I love to travel and to travel affordably I use travel points. There are a number of travel points programs and I have a favorite one. I’ve use these points to get free flights, free hotels, and free car rentals. I can convert my points to cash if I choose to. I haven’t tried all the travel programs out there as a disclaimer. This is just my personal favorite one from my experience. Chase ultimate rewards is my favorite travel rewards program.

Chase offers a line up of credit cards that give you rewards whether it’s Chase rewards points, cash back, points with specific airlines or hotels, and others. Let’s start with the travel vendors Chase partners with. Take a look at the Chase credit cards and you’ll see you can apply for credit cards for Southwest, United, British Airways, Aer Lingus, Iberia, Marriott, Hyatt, and IHG. On top of all these partnerships, Chase offers multiple types of credit cards for the same travel vendor. For example, Chase offers three Southwest personal credit cards and two Southwest business credit cards. There’s no reason why you can’t apply to multiple and get the promotion points for each one which will help you build your rewards faster.

As I wrote about my best travel hacks I obtained the Southwest companion pass by opening two different Southwest credit cards, qualify for each promotion, and spent a little more to reach the companion pass status. With this, one person was able to fly free with me everywhere I went. Essentially a buy one get one free concept.

Chase also has its own rewards points. If you open up a credit card such as the Chase Sapphire or Chase Freedom you will build Chase rewards points. With Chase rewards, you can use them to redeem air flights, hotels, car rentals, or vacation packages. You can also redeem them for gift cards, cash, or use them to purchase items such as Apple products. Another option is you can transfer the points to your travel rewards such as your Southwest, United, Marriott, Hyatt, or IHG rewards accounts.

Through the Chase rewards portal, you can also earn Chase points by shopping through them. I would find a vendor and typically Chase will give me additional points for shopping through them. For example, I’ll go to my Chase rewards portal, find a store such as Home Depot, and it will give me extra points for shopping online there. They have tons of stores to choose from. It’s similar to Rakuten but instead of getting cash, you build Chase rewards points.

I’ve used my Chase rewards many times and in different ways.

• I cashed my points out
• I reserved hotels and car rentals
• I transferred points to Southwest and United
• I shopped through the Chase rewards portal to get more points

If you apply for a Chase credit card and cancel it later, you can apply for it again in two years to get the promotion again. Unlike American Express where you can’t qualify for the promotion, Chase will allow this (in my experience).

I rarely cash out my points because I like travel points. I would rather build points so I can afford my travels and vacations. Another thing I rarely do is transfer points to hotel rewards. The value of hotel points is not as good as if you were to transfer it to an airline so if I do any transfers, it’s not to hotel rewards, it’ll be towards airlines.

One of my goals is to be able to travel affordably. Chase rewards points is my favorite travel rewards program because of the reasons I wrote here. I have not explored all travel rewards programs out there. This is my own personal experience and opinion. If you are interested in following my journey, email subscribe to get alerts of latest posts or follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest.

To see all my previous articles, go to my Archive page.