Quick Points: Transfer Chase Ultimate Rewards points before downgrading your Chase Sapphire card
If you’re considering changing your Chase credit card, this is an important step to consider before doing so.
The Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card And Reserve Chase Sapphire® are two of our favorites travel credit card at TPG and both offer generous welcome bonuses:
- Chase Sapphire Preferred Card: Earn 60,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first three months from account opening.
- Chase Sapphire Sanctuary: Earn 60,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first three months from account opening.
Both earn value Chasing the ultimate reward points, allowing you to access a number Best hotel and airline transfer partner available. You can also earn Ultimate Rewards with Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card.
Ultimate Rewards Points are flexible because you can decide when and where to transfer your points and how many to transfer; however, you usually have to convert your points in 1,000 increments.
You may decide to carry over some points World of Hyatt to book a hotel room for just 3,500 points or switch to Aeroplan to book domestic flights on United Airlines from just 6,000 points.
Daily newsletter
Gift your inbox with the TPG Daily newsletter
Join over 700,000 readers to get breaking news, in-depth guides and exclusive offers from TPG experts
Unfortunately, if you’re looking to get another welcome bonus offer, you won’t be able to Earn rewards on your Chase card if you currently hold that card in your wallet or if you’ve received a sign-up bonus on that same card in the past 24 to 48 months. So if you currently own a Chase Sapphire card, you might consider downgrading it to a no-annual-fee Chase card, e.g. Pursue Unlimited Freedom® or Chasing Freedom Flex℠, to protect your credit history and keep your Ultimate Rewards account active.
However, it’s important to note that you can only transfer Ultimate Rewards to a travel partner if you have an active Sapphire card or an active Ink Business Preferred Card. If you downgrade your Chase card to one of the Freedom cards, you can still redeem your Chase points for travel discounts, cash back, or gift cards at a rate of 1 cent per point with the Rewards platform Final.
However, you cannot transfer your points to a partner. Remember, if you have the Sapphire Reserve, you can redeem your points on Chase Travel℠ for 1.5 cents each, and if you have the Sapphire Preferred, you can redeem your points for 1.25 cents each on Chase Travel. However, if you use transfer partners, you can get a much larger redemption value, because TPG value Chase points are at 2.05 cents each.
If you’re planning to downgrade your card and have a favorite transfer partner (aka one you use frequently), consider transferring your Ultimate Rewards balance to that partner ( or several) before downgrading your card, as it’s easy to get more than 1 % per point in value when using a transfer partner.
Otherwise, you’ll have to wait until your Sapphire or Ink business card is reapproved before you can transfer your Ultimate Rewards points.
