Tag Archives: Chase Ultimate Rewards Points

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Overpaid Chase Credit Card? Receive Credit Balance Refund via ACH Bank Transfer Instead of Check

Good morning everyone.  A few days ago, my Chase Sapphire Reserve Credit Card statement closed and I ended up with a credit balance of $349.34 because I redeemed 1/3 of my Chase Ultimate Rewards Points for several Pay Yourself Back transactions.  I called Chase to see if I could move the credit balance from my Chase Sapphire Reserve to another Chase credit card (to act as a payment), but the rep said that the Pay Yourself Back transactions were not eligible to be moved to another Chase credit card.  She then asked if I would like to receive a check in the mail for the credit balance.  Before I said yes, I asked if it were possible to get a bank transfer instead.  She said yes – Chase recently started offering bank transfers for credit balances.  She told me I would receive an email from Chase in the next day with instructions on how to set up my Chase Payments account and receive a bank transfer.  I thanked her for her help and waited for the email to arrive.

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Reminder: Chase’s Pay Yourself Back Feature Does Not Allow Multiple Partial Redemptions

Good morning everyone, I hope your week is going well.  A few days ago, I wrote Why I Redeemed 1/3 of my Chase Ultimate Rewards Points with the Pay Yourself Back Feature.  That post received many great comments, but the comment from Al was especially relevant to me:

“I didn’t realize that the maximum redemption for an eligible charge (grocery) had to be made at one time. I redeemed $300 out of a $500 charge figuring I could redeem the remaining $200 at a later date. Well, I was wrong. But now I know for the rest of my eligible charges.”

According to the Pay Yourself Back terms, “Once you redeem any amount of points towards an eligible purchase for a statement credit, it will no longer be an eligible purchase.” I inadvertently tested this out on June 28 when I did a partial redemption (I did not do the max dollar amount) for a Trader Joe’s purchase.  As you can see, I only have 3 eligible Pay Yourself Back transactions available.

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Why I Redeemed 1/3 of my Chase Ultimate Rewards Points with the Pay Yourself Back Feature

Good morning everyone, I hope your weekend is going well.  I recently had a change of heart and decided to redeem 1/3 of my Chase Ultimate Rewards Points with the Pay Yourself Back feature.  Chase introduced the Pay Yourself Back feature on May 31 and I wrote How to Redeem Chase Ultimate Rewards Points via Pay Yourself Back (1.5 Cents Per Point for Restaurants, Grocery Stores & Home Improvement).  Initially, I was not very excited about the new feature, since I convinced myself that I could use my Chase Ultimate Rewards Points in other ways and get more than 1.5 cents per point.

After realizing that I had no concrete travel plans remaining in 2020 (I recently cancelled trips to Boston & New York along with a big trip to Africa), I figured that my stash of Chase Ultimate Rewards Points would probably not be used much this year.  Before redeeming 1/3 of my Chase Ultimate Rewards Points, I looked at Chase’s travel partners to see if there were any major reasons to keep my Chase Ultimate Rewards Points.  Chase has 13 airline and hotel partners, but only has 4 exclusive partners (Southwest Airlines, United Airlines, IHG, and Hyatt), the remaining 9 travel partners are accessible with American Express Membership Rewards Points, Citi ThankYou Points, and Capital One Miles.

My wife and I have ~58,000 Southwest Airlines points and ~$150 in travel credit, so I would not need to transfer Chase Ultimate Rewards Points to Southwest Airlines.  I am not a huge fan of United Airlines and can usually book Star Alliance flights with other travel programs, plus I have ~$178 travel credit from a cancelled United flight.  IHG points are worth ~0.5 cents per point and I have ~222,000 IHG points in my account.  Last but not least, Hyatt is the only travel partner that stands out from the list.  I decided to save at least 60,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards Points just in case we stay at a Hyatt later this year).

I figured that normal spending on our Chase Ink Cash Credit Card, Chase Sapphire Reserve Credit Card, and Chase Freedom Credit Card this year would replenish our Chase Ultimate Rewards Points balance by the end of 2020.

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Anatomy & Timeline of 2 Cancelled Air Canada Aeroplan Award Tickets

Good morning everyone, happy Friday!  Long story short, I planned an awesome award trip to Africa (Victoria Falls, South Africa, and Madagascar) for August 2020, but due to the Coronavirus Pandemic, we decided to cancel the trip and try again next year.  I planned / booked this award trip in October 2019 and part of the award booking process involved transferring 77,000 American Express Membership Rewards Points to my Air Canada Aeroplan account.  I recently wrote about my Anatomy and Timeline of a Cancelled American Airlines Award Ticket, so I decided I would write something similar for my experience cancelling 2 Air Canada Aeroplan award tickets.

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PSA: Chase Sapphire Reserve Annual Fee Post Date May Not Match Start of $300 Travel Credit Period

Good afternoon everyone, I hope your weekend is going well.  A few weeks ago, Chase announced a few changes regarding the Chase Sapphire Reserve Credit Card.  Among the changes were the ability to redeem Chase Ultimate Rewards Points for 1.5 cents per point toward restaurant, grocery store, and home improvement purchases from May 31 through September 30 and the ability to redeem the $300 travel credit toward grocery and gas station purchases from June 1 through December 31.  Since my annual fee posted in April, I was excited to take advantage of the $300 travel credit toward those new categories.  I used my Chase Sapphire Reserve at Raley’s (my local grocery store) and patiently waited for the travel credit to apply.  Unfortunately, after waiting a few days, the statement credit did not post.  I did some digging and found out that I had already used my $300 travel credit in October 2019.  Let me explain what happened.

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