Chase has just announced that starting January 5, 2012, Southwest Rapid Rewards will become a transfer partner of Ultimate Rewards, the program associated with the Chase Sapphire Preferred card and Chase Ink Bold card.

Oddly Southwest has been the “missing link” for a while, given that you can transfer Ultimate Rewards points to just about any program they have a co-branded credit card with, including British Airways, Continental, and United on the airline front, and Hyatt, Marriott, and Priority Club on the hotel front.

Now of course I’m not rushing to transfer points to Southwest, but it’s yet another option that makes the Chase Sapphire Preferred card the most well rounded card in the industry.

The Chase Sapphire Preferred card is literally a Chase “super card,” worth well more than the $95 annual fee that comes with it. Hell, if they added a couple more benefits, they could slap on an American Express Platinum-esque annual fee and probably get away with it.

Per The Points Guy, the redemption values are something like this:

Southwest points can be redeemed towards any Southwest flight and each point varies in value depending on the type of fare you redeem for.

Wanna Get Away: 1.67 cents per point
Anytime: 1 cent per point
Business Select: .83 cents per point

I really have to wonder about the economics behind these cards as they relate to their airline and hotel partners. In other words, aren’t the airlines and hotels slowly getting miffed that Chase has created a card that earns more points for everyday spend than the individual card with the program does?

Take the Chase Southwest Visa, for example, which earns one point per dollar on all purchases and two points per dollar on select travel categories. The Chase Sapphire Preferred card offers the same, not to mention there’s a 7% annual points dividend, so you’re really earning more points for booking a ticket on Southwest with the Chase Sapphire Preferred card than you are with the Chase Southwest Visa. And that doesn’t even factor in that Ultimate Rewards points are so much more flexible than Rapid Rewards points, since you can transfer Ultimate Rewards points instantly to all of the above programs. The only thing worth noting is that points transfers from Ultimate Rewards don’t count towards a Southwest companion pass.

As more and more savvy consumers turn to the Chase Sapphire Preferred card, I have to wonder at which point Chase will get a bit of backlash from the airlines.

Full disclosure: I receive a referral bonus for anyone that signs up through the above links. As always I will only provide a referral link if it offers the best available sign-up bonus.

This past month I moved and had to furnish a new apartment, and I quickly realized the extent to which the Ultimate Rewards Mall would come in handy. I purchased about $2,500 worth of stuff from Kohls and Best Buy, and just checked my Ultimate Rewards balance today and noticed that the following points posted in my Ultimate Rewards account:

Yep, that’s 24,403 points, which are more than enough for a free night at the Park Hyatt Paris or Park Hyatt Sydney if I transfer to Hyatt Gold Passport, or 24,403 miles to transfer to Continental OnePass towards another international first class award ticket to Asia via Europe.

This is all because the Ultimate Rewards Mall regularly has bonuses of 10 points per dollar for retailers like Sears, Kohls, Best Buy, etc. Before the Ultimate Rewards Mall I wasn’t a huge fan of online shopping malls simply because the reward was so small for going through them, so it wasn’t worthwhile to me aside from large purchases. Three points per dollar (which is a good bonus at many online malls) is a return of maybe 6%, compared to a return of 20% through the Ultimate Rewards Mall with some retailers (I value Ultimate Rewards points at two cents each). And that doesn’t even include the 7% annual points dividend.

Just another great benefit of the Chase Sapphire Preferred and Chase Ink Bold cards. Now if only I could keep up that level of spend, I’d earn enough miles for two first class round the world tickets each year just through mileage malls…

Anyone else cash in big for the month of November with Ultimate Rewards with all of the bonuses they offered?

Full disclosure: I receive a referral bonus for anyone that signs up through the above links. As always I will only provide a referral link if it offers the best available sign-up bonus.

If you live in the US and have good credit, there’s no reason you shouldn’t have over 100,000 Ultimate Rewards points — 50,000 points from signing up for the Chase Sapphire Preferred card, and 50,000 points from signing up for the Chase Ink Bold Business card . While Chase will generally only approve one personal application at a time, the Chase Ink Bold card is a business credit card, meaning you can apply and get approved for both cards at the same time. When filling out the business application just list yourself as a sole proprietorship, and put your social security number as your tax identification number.

