It’s a big day when it comes to Chase news. I’ve covered how huge changes are coming to the Chase Sapphire Reserve, and we’re also seeing the introduction of the new Chase Sapphire Reserve for Business.
In this post, I want to cover a more fundamental change to the Chase Ultimate Rewards points ecosystem, as we’re seeing 1.25-1.5 cent redemptions through Chase Travel dropped, in favor of a new Points Boost feature, with a transition period. Let’s look at that in a bit more detail, starting with the bad news.
In this post:
1.25-1.5 cent Chase Travel redemptions being dropped
There are lots of great ways to redeem Chase Ultimate Rewards points. Personally, I like transferring them to Chase’s airline and hotel partners. However, it’s also possible to redeem Chase points toward the cost of a flight, hotel, rental car, etc., through the Chase Travel portal. Historically, the value you’ve received per point has been based on the card you have:
- The Chase Sapphire Reserve has offered 1.5 cents of value per point through Chase Travel
- The Chase Sapphire Preferred and Chase Ink Business Preferred have offered 1.25 cents of value per point through Chase Travel
- Most other cards have offered 1.0 cents of value per point through Chase Travel
As part of Chase’s card overhaul, this is all changing, as Chase is eliminating the 25-50% bonus for Chase Travel redemptions for those who have premium cards. That means all cards will offer a flat 1.0 cents of value per point through Chase Travel, at least as a standard.
The good news is that these changes only kick in gradually. Assuming you’re an existing cardmember, the points you earn through October 25, 2025, will continue to be redeemable at the current rates (so 1.5 cents for those with the Sapphire Reserve, and 1.25 cents for those with the Sapphire Preferred and Ink Business Preferred).
For points earned by that date, it’ll be possible to redeem at that rate through October 25, 2027, so that’s awesome news, since we’ll still have a couple of years to redeem that way. Let me emphasize that this only applies for points earned through October 25, 2025.
Furthermore, if you combine points into a single account (which can easily be done online), all the points will be able to be redeemed at that higher rate, as is currently the case. So it could make sense to consolidate all your Ultimate Rewards points in your Sapphire Reserve account by October 25, so all those points have the flexibility to be redeemed at that higher rate.
For points issued on new accounts as of June 23, 2025 (when the refreshed Sapphire Reserve launches, and when the new Sapphire Reserve for Business launches), the new rate will apply.
Chase rolling out Points Boost, offering more value with points
As of June 23, 2025, Chase is introducing Points Boost, and this will immediately be available to new and existing cardmembers. The idea is that this replaces the existing 25-50% bonuses on Chase Travel redemptions (though for some existing cardmembers, it’ll be possible to pick which way you want to redeem for the next couple of years, to really maximize value).
The idea is that Points Boost gives you more than 1.0 cents of value per point for Chase Travel redemptions. With Points Boost, you can instead redeem points for 1.25-2.0 cents each toward the cost of a travel purchase. How can you do that? Well, Points Boost is available on select flight and hotel bookings.
Those with the Chase Sapphire Reserve will be able to get up to 2.0 cents of value per point for bookings with The Edit by Chase Travel, which offers extra perks at luxury hotels. Meanwhile they’ll also be able to get 1.25-2.0 cents of value toward select flights, based on the airline, class of service, etc.
Those with the Chase Sapphire Preferred and Ink Business Preferred will be able to get 1.5 cents of value per point for bookings with The Edit by Chase Travel, and 1.25-1.75 cents of value toward select flights, based on the airline, class of service, etc.
Now, we’ll have to wait until this feature is live to truly get a sense of how useful these redemptions are, particularly for flights. But it’s nice to know that in some cases, it’ll be possible to get significantly elevated redemption rates.
Bottom line
Chase is making major changes to how Ultimate Rewards points can be redeemed. Chase is dropping the standard 25-50% bonus on Chase Travel redemptions for premium cardmembers, allowing you to redeem points for 1.25-1.5 cents each toward a travel purchase. However, this will be a gradual process, and existing cardmembers will have through October 2027 to redeem that way.
Chase is also introducing the Points Boost concept as of June 23, 2025, whereby cardmembers will be able to redeem points for anywhere from 1.25-2.0 cents per point, toward select hotel and flight redemptions. We’ll have to wait until this feature is live to fully determine how valuable it is, though at least there will be some opportunities to get more than a penny per point as “cash” toward a travel purchase.
