Best Ways to Use the Chase Sapphire Preferred 100,000-Point Bonus

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The Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card has been a consumer favorite for years. It offers a solid points-earning structure, a reasonable $95 annual fee and, perhaps most importantly, the ability to earn versatile Chase Ultimate Rewards points.

And recently, Chase added a slew of new perks like a yearly $50 hotel credit and increased earning rates in several categories including travel booked through Chase, dining, streaming services, and online grocery purchases (excluding Target, Walmart, and wholesale clubs). 

With these changes, the already strong Chase Sapphire Preferred has become even more formidable and deserves serious consideration from anyone looking to add a travel rewards credit card to their wallet. 

Best of all, the Chase Sapphire Preferred is offering its highest-ever sign-up bonus: You can earn a whopping 100,000 points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first three months of account opening. Once you have it in your wallet you’ll end up with plenty more points as you’ll likely find yourself using this card for many of your day-to-day purchases. 

Best ways to redeem the Chase Sapphire Preferred 100,000-point bonus

Before you apply, remember that Chase has specific restrictions for its lineup of Sapphire cards. First, you’re only permitted to have one Sapphire product at a time, so if you already have either a Chase Sapphire Preferred or its more-premium sibling the Chase Sapphire Reserve®, you won’t qualify for the card.

Second, you won’t be eligible to receive the sign-up bonus if you’ve earned the bonus on any Sapphire card within the last 48 months or have opened five or more cards from any issuer within the last 24 months (this is known as the Chase 5/24 rule).

Let’s look at some of the best ways to use the 100,000-point sign-up bonus from the Chase Sapphire Preferred.

Cash in your points for $1,250 through the Chase Travel portal

The most straightforward way to use your Ultimate Rewards points is to redeem them directly through Chase’s travel portal. You can book plenty of travel experiences through Chase Travel, including flights, hotels, cruises, rental cars, vacation rentals, and even unique experiences. 

Read more: How to earn, redeem, and maximize Chase Ultimate Rewards points

When you use your points this way, they’re worth 1.25 cents apiece, meaning if you were to use all 100,000 at one time, you could purchase up to $1,250 in travel.

For example, if you wanted to fly from Boston (BOS) to Paris (CDG) and the flight cost $625 round-trip, you could redeem 50,000 Ultimate Rewards points to cover the cost of the ticket. That’s a great value considering many other programs only allow you to redeem points for 1 cent apiece, meaning that same ticket would cost 62,500 points with other bank travel portals. 

And, using the portal is easy. All you have to do is log in to your Ultimate Rewards account online, click the “Earn/Use” button and then select “Travel.” From there, it’s similar to other online travel platforms. Navigate to what type of reservation you’d like to make, type in your travel details, and browse all the options. The portal will display the cash price as well as the price you’ll pay in points. 

Read more: Chase offers 2 ways to redeem points for travel — one option gets you the best deals on first-class flights

Book free nights at Hyatt hotels

One of the best uses of Chase points is to transfer them to the World of Hyatt program and book free nights at Hyatt properties around the world. 

Read more: You can transfer Chase points to 14 airline and hotel partners, and it’s one of the best ways to get maximum value from your rewards

First, make sure you link your World of Hyatt account with your Ultimate Rewards account through the Chase website. Then you can transfer points earned from your Chase Sapphire Preferred into your Hyatt account at a 1:1 ratio, meaning 1 Chase point becomes 1 Hyatt point once you complete the transfer (you must transfer in increments of 1,000 points). 

What makes transfers to Hyatt so lucrative is that Hyatt prices its award nights very reasonably, ranging from 5,000 to 40,000 points. 

With such a range of rates, you could use your 100,000 points in a number of ways. For example, you could spend a whopping 20 nights at a World of Hyatt Category 1 property, where each night costs 5,000 points. 

Read more: How to earn, redeem, and maximize Hyatt points

Let’s say you wanted to relocate to the American Southwest to live and work for several weeks. Instead of renting an Airbnb or another vacation rental property, you could live in the Hyatt Regency Albuquerque for 20 nights — all on points. After taxes, rooms cost on average about $250 per night, meaning you could get a $5,000 (or more) stay for free.

Alternately, you could spend your points on a lavish three-night stay at a Category 7 Hyatt property like the Park Hyatt Maldives where rooms routinely sell for over $1,000 per night. You could get three nights for free and still have (at least) 10,000 points left over, saving you thousands of dollars off the cost of your trip. 

Stay up to 25 nights at a Marriott hotel

Similar to Hyatt, you can transfer Ultimate Rewards points to Marriott Bonvoy at a 1:1 ratio. Marriott properties also start at just 5,000 points per night on off-peak dates, though as you get into the upper echelons of the chain’s properties, rates skyrocket, reaching as high as 100,000 points per night.

However, there are plenty of Category 1 Bonvoy properties that would make a great place to stay for a few — or several — nights. 

Read more: How to earn, redeem, and maximize Marriott points

Even better, Marriott has a program called PointSavers, which means you can save even more off the typical room rate. With a Category 1 property, this means you theoretically could book a staggering 25 nights at the off-peak PointSaver rate, where each night costs just 4,000 Bonvoy points. 

While you won’t be staying at high-end beachfront resorts, there are some interesting properties within the Category 1 band, including properties like the Four Points by Sheraton Bakersfield in California. The property goes for about $150 on average after taxes and fees, so you could save yourself $3,750 or more, if you booked 25 nights at the off-peak PointSaver rate.

Read more: I haven’t paid for a hotel room in 10 years — here’s how I stay for free

Book short-haul flights on Oneworld Alliance airlines

Chase Ultimate Rewards also has numerous airline transfer partners. One of the best to use is British Airways, a member of the Oneworld Alliance, which also includes airlines such as American Airlines, Iberia, Japan Airlines, and Cathay Pacific. 

Read more: How to earn, redeem, and maximize British Airways Avios points

Ultimate Rewards points transfer to British Airways at a 1:1 ratio — and there are frequent transfer bonuses meaning you can transfer at a better ratio, giving you even more points to work with. 

When you book award flights through the British Airways Executive Club, prices are determined based on the distance of the flight. And for North American flights up to 1,150 miles, you’ll pay just 9,000 miles each way in economy class.

For example, you could fly between New York-JFK and Chicago (ORD) for 9,000 British Airways Avios plus about $6 in taxes and fees. Or, you could fly American Airlines from its hub in Miami (MIA) to many of the Caribbean islands it serves for just 9,000 Avios plus taxes and fees — a great value considering many islands are often very expensive to reach.

Read more: The best ways to use 100,000 Avios points

Fly round-trip in business class to Europe

There’s nothing quite like beginning (and ending) a highly anticipated trip to Europe in business class. You can enjoy the extensive food and wine offerings all while stretching out in the lie-flat seat that will allow you to actually get a full night’s rest. 

Read more: How to get to Europe with credit card rewards

One of the best uses of points for getting to and from Europe is taking advantage of Iberia’s award chart, which allows you to fly between Chicago, New York, or Boston and its home base in Madrid, Spain (MAD), for just 34,000 points each way in business class on off-peak dates. 

Ultimate Rewards points transfer at a 1:1 ratio to Iberia Avios, and just like British Airways, there are semi-frequent transfer bonuses that make your Ultimate Rewards points even more valuable.

Read more: I used credit card points to fly round-trip from the US to Spain in business class for only $232, thanks to an under-the-radar strategy

If you can find off-peak award availability with Iberia, you could fly to Spain and back in the pointy end of the plane and still have at least 32,000 Ultimate Rewards points left over to use on your next flight.

Nick Ellis

Freelance Writer

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