Earning Chase Ultimate Rewards: My Game Plan For 2020 & 2021
My Chase Ultimate Rewards stash has gone up in smoke! Well, maybe not smoke. Maybe you could say they are now dolla dolla bills ya’ll. However you want to look at it there is no doubt that I have burned my Ultimate Rewards points empire down to the ground. It got to the point that there was nothing left but rubble. It was once a proud empire that took me years to build, and only weeks to liquidate. The climb up is always laborsome, tough and long, but the ride down seems so swift and easy. I have had my fun and now it is time for the rebuild. Here is my plan for earning Chase Ultimate Rewards points for the rest of 2020 and beyond.
What I Have Redeemed & What Is Left
Before we get into rebuild mode I should discuss what I have redeemed and why I did it. I cashed in a little over 300,000 Ultimate Rewards points using Chase’s Pay Yourself Back feature. This was done before the original end date of September 30th. Luckily, the program has since been extended like we had predicted it would.
Cashing out the points brought me a little more than $5,000. I used a chunk of that to purchase some things we needed for the cottage we were purchasing. I stashed away what was left over and am saving it for any discounted cash travel I have, or for expenses while I am traveling. It may also come in handy for my monthly college savings goal.
After cashing in most of my nest egg of Ultimate Rewards points I was left with 33,000 points in my account, and a pit in my stomach. I was back to a level I had not seen for 3 years after booking some bigger trips 😢.
Earning Chase Ultimate Rewards: How I Plan To Rebuild 2020
I have been meaning to write this article for several weeks now but it kept getting pushed to the side. So some of this stuff has already been done but I will run through my thinking. This will focus on the rest of 2020 and then into 2021 as well. I will talk about my long term goals in the final thoughts section.
Chase Freedom Flex? Not So Fast
There was some big news that came out a few weeks ago about the new Chase Freedom Flex offer. This card seems too good to be true. If it was from Amex I would swear it was a trap. With it being from Chase I don’t have those worries and this will be a key component to my rebuild. I had already planned on getting my wife a Freedom Unlimited card with the 5X grocery offer. That would net me 80,000 Ultimate Rewards points when it is all said and done.
With the rollout of the Freedom Flex I had to pivot my game plan, yet once again. The Flex is an insane card with insane value but I decided to have my wife jump on the Chase Freedom card instead, before it went away.
Chase Freedom Instead Of Flex
There were a few different reasons I went with the traditional Freedom, the main one being it was going away. The secondary reason was that she will drop back under Chase 5/24 in February of 2021. That means I could still grab her a Freedom Flex at that point, assuming the offer is still as lucrative.
This was a chance to get my cake and eat it too with minimal downside. The downside being a less rewarding earning structure on the Freedom vs the Flex.
Another little perk I came away with was that I was able to register the Freedom card in time for the end of the 3rd quarter. I made it by the hair on my chinny chin chin, signing up the last day. We were only able to do it because the card showed up in her online account which had the last 4 digits of the card. That is all you need to activate the offer.
Our first purchase on the card was $1500 in gift cards a Whole Foods. That netted us a handsome sum when it stacked the 20K welcome offer, 5X grocery and the 3rd quarter 5X Whole Foods bonus.
At the end of the day this card should net us 80,000 points from the welcome offer and 5X grocery bonus. We will also continue to rack up 7,500 points most quarters.
Referral Bonuses
I wasn’t planning on this but I was able to fall into a couple of referral bonuses from friends and family. We netted 15,000 points from a Chase Sapphire Preferred referral and 10,000 points from a Freedom Flex referral. The traditional Freedom refers to the Flex since it is no longer available. That was a quick 25,000 points!
Referral bonuses are a great supplement to your points earning. American Express and Chase make it pretty easy to do, especially if you are in a two player system.
Continued Ink Spending
It seems like every day there is a new office store sale, and I have been taking advantage. This has been a mainstay for me for 5-6 years now and will continue to be. I don’t hit it as hard as some others, and cards are often hard to locate, but I have been able to rack up a decent stash.
Limited Time Spending Offers
Spending promos have been a windfall in 2020 as well. The Sapphire Reserve and Sapphire Preferred will be earning bonus points on grocery for the next several months. I plan on maxing those out each month since we have them both, yes it is possible to carry both!
I will actually put the Freedom’s 5X grocery earning off to the side until these are maxed out. Why? Because I have a year to hit that $12,000 cap (I have done a lot of it already) and these have a smaller window. Even though they are less lucrative I will use the options expiring first.
