Chase Ultimate Rewards points are one of my favorite points currencies, given how many great uses there are of the points.
What makes Ultimate Rewards points great
You can transfer points to one of the Ultimate Rewards airline or hotel transfer partners, or you could redeem them for up to 2 cents each towards the cost of a travel purchase through Chase Travel℠ with Points Boost.
There are other ways to redeem Ultimate Rewards points as well, though I don’t generally consider them to be a good use. For example, you can redeem them for Amazon purchases, or even redeem them as cash back, though you’ll almost never get more than a penny of value per point.
Chase Ultimate Rewards & Apple
As of today, Chase has integrated Apple into their Ultimate Rewards portal. What this means is that you can now make Apple purchases through the Ultimate Rewards portal, and you can either pay cash or redeem points.
When you log into your account you should see this option.
With this new partnership, you can redeem Ultimate Rewards points towards the cost of virtually any Apple purchase at the rate of one cent per point, which they advertise as being a “special offer,” and being 25% better than usual (meaning that presumably in the future you’ll get even less value — ouch).
On the plus side, this feature seems to basically be a white label Apple website, as the shopping experience feels very similar to shopping directly with Apple. The selection is equally good too.
While you can redeem Ultimate Rewards points this way, you really shouldn’t, in my opinion. Personally I value Ultimate Rewards points at 1.7 cents each thanks to the ability to transfer them to airline and hotel partners.
Perhaps the one case in which this isn’t a bad value (but still not a good value) is if you only have the Chase Freedom Flex℠, Chase Freedom Unlimited®, Ink Business Unlimited® Credit Card, or Ink Business Cash® Credit Card.
Bottom line
On one hand, I give Chase credit for how well they’ve integrated Apple into the Ultimate Rewards portal. The shopping experience is on par with what you’d get directly with Apple, so they get kudos for how easy this is to use.
Unfortunately, the value simply isn’t there, though. I highly recommend not redeeming Ultimate Rewards points for something that gets you only a penny of value per point.
If they wanted to make this useful, I’d much rather see them offer some sort of a consistent bonus for Apple purchases through the Ultimate Rewards site. For example, how about offering an extra few points per dollar spent? I know Apple doesn’t like offering bonuses, but if they’re going to try to launch a serious partnership, that seems like a more beneficial way in which to do so.
@RSMKE - Exactly my thought. Otherwise I see waste of my reward points.
Apple? Promotional discount?
Hahahaha. Their student deals don't even offset sales tax in Hawaii. Apple's "Black Friday" deals are 5% tops.
They don't sell at any significant discount. That's not how they saved their billions.
@ ray
Yes Air France does it for sometime now.
Why not just pay with Chase unlimited through a shopping portal and then cash out the corresponding number of UR points? This is the very definition of a red herring.
Seems to be okay. Apple products last a long time and has good resale value. Unlike that biz class flight that lasts 10 hours and cannot be resold.
Is it me, or is it intriguing that Air France flies to Abidjan in Cote d’Ivoire with an A380 on a regular basis?!