Given the above, I figured I’d share what I consider to be (among) the five best uses of 100,000 Ultimate Rewards points, in no particular order.

1. Three nights in a suite at the Park Hyatt Sydney. Hyatt charges 33,000 points per night for a suite at a category six hotel, so if you transfer your points to Hyatt Gold Passport you can get three nights in a Cove Suite at the Park Hyatt Sydney for 99,000 points. Retail cost? ~$5,200

2. Virgin Atlantic Upper Class to Europe. I really, really like Virgin Atlantic. Especially their Clubhouse lounge in London. If you transfer 100,000 Ultimate Rewards points to Continental OnePass, you can book a roundtrip Upper Class ticket from the US to anywhere in Europe for only 100,000 Ultimate Rewards points. Retail cost? ~$5,000

 3. Four nights at the Park Hyatt Paris with points to spare. The Park Hyatt Paris is a category six Hyatt Gold Passport hotel, so goes for 22,000 points per night. So you can transfer 88,000 Ultimate Rewards points to Gold Passport and spend four nights at the Park Hyatt for only 88,000 points, with 12,000 points to spare. Retail cost? ~$3,200

4. A one-way Airbus 380 first class ticket to Asia. Sick of your husband/wife/girlfriend/boyfriend/partner/significant other, and can’t bear the thought of spending one more holiday with them? Nothing says “buh-bye” quite like a one-way first class Airbus A380 ticket to Singapore via Europe. Best of all, it’ll only cost you 70,000 Ultimate Rewards points transferred to Continental OnePass, leaving you 30,000 Ultimate Rewards points to spend on flights around Asia. Retail cost? $15,830

5. Jet all around Asia in Cathay Pacific business class. Building off the last point, one of the few bright spots in British Airways’ recent award chart devaluation is that shorthaul awards are now inexpensive. When business class between Hong Kong and Bangkok, for example, only costs you 15,000 miles one-way, you can do plenty of jetting around Asia in business class for 100,000 Ultimate Rewards points. Retail cost? ~$3,500

You can learn more about the Chase Sapphire Preferred card here (or apply for the card here), and learn more about the Chase Ink Bold card here (or apply for the card here).

Anyone else have any fun uses for 100,000 Ultimate Rewards points?

Full disclosure: I receive a referral bonus for anyone that signs up through the above links. As always I will only provide a referral link if it offers the best available sign-up bonus.

Via Gary, American Express is offering a 30,000 point sign-up bonus on both their co-branded personal and small business Starwood credit cards through December 12, 2011. Through this offer you earn 10,000 points after the first purchase and 20,000 points after spending $5,000 within six months. As Gary says this is no earth shattering deal, though this bonus is 5,000 points better than their usual sign-up bonus. That being said, the Starwood American Express isn’t a card you get for the sign-up bonus, but rather one you get for everyday spend, as Starwood points are incredibly flexible and valuable.

Link: Chase Ink Bold Business Card

For a while now I’ve found Ultimate Rewards points to be among the most valuable points currencies out there, especially as the value of Membership Rewards points continues to plummet decline. One card which accrues Ultimate Rewards points is the Chase Ink Bold business credit card, which offers 50,000 Ultimate Rewards points after making $5,000 worth of purchases in the first three months of having the card.

Last week I posted that the sign-up bonus/registration link was being pulled on Monday, and it was indeed. But fortunately the reason they pulled the link isn’t because they’re decreasing the sign-up bonus, but because they adjusted the benefits of the card substantially. You can read a summary of the old benefits of the card here.

Ultimately what the changes seem to come down to is that Chase is aligning the Ink Bold card (business) a lot more closely with the Sapphire Preferred card (personal). On one hand that’s a good thing since I consider the Chase Sapphire Preferred card to be one of the best all around credit cards in the market today. On the other hand it’s not all good news, since one of the unique benefits of the Ink Bold card that’s being cut is the threshold bonuses they offered, which were as follows:

You earn one point per dollar spent on the card, with the following threshold bonuses:

7,500 bonus points if you spend $25,000 on the card in a calendar year
15,000 additional bonus points if you spend an additional $25,000 on the card in a calendar year
25,000 additional bonus points if you spend an additional $50,000 on the card in a calendar year

That being said, they’ve added some benefits to the card (outlined below), that actually make this a really attractive card in my opinion.

