Credit Card Points: Worth your Time?
You could say I’m one of those intense credit card points guys. I’ve come to Medium to share an experience, simply because I feel that many people just don’t know how a lot of this points stuff works. I personally wish it was easier to follow, but hey, free money isn’t really free, now is it?
I’m currently at a point in the Game of Chase, which I like to call it, where I own four wonderful credit cards (photographed above). Some might call it a Quadfecta, but I won’t get into that right now. Dan over at DansDeals.com writes all about it right here.
Anyways, Chase has been running a promotion on their Freedom and Freedom Unlimited cards for the month of March.
Earn a total of 10% cash back on up to $2,500 in total hotel purchases made through Ultimate Rewards. Offer ends March 31st.
Note: Chase markets some cards as cash back cards, but the cards really accumulate URP, just like any other card. (So 10% cash back really means 10 points per dollar spent, which you can swap out for cash if you desire, but only at a 1 cent per point ratio.)
Simple enough, right? I was booking a hotel this month anyways for the summer, so this was a nice opportunity to make some extra URP (Ultimate Rewards Points). As a cardholder of the Sapphire Reserve, URP towards travel is a whopping 1.5 cents per point, so I was booking on the Sapphire’s travel portal, to get the most out of my points, and then use the Freedom to pay the remaining balance.
Great! So I booked about half of my hotel reservation for free on points, and the other half, purchased with my Freedom, is getting me 10 points per dollar! But wait — did I need to be on the Freedom’s portal in order to qualify? All it says is that the purchase needs to be “made through Ultimate Rewards”.
I decided to hope for the best and check on my points a few days later, bringing us to today. The transaction in the Rewards Activity section of the portal is no longer pending, and I only got 1 point per dollar! What gives?
This is when I decided to give Chase a call. Basically, I was transferred back and forth between departments, as no one seemed to have even heard of this promotion. How strange, because that image above is literally on the front page of my Ultimate Rewards portal.
Apparently this is a targeted promotion, which is the reason no one at Chase was able to help me out until the sixth phone transfer. Still seems odd, either way. In the end, I was told that there is a separate section for these types of purchases, and here is a screenshot:
Ok, so, why aren’t my points shown here then? According to the representative on the phone, it takes 6–10 days for this to show up. It’s been eight as of this writing, so I’m planning to check again in two days, which is the 30th. They told me to call back if it’s still not there, because they believe that I do in fact qualify for this promotion.
I told them how I made the purchase through the Sapphire’s rewards portal, but they agreed that all that was required was a purchase on the Freedom card for a hotel reservation through Chase’s travel portal.
So, I guess an hour on the phone got me some form of a conclusion? We will certainly find out if it was worth it to even bother calling. If I can update this post later on with the results, I sure will. Otherwise, I will leave it in a comment.
Update [03/31/2019]: The bonus points will show up in the Shop through Chase category, within the Rewards portal. It apparently takes about 1–2 statements to actually arrive there, according to the Chase representative I spoke to. So, I guess this is a win.
Update [07/11/2019]: I meant to update this earlier — I called Chase again (probably about a month ago) after still not receiving my bonus points. I was told to send a secure message to Chase, and the “secure message team” would get back to me about it. I did just that, explained the situation, and attached a screenshot of the promotion that had been displayed back in March, on the homepage of my Chase Ultimate Rewards portal. Low and behold, I received a response first thing in the morning, telling me that my points have been sent! HOORAY!
Getting back to the title of this article though, in general, I feel that it’s worth the time to maximize your points earnings. You can really just get free stuff, once you accumulate the points. It’s all about long term thinking.
Truth be told, however, I might come to the conclusion later on that it’s only worth the time and effort when you are getting the 50–100K intro bonus points with these cards. Otherwise, it really could take a ton of time (and mental energy) to get enough points to actually cover an entire trip. As of now, I’ve been getting intro bonus after intro bonus, so I’ve been slightly spoiled. As I’m only a few months into using this entire system, I’m sure time will tell.
If you’re a newbie, check out this spreadsheet I made for myself when I started out. As I briefly mentioned above, I call it the Game of Chase. In it, I include some sample spendings, suggested credit cards to start out with, and a potential schedule to start out your journey into URP. You can copy it and make your own edits to further help you along the way. Please let me know what you think!
Not long after I posted this, I created my own blog, and re-posted it there! Check it out at raskin.me.
