October 14, 2024
Chase Ultimate Rewards® as an Endgame
Pam
One strategy for earning points and miles that I’ve long thought about is earning Chase Ultimate Rewards® as an endgame. In other words, I think that concentrating on earning Ultimate Rewards makes a lot of sense. They are by far my favorite points and I am constantly trying to earn more of them. I primarily use them to transfer to Hyatt hotels, but also use them for United℠ and Southwest® flights. Additionally, they transfer to other partners, including:
- Aer Lingus
- Air Canada/Aeroplan
- British Airways
- Emirates
- Flying Blue (KLM/Air France)
- Hyatt
- Iberia
- IHG
- JetBlue
- Marriott
- Singapore Airlines
- Southwest®
- United℠
- Virgin Atlantic
So, how would this strategy work? I will explain it assuming there is a Player Two involved.
Step One
Player One gets the card_name for 60k points. The annual fee is $95. They then refer Player Two, who gets 10,000 points as a referral bonus. Player Two gets an additional 60K Ultimate Rewards.
They now have 130,000 Ultimate Rewards.
Learn How to Apply
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Step Two
Player One gets the Chase Freedom Flex℠ Card (this is a non-affiliate link), which has a standard welcome offer of 20,000 Ultimate Rewards points after spending $500 in 3 months. There is no annual fee on this card.
They refer Player Two for the same card and receives a referral bonus of 5,000 Ultimate Rewards points. Player Two completes the $500 minimum spend.
They have a total of 45,000 points from this step.
As a side note, this card earns 5x rotating quarterly categories, making it a great card to keep in your wallet.
All information about the Chase Freedom Flex℠ Card has been collected independently by Travel Mom Squad. The Chase Freedom Flex® Card Card is no longer available through Travel Mom Squad’s affiliate network.
Step Three
Player Two refers Player One to the Chase Freedom Unlimited® (this is a non-affiliate link; with the Freedom Flex you can refer to the Unlimited and vice versa) and receives 5,000 Ultimate Reward points.
Player One completes the $500 spend (no annual fee) and earns 20,000 Ultimate Rewards via the introductory welcome offer.
Then Player One refers Player Two to the same card, receives 5,000 referral points, completes the $500 spend, and gets another 20,000 Ultimate Rewards.
They now have 50,000 Ultimate Rewards from this step.
All information about the Chase Freedom Unlimited® Card has been collected independently by Travel Mom Squad. The Chase Freedom Unlimited® Card Card is no longer available through Travel Mom Squad’s affiliate network.
Total Ultimate Rewards=225,000 with $190 in annual fees and $10,000 spent toward meeting the minimum spends.
Player One and Player Two are both at 3/24 and can now get more Chase Cards or move on to other issuers that interest them.
Earn More Ultimate Rewards® with Business Cards
Let’s carry this idea of further making Chase Ultimate Rewards® an Endgame and get business cards. Remember, it is easier than you think to get business cards. Start a little side gig, and you can get one. The best thing about getting a business card is that it doesn’t count toward your 5/24 status.
The following cards are business cards. Learn more about qualifying for business cards here.
Step Four
Player One gets the card_name and qualifies for 35,000 bonus points if they make $3,000 in purchases within three months of account opening and an additional 40,000 bonus points if they make a total of $6,000 in purchases within six months of account opening (for a possible total of 75,000 bonus points).
Here are some ideas for meeting that higher minimum spend.
Player One then refers Player Two to the card and receives a 20,000 referral bonus. Player Two completes their minimum spend and now has 75,000 points.
This step has given us an additional 170,000 Ultimate Rewards.
Learn How to Apply
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Step Five
Player Two refers Player One to the card_name (once you have an Ink card, you can refer to any Ink card).
Player Two receives 20,000 points as a referral bonus, and Player One receives the 90,000-point welcome offer.
Then, Player One refers Player Two to the card_name and receives 20,000 referral points. Player Two receives the 90,000-point welcome offer.
In this step, they have earned another 220,000 Ultimate Rewards.
Learn How to Apply
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At this point, Player One and Player Two would have a grand total of 390,000 in Ultimate Rewards from business cards and 225,000 from personal cards.
Step Six
This is the last step. To complete this step, you might need to have a big expenditure or many big expenditures coming up, like paying taxes.
Player One refers Player Two to the card_name. This card has a standard welcome offer of 90K Ultimate Rewards after spending $8,000 in the first three months and a $95 annual fee. Player One earns a 20,000 referral bonus.
Player Two refers Player One to the same card and earns 20,000 referral points. Player Two completes the spend and earns another 90,000 points.
The total earned in this step is 220,000 Ultimate Rewards points.
Learn How to Apply
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Total Earnings
The strategy of earning Ultimate Rewards as an endgame leaves you with 615,000 Ultimate Rewards through step 5.
If you have more expenses and can do step 6, you will have 835,000 Ultimate Rewards.
The best part is that you are still at 3/24 with Chase despite opening up three more cards each because the business cards don’t count against your 5/24.
Earning and using Chase Ultimate Rewards® is an easy way to get to Hawaii.
Bottom Line
This isn’t how I started my points and miles journey. Looking back, I can see how important Chase Ultimate Rewards® have been to my travels. If I were to do it all over again, choosing Chase Ultimate Rewards® as an endgame would be a strategy I would have considered. What are your thoughts about this strategy?
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WOWW! so much to wrap my head around, I love this step by step plan!!
I’m glad that it helps you!
Question: it sounds like you can combine the Chase points from different cards. How do you combine points for P1 and P2? Can you also somehow combine chase and Amex or chase and cap one?
For those of us with high income and high expenses, we can do this in the first year (I did!). What about next year?
You’ll have to move on to other currencies until you can apply again – Remember, that you can get more than one of the Ink Business cards using a SSN (sole proprietor) and EIN.
This is almost exactly how I’ve done it so far! In 2 years we’ve gotten almost 1 million points by leveraging higher bonuses and larger referral bonuses when they were offered.
This is exactly the strategy that my husband and I did. We then actually each did a second round of the ink cards. First round we did with our social, second round we did with EINs.