If I max out both of those each month that will net me 5,000 points. At the end of promotion that is 25,000 points. I will do this mostly by taking advantage of gift card promos.
Hyatt 15K Free Night(s)
You may be wondering why this is here, Hyatt points are not Ultimate Rewards points. And a cert isn’t a point at all! I, as well as many others, use Ultimate Rewards primarily for Hyatt transfers. Because of that I look at them as somewhat interchangeable. Every Hyatt point, or free night, earned is an Ultimate Rewards point saved.
If you remember a few months back I had planned on paying the annual fee on my wife’s World of Hyatt card even though I planned on closing it. My plan was to earn the free night from spending $15K, plus the anniversary night, and then close the card. I figured I needed to free up a slot for her to grab the Freedom Unlimited offer.
Well with the introduction of the Freedom Flex, and the original Freedom going away, I had her apply without closing the account. This was mainly because of the short time frame I was working with/ She ended up getting approved which made life a ton easier.
I know for sure she will need to close this account before getting another Chase card, she is sitting on 6 personal cards right now. My plan is still to have her earn the $15K free night and then have her close the card. That would open her up to getting a Freedom Flex or another World of Hyatt card come February. She is on pace to earn it in the beginning of 2021. That certificate can save me up to 15,000 points in Ultimate Rewards transfers.
Earning Chase Ultimate Rewards – Final Thoughts
My plan is to get a nest egg set up and then start cashing in anything above that mark. I have set my mind on 250,000 points. While I will not include my Hyatt points in that figure, the ones I currently have, plus the free nights, will keep me from having to dip into my vault while traveling. I should have clear skies to the 250K.
I am already a good chunk of the way there, my balance is right around 150K again. With these plans in place I am hopeful that I can get there by early 2021. Then I can switch back over to earning and cashing out my points on a regular basis. This money will go into investments, college savings and any cash travel that I have.
If you burned your Chase empire down let me know in the comments. Are you in the rebuild mode yet? Or are you going to continue to cash them out while you can?
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I agree with you guys. We continue to amass Chase INK points at 4X via our businesses. I feel travel will stil be down most of 2021. So we might as well. We have bought gift cards at our local grocery. Hoping for some deals in 4th qtr to buy some at a discount here and there from restaurants directly that we use and that are financially stable as to not go belly up. I usually use my CHase points for Hyatt. At 1.5 X I am using for the gift cards, restaurants, grocery and probably osme home depot. Since I travel overseas for leisure usually I wont go until things are more normalized. THe idea of masks and weirdness makes things for tense and there can be all sorts of issues that may arise.
We have plenty of time to replace them 🙂
Cashed out about 350k UR and another 150k MR to put towards finishing our basement so we could increase our space by about 900 sqft. Wouldn’t change a thing! Points will come and go, my basement is sticking around for a long time and has a chance to be income when the oldest moves out.
Exactly David, you will use that basement a ton which will pay off 20 fold.
So manny people seem to not be in the points and miles game that could be. We get it. They dont.
We liquidated about 90% of our UR (approx 210k) & will probably continue to do so as we earn them. Similar story with Amex Schwab cashout. Travel as it was is probably not coming back for at least a good 18+ months- points don’t accrue interest & only devalue in worth. Churn, earn & burn (or cashout in this case I guess)
Next up is me cashing in some of my Membership Rewards. I’ll cash all of mine in and then half of my wife’s (she has the big balance). Still need to grab her a Schwab Platinum
Where is the info on the Chase Sapphire Reserve grocery bonus spend? I can’t find info on that & would love to use it!
3X on $1,000 per month through April.
https://milestomemories.com/chase-sapphire-cards-3x-on-groceries/
Hi Mark,
I am trying to build a stash of both AMEX and Chase points to have some flexibility on transfer partners. And I have been trying to determine what goal I should set for each. Was there a reason you chose 250,000 for your goal?
I feel like 250K is enough to cover me for a year plus of travel, when including miles and points I have already in transfer partner accounts. This allows me to be flexible and jump on some deals if they pop up but still be able to plan a year plus out for my travels.
MR burndown here. Just used 600k plus 1.5m Hilton points for an 11 person family trip to Italy next year.
11 person trip! Nice, that took some figuring out I am sure. Always interesting trying to get a huge group of people to the same place.