt point value for ultimate rewards. Do you still consider this a nonstarter for hotel point transfers?
    I point this out as I find that Choice also has a very wide range of value when redeeming their points, wider than most hotel points. I am looking at a redemption this summer that is looking like about 1.75 cents per point, so 3.5 cents per thank you point. While choice points often only bring a value in the half cent range, there also seems to be quite a number of situations where values can be multiples of this value. Not great if you are getting choice points directly and might have to hold onto them for quite a while to get the value, but if you come across a situation like this, it makes thank you points quite valuable and with other options, you can hold thank you points for as long or as short as you need.

31. Gary
    I am glad you recycle these posts to let new people know – but don’t you want to update the real important info?
    e.g.,
    Qatar is moving to Avios and may no longer be a Citi exclusive.

32. One big consideration with Citibank, IMHO, is their (negatively) one-of-a-kind point expiration or forfeiture policies.

    Most obnoxiously: if you cancel a card (or if they cancel your card), you have to use or lose those points within 30 days. Can’t transfer them to another Citicard, even one that earns ThankYou points.

    What’s even MORE obnoxious is that this forfeiture is silent. It’ll be noted in the yadda yadda of an account closure, but you won’t see these points listed as pending forfeiture in their online tool, despite it claiming to show “expiring points.”

    This is in stark contrast with Amex and Chase, where — as long as you have ONE of their cards (even a no-annual-fee one!) that earns their points — you can transfer any/all your points there before or right after you close one of their other cards… and those points WON’T expire!

    Ask me how I know