What do you make of the Chase Points Boost program?
I use the 1.5 on Chase Sapphire Reserve for rental cars a lot. I just used it for a Marriott, using points as well at 1.5. I would hate to see the rental car 1.5 discount discontinued. I am due to pay my annual fee on 9/2/25, so I guess that will be at the old rate and I will still have the benefit of the prior version of the card. I plan to transfer...
I use the 1.5 on Chase Sapphire Reserve for rental cars a lot. I just used it for a Marriott, using points as well at 1.5. I would hate to see the rental car 1.5 discount discontinued. I am due to pay my annual fee on 9/2/25, so I guess that will be at the old rate and I will still have the benefit of the prior version of the card. I plan to transfer all my points and all my wife's points into my Chase Sapphire Reserve card. I guess around 700,000 total. Likely I or my wife will also apply for the new Business card. Waiting for those details. It is still a great system and I can claw back plenty of the original fee.
I’ve used the 1.5 cpp boost before, but maybe I won’t miss it as much since my future game plan is to move UR’s to Hyatt.
But losing the 3x travel is big.
Which airlines are in the Points Boost?
This is simply a massive, historic devaluation - a gutting of the program. "Points Boost" is market-speak for DYNAMIC PRICING. They take away 1.5X everywhere. So the price (cost to you) immediately skyrockets/the value of your points drops massively. Then, to distract you from the devaluation, they introduce dynamic pricing (dynamic devaluing), a tease to get you to stop thinking of tthe 1.5X you've lost, and instead focus on the 2X that you might, someday,...
This is simply a massive, historic devaluation - a gutting of the program. "Points Boost" is market-speak for DYNAMIC PRICING. They take away 1.5X everywhere. So the price (cost to you) immediately skyrockets/the value of your points drops massively. Then, to distract you from the devaluation, they introduce dynamic pricing (dynamic devaluing), a tease to get you to stop thinking of tthe 1.5X you've lost, and instead focus on the 2X that you might, someday, if you're really lucky, get instead. 2X is ever better than 1.5X, ain't it kid? Then stop crying and enjoy! Ther's already dynamic PRICING for the things you're using your points on at 1.5X. Now there will be dynamic "value" for the points you are using to pay - they get you on both ends of the transaction - no wonder Chase and their minions are hyping this so much. This represents the biggest devaluation of the Chase UR program ever. It's being sold to you as...wait for it...an exciting new enhancement!!! This is how scammers and flimflam artists work.
@Lucky, I don't think you covered this but over the last 2 months Chase trialed a version of "points boost" where select (UR) card members got up to 2 cents per point redemption on select hotels and premium cabins on Delta, United and Qatar. I had the offer on CSP and an Ink Preferred and made some hotel redemptions. Anyone else got these?
Yes, we booked a grand hyatt that is part of the edit portfolio and got more value than a transfer if those same points to Hyatt (they also recognized globalist status and let us earn points from the stay). And on Sunday we booked Delta comfort plus flights for $.02 per point. Excellent value in both circumstances, given the amount of UR points we’ve been accumulating. And differentiates them from Amex and Bilt.
Why are you so enthusiastic about these rather blah new products and features? Did Chase pay you to write about them?
Uh, how do you think this site makes money? Other than advertising, card sign on referrals are it.
Today Chase guts it's UR program: your Ultimate Rewards points just lost 1/3 of their value. Of course the bloggers have to try and spin this turd and convince you its a delicious truffle, an exciting enhancement, or at least try and distract you with endless prattle about fast food delivery coupons. That's how he pays his mortgage.
Points only lost 1/3 of their value if you redeem in portal and not by transfer. I never ever use them in the portal so this change, if anything, might make me more likely to consider via points boosts.
One silent potential "buff" to the CSP here is access to "The Edit". CSP currently doesn't have access to Chase's existing elevated hotel perks collection. The only way this could be 'neutered' is if CSP get the 1.5cent redemption at the hotels in the collection, but not the perks
Seems like a classic business situation as of late - have a great but unprofitable product, amass a loyal customer base with it, realize you need to get to profitability, try to plug the reduced benefits by using your customer base as negotiating levers with vendors to get a better product (manifesting as The Edit and Points Boost), but never really being the same, and risking that customer base in the process
Sadly, no...