How to Earn Points

You earn five points per dollar spent on telecom categories (cable, wireless, landline, etc.) and office supply stores, which is a huge bonus. This is actually really useful since not many cards offer bonuses in these categories. Keep in mind that this can all be stacked with other promotions through the Ultimate Rewards mall, which often offers an additional 5-10 points per dollar spent at office supply stores.

Then you earn two points per dollar on gas and hotels. While the Sapphire Preferred card offers double points on dining and travel, this is a pretty nice complement to the card, given that you can now earn two Ultimate Rewards points per dollar spent on gas (meaning there are now ways to earn two Ultimate Rewards points per dollar spent on gas, travel expenses, and dining, which covers about 99% of my purchases)!

Lastly, you earn one point per dollar spent on everything else.

How to Redeem Points

This is really what makes the program great. On September 30 American Express Membership Rewards ended their relationship with Continental OnePass, which was a huge loss for the program.

Ultimate Rewards not only partners with Continental OnePass and United Mileage Plus, but also with Hyatt Gold Passport, Marriott Rewards, Priority Club, British Airways, and Korean Air.

Two of the best options when it comes to transfers are Continental/United and Hyatt. They transfer 1:1 to both programs, so this is a way to earn more Continental and United miles than you’d earn directly with their co-branded card, given that you earn bonus points for several spend categories.

Furthermore, the points transfers are instant, and points can be transferred to anyone’s account. This is hugely valuable, since you can use your Ultimate Rewards points to top off anyone’s account.

Alternatively you can apply points towards any “revenue” ticket at a rate of 1.25 cents per point. That means that a $625 flight will cost you 50,000 Ultimate Rewards points. This isn’t the most efficient way to use points, though it’s still a bit more lucrative than American Express’ “Pay with Points” option in most cases.

Other Cool Features:

The Annual Fee is Waived for the First Year

It’s $95 per year after that.

No Foreign Transaction Fees

Should be standard with all cards nowadays (in my opinion), though unfortunately that’s not the case.

Free Priority Pass Membership

That gets you two free lounge visits and then $27 for every subsequent visit.

Verdict

This is a great sign-up bonus, especially in conjunction with the Chase Sapphire Preferred card. If you sign up for both cards that’s over 100,000 Ultimate Rewards points, which can be instantly transferred to Continental/United/Hyatt. Even if the card doesn’t work best for your long term spending habits, the sign-up bonus makes the card worthwhile, in my opinion. Those 100,000 points can get you a business class ticket from the US to Asia, or even three nights in a suite at the highest end Park Hyatts (think Park Hyatt Sydney, where a suite is regularly $2,000+ per night).

Also keep in mind that Chase is usually pretty strict about approving multiple personal applications at once, though they’ll typically approve one personal and one business application. Even if you don’t actually have a business, you can still get approved for the card by listing your business as a sole proprietorship and giving your Social Security Number as the tax ID for the business.

Here’s the link for the Chase Ink Bold Business Card

Full disclosure: I receive a referral bonus for anyone that signs up through the above link. As always I will only provide a referral link if it offers the best available sign-up bonus.

Here’s the least surprising news of the week — Membership Rewards has just announced a transfer bonus for Membership Rewards points to British Airways Avios points. Of course this comes only a week after British Airways took a machete to their award chart.

The nice thing about the bonus is that there’s no small print — there are no limits, it’s not restricted to those that haven’t made transfers in the past, and the bonus points post instantly. So for every 1,000 Membership Rewards points you transfer, you instantly get 1,300 Avios points.

This isn’t as good as the 50% transfer bonus they had earlier in the year under their more favorable award chart (for those in North America), though this still isn’t bad.

