One of the nice things about Chase Ultimate Rewards points, at least on the surface, is how easily transferable they are. In practice you can transfer Ultimate Rewards points instantly not only to someone else’s frequent flyer account, but also to someone else’s Ultimate Rewards account.

On the Ultimate Rewards website you can transfer points to anyone’s Ultimate Rewards account as long as you have their credit card number and last name.

And you can transfer Ultimate Rewards points to any partner frequent flyer account, as long as you have the person’s name and frequent flyer account number.

Now, technically the terms & conditions regarding transferring points reads as follows:

Transfers may only be used to combine points/rebates belonging to the same individual or business in the Program; or for the purpose of enabling spouses or domestic partners to combine points/rebates earned in their respective names.

But until recently no one ever had issues with transferring points to accounts in different names, and many did so pretty freely.

Anyway, as pointed out by Frequent Miler, some with Chase Sapphire Preferred cards are getting notices that their accounts are getting shut down due to transferring points. I suspect they’re doing this mostly to those that have made dozens of transfers, but I’d say this is certainly a good reason to be careful with future transfers. On the plus side they’re at least letting those card members transfer the points out of Ultimate Rewards before shutting down their account.

What’s still not clear to me is whether the terms and conditions apply exclusively to transferring points between Ultimate Rewards accounts, or also apply to transferring Ultimate Rewards points to a frequent flyer account in a different name. So while I’m not convinced the latter is prohibited, I would still be careful.

Anyway, just a heads up…