Seems like a classic business situation as of late - have a great but unprofitable product, amass a loyal customer base with it, realize you need to get to profitability, try to plug the reduced benefits by using your customer base as negotiating levers with vendors to get a better product (manifesting as The Edit and Points Boost), but never really being the same, and risking that customer base in the process
Sadly, no product is ever as fun as selling $100 bills for $90
The devil is in the details. The CSR was the ultimate KISS card – keep it simple stupid. My baby boomer parents liked being able to simply know what categories earned bonus spend and liked being able to redeem their points at a fixed rate that was more than 1cpp – they felt like they were getting something and most of their travel is domestic. Now it’s a whole different and more expensive ballgame, and...
The devil is in the details. The CSR was the ultimate KISS card – keep it simple stupid. My baby boomer parents liked being able to simply know what categories earned bonus spend and liked being able to redeem their points at a fixed rate that was more than 1cpp – they felt like they were getting something and most of their travel is domestic. Now it’s a whole different and more expensive ballgame, and customers have more choices than ever. Feels like a pretty big gamble, although it’s JPMorgan Chase – they have plenty of money to gamble with.
Personally, I recently used the 1.5x redemption for the first time and redeemed 1.2M UR points. Sure it’s not the best value but you try finding business class tickets for a family of four on the dates that actually work for your family on JAL to go JFK-HND-TPE then TPE-HND and HND-JFK. In some fantasy world I can pay 60k AA points each way for 120k/pp on the JFK-HND route and then book separate tickets between HND-TPE. But here in the real world where seats that are released are snapped up instantaneously and available in blocks of 2 at most… it’s a very hard task. So to find $4.5k/pp tickets in the first place (which I could only get through portals) and then to pay 300k/pp with the 1.5x redemption, felt pretty good to me. Plus we all earn AA miles and LPs on the distance charts not the $ charts – the entire family will be Gold just from this trip and will be able to somewhat easily get my wife to Platinum while I’ll be able to keep PPro. That’s going to be great for certain trips where I want to be able to access international business class lounges when traveling economy with the whole family. Point is when factoring in the miles earned plus the status benefits, doing better than 1.5cpp.
Now... maybe Points Boost would have offered me a redemption rate that was greater than 1.5cpp on JAL business class tickets. If that's the case, then I have nothing to complain about. But who knows - presumably it's a whole different ballgame every time you go to the travel portal and run a search. Which is the opposite of KISS.
The devil is always in the details. I suspect these points boosts will only be available for last minute fares to fill empty seats for airlines. Hopefully, I'm wrong. But I'll take the guaranteed 1.5cpm over playing games for 2cpm any day.
One data point for you…On Sunday we booked delta comfort plus flights for travel on July 3rd. Three weeks before a holiday. 21,932 points instead of $494 per ticket. It was better than $.02/pt.
While Chase has the only true "hotel" bank cards with the Hyatt transfer, if the 2x on The Edit is unrestricted and includes the FHR-type benefits, the CSR will truly be in a league of it's own for hotel redemptions.
Hoping there's a SUB war between this card and the revamped Amex plat.
Agreed. With it getting harder and harder to get value out of points for flights I’ve found myself using points for hotels a lot more. Getting the edit benefits and hotel loyalty points and credits is definitely not a bad thing
Sel, D. - I agree with your broader point, but just wanted to note that Bilt is another bank for hotel points with more options than Chase. It transfers to Hyatt at 1-1 (like Chase) and recently ran a bonus where you could transfer to Accor at 1-2. I transferred 250k Bilt points for approximately $11,400 off an Accor stay. This latest change differentiates Chase from Bilt a little more. They each provide some benefits the other doesn’t.
I will say that 2 cpp generically isn't that bad because for flights you earn back residual miles and elite metrics that you wouldn't normally get on award bookings.
So it's closer to like 2.5 cpp maybe. For example, if an AA Exec Plat that earns 11 miles per dollar spent on a $1000 fare. You're getting 11000 LP and miles back and spending 50k points, so a net 39k points for 2.56 cpp.