It’s not worth transferring speculatively because of this promo, but it does make the cost of shorthaul award tickets and award tickets to South America, Asia, and Europe a bit more reasonable. So if you need to make an award booking see what British Airways would charge, because it might just work out favorably in this case.

This is only mildly miles/points related, though I’m downright floored by how good this promotion is to the point that I have to share it.

Y’all provided excellent suggestions last night for how I can maximize my Black Friday new home shopping, and so far I’ve done a darn good job, if I may say so myself. I’ve spent a ton of money over the past few hours, though I’ve earned 25,000 Ultimate Rewards points too, which slightly eases the pain.

Anyway, Kohls is running three promotions simultaneously, all of which can be “stacked,” to make this a truly unbeatable deal.

I was about to purchase the Keurig Special Edition Brewing System from Best Buy for $149.99 plus tax, for a total of $160.49. I would earn 11 points per dollar through the Ultimate Rewards mall thanks to the bonus points they were offering at Best Buy on Black Friday. An hour before I was planning on making the purchase reader Ben emailed me to alert me of how much cheaper it would be through Kohls.

Kohls is selling the same coffee brewer for $134.99 plus tax. They’re also offering 11 points per dollar through the Ultimate Rewards mall, so in and of itself that’s a savings of over $15. But that’s not all. There’s a promotion code for 20% off anything at Kohls, which is CON20HH4. That brought the cost down to $107.99 plus tax. But through Sunday Kohls is also offering $15 worth of Kohls Cash for every $50 spent, though it can only be redeemed starting November 28. Still, I earned an extra $30 worth of Kohls Cash for that purchase.

So in the end I paid $115.55 including tax and shipping for my Keurig system. In addition to that I get $30 Kohls cash (which I value at close to face value because I’m in the process of moving and need to buy a bunch of stuff) and nearly 1,300 Ultimate Rewards points, which I value at $26. So that coffee maker that usually goes for $160 ended up “costing” me about $60.

Anyway, the reason I mention this is because you can get well over 50% off anything at Kohls, assuming you value Ultimate Rewards points at a reasonable amount. Take the retail price and deduct 20% using the coupon code above, plus 30% (or whatever percentage of face value you value Kohls Cash at), plus 22% (for the 11 points per dollar you earn through the Ultimate Rewards mall).

Admittedly not everyone’s valuations of the above three “discounts” will be quite as high, but regardless we’re talking about some serious savings.

You’ve gotta love that you can save more by staying home on Black Friday than by going out into the chaos.

I’ve just received word that the Chase Ink Bold 50,000 point sign-up bonus offer will be pulled on Monday, November 28. Now, I don’t actually know if the sign-up bonus is being increased or decreased, though based on the wording of the email it sounds like the latter. I’ll certainly post an update if I hear more, as I’ve asked for clarification (though I’m not sure they’ll tell me).

The current deal offers 50,000 Ultimate Rewards points after spending $5,000 on the card within three months.

I’ve written about the Chase Ink Bold card in the past, which is a great card on many levels. For one, it’s great for high spenders since it offers threshold bonuses whereby you earn a total of 147,500 Ultimate Rewards points for $100,000 worth of spend. That’s really good, especially if most of your spend isn’t in “bonus” categories offered by other cards.

Furthermore the points can be transferred to British Airways, Continental, Hyatt, Marriott, etc. Basically they offer a ton of flexibility to transfer to some amazing programs.

I have both the Chase Sapphire Preferred card and Chase Ink Bold card, but if I had neither card and were about to do a credit card “churn,” those would be my two choices, partly because these cards are keepers (the Chase Sapphire Preferred card for everyone, and the Chase Ink Bold card for those that spend a lot on their cards). Furthermore while Chase will typically only approve one personal application at a time, the Chase Ink Bold card is a business card, so you can get approved for both cards simultaneously.

They each offer a 50,000 point sign-up bonus with no annual fees, and accrue what I consider to be the most valuable points currency, Ultimate Rewards points.

