I have kind of a general question: which form of credit card "currency" is best for which transfer-partner situation? I understand part is very subjective depending on your travel habits and needs, but is there a THIS is better for THAT kind of thing? For example, I know UR--->Hyatt beats UR--->Marriott is good because the Hyatt point requirements are low.
Chase UR?
Amex MR?
Citi TYP?
We only have UR now and are thinking about expanding to MR in light of the changes to PRG---4x grocery would be really valuable for us (plus omg Shake Shack
) I see the 50K offer incognito.
I’m a big believer in diversifying your points. It gives you options in picking your airlines and hotels, paying with points as a cash booking or transferring points for award seats and stays.
As already mentioned, MRs are particularly good for transfers to their airline partners, and there are a lot of great international carriers. Amex also runs MR transfer bonus promos frequently, and you can expect transfer bonuses to most of the major airlines for several weeks every year. There also seems to be a lot more "sweet spot" airline redemptions with MR points. However, MR is sorely lacking in hotel transfer partners. They have three: Hilton, SPG/Marriott, and Choice hotels, and not one offers particularly good value (I think MR to Hilton is something like 1 MR:2 HH!). Paying with points on the Amex Travel portal can be a lot harder to understand than on the UR travel portal. MR are worth 1 cent per point toward airfare, but only about 0.75-0.85 cents per point for hotels, vacations or cruises packages, and car rentals. But if you have a Biz Plat, and pay with points for airfare on your selected airline in any class, or any other airline in business or first class, you'll be rebated 35% of your points back (getting you 1.54 cent per point value). MRs are worth only 0.6 cent per point as a statement credit, but if you get a Charles Schwab Platinum card then you can cash out at 1.25 cent per point.
Chase's UR system is easy to understand. All their UR-earning cards get you 1 cent per point as a cash redemption, but the Freedom cards get you 1 cent per point towards all travel on the UR portal, the CSP and CIP get you 1.25 cent per point towards all travel on the UR portal, and the CSR gets you 1.5 cent per point towards travel on the UR portal. A lot of times, particularly if I haven't stalked saver fares early enough, I'll find booking travel with UR points on the portal (as a revenue booking) to be a better value than transferring points to an airline frequent flyer program for award seats. Chase also has a good number of airline transfer partners, and URs transfer to United and Southwest, which aren't on MR. However, I don't think I've ever seen UR offer any transfer bonus promotions like MR and TYP. I think everyone's favorite UR hotel transfer partner is Hyatt, which offers really good value. Although both MR and UR transfer to SPG/Marriott, most people value 1 UR and MR > 1 Marriott point.
I can't say much about Citi TYP. I have one TYP-earning card, my second oldest, which I use once a year to keep it active. TYPs are hard to earn! Chase has a lot of UR earning cards, and Amex has a lot of MR earning cards, and their rules make these cards pretty easy to get to build up your UR and MR stashes with signup bonuses and bonus categories. Citi’s TYP cards, I think, have much stricter velocity limits. I think I redeemed my paltry stash of TYPs once for an
Amazon gift card. D'oh!
The other major flexible point currency is Marriott points. When Marriott absorbed the SPG program, they left SPG's airline transfer program mostly intact, and the major difference is you have to multiple 1 old Starpoint by 3, so Marriott points transfer to most of their airline programs at 3:1, with a 5,000 miles bonus when you transfer 60,000 Marriott points. So every 60,000 Marriott points transferred will in most cases get you 25,000 airline miles. Marriott’s air and hotel travel packages used to be a good value, but were nerfed with the merger. However, you can still find good redemption value for Marriott points at their hotels, particularly before peak pricing and new Cat. 8 kick in next year.
) for a total of 6%.
