In this post, we’ll talk about the common mistakes people make with Chase Ultimate Reward earning credit cards.
Chase Credit Cards are the best credit cards you can get if you’re starting out with credit cards. Hands down! But there is a lot of information about Chase Credit Cards that people don’t know. Here are the top 5 most common mistakes people make with Chase Credit Cards.
Top 5 Most Common Mistakes People Make with Chase Credit Cards
Mistake #1 Not Understanding the 5/24 Rule
The gist of the 5/24 means that if you open 5 or more cards in the past 24 months (from any issuing bank) you won’t be approved for any Chase Credit Card. So if you’re just starting out, go for the Chase Credit Cards first and pay attention to your 5/24 count.
If you have a Chase Sapphire Credit Card you won’t be eligible to get another Chase Sapphire Credit Card. Also, you won’t be eligible for the sign-up bonus of the Chase Sapphire card for the next 48 months.
If you want to get the sign-up bonus again for the Chase Sapphire Card you have to wait 48 months between each intro bonus.
Mistake #2 Not knowing the difference in Values of Chase Ultimate Reward Points between different cards
In order to take advantage of Chase’s transfer partners, you need to have certain credit cards. Not all Chase ultimate reward points in cards are going to give you access to those transfer partners such as British Airways, Hyatt, and United Airlines.
There are a few different partners can get more value than the 1 cent per point valuation for the Chase Freedom or Chase Freedom Unlimited Card.
I don’t always recommend using the Chase travel portal to use all your points to book travel just because you’re not really getting the most value compared to transfer partners. But it does give you more value 30% of the time compared to transfer partners.
It’s important to know how much your points are worth in the travel portal.
With the Chase Freedom and Freedom Unlimited Cards, you’re only getting 1 cent per point.
With the Chase Sapphire Card, you’re getting 1.25 cents per point.
With the Chase Sapphire Reserve Card, you’re getting 1.5 cents per point.
With the other Chase Business Cards such as the Chase Ink Business Cash it is 1 cent per point.
And also, 1 cent per point for the Chase Ink Business Unlimited Card.
1.25 cents per point with the Chase Ink Preferred Card.
If you have the Chase Sapphire Reserve Card 50,000 points will give you $750.
Depending on which card you have will determine the value you get out of those Chase ultimate reward points. If you were to book through the Chase travel portal, you can pretty much book through any airline.
Supposedly, it has the Expedia search engine but it doesn’t really match up to Expedia’s results. So I think they just put Expedia on the search engine just to make people more comfortable because it’s something most people know about.
Mistake #3 Not Knowing all the Benefits of Chase
Another mistake people make is not realizing that Chase Credit Cards offer a ton of other benefits besides just earning points on your everyday purchases.
I’m not going to go through all of the details of the benefits. But for example, you wanted to buy something in a store and the store offers a warranty where they charge you extra at the checkout. You could use one of these cards on the list of Chase Cards get extended warranties.
You can deny that warranty in the store and still get extra warranty just by using your Chase Credit Card.
You could also get rental car protections. So for example, every time I rent a car I use the Chase Sapphire Reserve card. The rental agency will offer me insurance for the car rental because if I damage the car, it could cost thousands of dollars. I can just pay this $20-$30 extra every day for the rental insurance but I always deny that because the Chase Sapphire Reserve card offers the same insurance that the rental agency is offering. It is completely free with my card. I don’t have to pay any extra.
It is definitely worth learning more about the other benefits your Chase Credit Cards offer besides just the points earning potential.
Mistake #4 Not Learning more about Chase Transfer Partners
This part could seem overwhelming to anybody who isn’t familiar with credit cards but Chase offers a lot of great transfer partners that you could get more value out of for your Chase ultimate reward points.
You work really hard to get your Chase points and it’s important to get the most value out of those Chase points as well. Depending on how you want to use them you can go to the airline transfer partners such as:
- United Airlines – Get nearly anywhere in the world with this program.