Signing up for these two credit cards alone will get you a business class ticket to Europe on Virgin Atlantic, Lufthansa, Austrian, Swiss, etc., with a stopover (and without any pesky fuel surcharges). While I realize most of you are savvy when it comes to this stuff, I love the reactions I get when I tell “normal” people how easily they can get a free business class ticket to Europe in summer for literally $100 in taxes.

So this is just a warning since I realize it’s a long weekend for most of you, but if you’ve been waiting to apply for the Chase Ink Bold card, I’d get an application in by the end of the week. As I said I’ll be posting an update if they give me one I can share, though based on the original wording of the email I do suspect the bonus is going down.

You can read more about the Chase Sapphire Preferred card here, and you can apply for the Chase Sapphire Preferred card here.

You can read more about the Chase Ink Bold card here, and you can apply for the Chase Ink Bold card here.

Full disclosure: I receive a referral bonus for anyone that signs up through the above link. As always I will only provide a referral link if it offers the best available sign-up bonus.

I’ve written a lot lately about the Chase Sapphire Preferred card, which I consider to be the best all around credit card nowadays thanks to the double points on dining and travel, no foreign transaction fees, valuable transfer partners (Continental, United, Hyatt, etc.), reasonable annual fee, access to the Ultimate Rewards shopping mall, and last but not least, the 7% annual points dividend.

I’ve gotten a couple of emails lately asking for more details on the 7% annual points dividend, so I figured I’d make a quick post explaining what exactly the benefit entails.

The benefit is described as follows:

Receive a 7% annual points dividend on all new points earned — even on points already redeemed

And the fine print reads as follows:

You will receive a yearly bonus of 7% of all points you earned in the previous Year. (“Year” means, for your first year as a cardmember, the period beginning with your enrollment date through your December statement date of that same year. For each year thereafter, “Year” means the twelve month period beginning the day after your December statement date through your December statement date of the next year). Your bonus will appear on your January or February billing statement.

So basically at the beginning of the year you earn a bonus of 7% of all the points earned the previous year. The current sign-up bonus is 50,000 Ultimate Rewards points after spending $3,000 within three months, so since the 7% annual points dividend applies to that too, you’re really earning a sign-up bonus of 53,500 points.

Furthermore, the verbiage suggests that this applies to all points earned, so that should include points earned through the Ultimate Rewards shopping mall.

As I blogged about a couple of days ago the Ultimate Rewards shopping mall rocks not only because they have some massive bonuses for everyday shopping, but also because points typically post within a week, compared to 6-8 weeks with most other programs.

So for example on Friday Best Buy is offering 10 bonus points per dollar spent. That’s in addition to the one point per dollar spent you earn on your Chase Sapphire Preferred card, for a total of 11 points per dollar spent. Then at the end of the year you earn a 7% points dividend on that, for a grand total of ~12 points per dollar spent. For a retailer like Apple or Best Buy, that’s an amazing value. You usually only see those kinds of bonuses for flower shops or Tijuana botox clinics.

When I initially signed up for the card it was because of the great sign-up bonus. Then I realized just how great the card was for everyday spent, especially after Continental terminated their relationship with American Express Membership Rewards. But now as I’m moving and trying to furnish my new apartment, I’m quickly realizing that the Ultimate Rewards shopping mall can be even more useful than either of the other two benefits.

Lastly, keep in mind that it’s not too late to still earn the 7% points dividend for this year. If you were to sign up for the card now and complete the $3,000 in spending over the next month, you could still earn the 7% points dividend in a couple of months, getting you the 3,500+ bonus points in a couple of months instead of in over a year.

You can read more about the Chase Sapphire Preferred card here, or apply for the card here.

Full disclosure: I receive a referral bonus for anyone that signs up through the above link. As always I will only provide a referral link if it offers the best available sign-up bonus.

Mastercard is offering US residents that register with a Mastercard a $20 gift card if they spend $200 online using their card before the end of the year. Supposedly once you complete the spending you’ll receive an email explaining how to get your gift card. The offer is only open to the first 80,000 people that register, complete qualifying transactions, and submit the form, so it seems like you won’t know if you qualify until after you complete the spending.

And sadly enough it just occurred to me that I no longer have a Mastercard…

(Tip of the hat to Gary)