- Singapore Airlines – Use this program to fly to Australia too
- Aer Lingus – Ireland is wonderful. Dublin has incredible seafood and the countryside is a must-see.
- British Airways – This is how you book cheap flights to Hawaii from the West Coast and cheap flights within Europe and Asia. Really good for short domestic flights within the US even though it is a UK based airline.
- Flying Blue(KLM & Air France)
- Iberia
- Virgin Atlantic
- JetBlue – No blackout dates + the most legroom in coach
Even though there are some international airlines on this list you can still use them for domestic flights. Each airline has its own unique specialty that you could use it for.
If you are wondering which transfer partner is the best, I think Hyatt is definitely the best value for your Chase ultimate reward points because all these partners get transferred at a 1:1 ratio. So basically, one Chase point is equal to one Hyatt point, one Southwest point, one JetBlue point or whatever is on the list.
It’s always going to be 1:1 but with Hyatt, you’re going to get the most value for your hotels stays. I know it may be tempting to transfer those points over to Southwest or JetBlue but you’re really not going to get too much value with those transfers over to JetBlue or Southwest. You’re going to get the most value with Hyatt.
Don’t Transfer to IHG
Another tip with these transfer partners is: don’t transfer to IHG. IHG is a hotel chain but it doesn’t really offer good value when it comes to redemptions in general. So I don’t recommend transferring your Chase points over to IHG. I would consider it to be the worst redemption or the worst transfer partner.
It’s important to note that when you transfer your points over to any of these transfer partners you can’t get them back. So you never want to just transfer them, because you hear there’s a good redemption rate with Singapore Airlines, to get that first-class suite. You always want to make sure that there’s availability for the redemption you want to make first.
Some of these airlines will allow you to put that award booking on hold for 48 hours at times. If they don’t, is okay but you should make sure as soon as you transfer those points over to the airline that you book, they award redemption immediately. If there is no availability or you’re stuck with those in your loyalty account, you can’t transfer them back to Chase.
All transfers are final so you got to make sure you know what you’re doing, and you know what you’re going to book before transferring those points.
Mistake #5 Trying to hit the Minimum Spending
Another mistake is trying to hit the minimum spending and spending more money than you actually have. Some of these cards do have a high minimum spending such as Chase Sapphire Reserve and Preferred Card. They require you to spend $4,000 in 3 months which could be a lot for most people.
If you don’t have a plan to complete that minimum spending I recommend don’t apply for the card because you don’t want to spend more money than you have.
The interest rate on these travel credit cards is the highest in the industry. These interest rates could go as far as 24%.
How to complete the minimum spending?
One of the ways I like is to you make a list of the five most trusted people in your life, it could be family and friends, and you ask them:
Hey, do you have any big purchases coming up?
They might say, ‘Yes, I’m buying a refrigerator.
I’m doing a remodeling on my home.
I’m gonna buy gym equipment.’
Whatever it is, you ask them if they could use your credit card to complete the minimum spending and then they can Venmo you the money or give you the cash.
The most important part of this process is to make sure that they give you the money first before putting that spending on the card. Make sure this is someone you trust.
This way you make sure you get the money back and you can pay that bill right away.
Another way to complete the minimum spending is to use the service called Plastiq. Your biggest spending that you make per month is usually the mortgage, rent, car payments or student loans. You can put all of those purchases on a credit card using the service Plastiq.
There is a fee but if you want to get 500 fee-free dollars you could use this link {insert link here}. It’s a referral link and if you refer other people, let’s say you refer a co-worker, a friend or family member, then you get a thousand fee-free dollars. Rather than paying the 3% on a regular basis you can somehow manage to get referrals and get fee-free dollars that you could use for other big purchases.
If you want to learn more about Chase Credit Cards, how to earn the points, redeem the points and get the most value out of them, you can hop on to our newsletter email list. I frequently write about the best Chase Credit Card strategies and much more.