Reasonable Redemption Values (RRVs)

Overview

Reasonable Redemption Values (RRVs) are estimates of how much value you can reasonably expect to get from your points.  With almost all points programs, it’s possible to get very little value or, sometimes, huge value from your points.  RRVs are intended to be mid-point values that are reasonably easy to achieve with just a bit of work in finding good rather than poor value awards.

With hotel points, we took an easy approach: the RRVs are the median observed values found when users search for hotel awards.  Half of the available awards offered better value and half worse.  You can read more about hotel RRVs and how they were originally determined here.  Airline miles are more complicated since award values vary tremendously based on a huge number of factors.  So, we developed a methodology to simplify things.  You can learn about that here: Airline Miles are worth 1.4 cents each. A simplified approach to Reasonable Redemption Values.

Please also see: Are points worth what they buy or what they save?

Transferable Points

Program Reasonable Redemption Value Source
Chase Ultimate Rewards 1.5 With Chase’s Sapphire Reserve card, it is possible to redeem points for travel through the Chase portal for 1.5 cents per point value. We think that’s a reasonable use of points even if you can often do better by transferring to airline miles or hotel points. We use this as the standard by which we value other transferable points programs.
Amex Membership Rewards 1.55 Amex offers many more transfer partners than Chase and also offers more frequent transfer bonuses. For these reasons, we’ve set the Amex RRV slightly higher than Chase’s.
Bilt 1.55 Bilt offers most of the same valuable transfer partners that Chase offers, plus some great additions like American Airlines and Avianca LifeMiles. For this reason we set the Bilt RRV slightly higher than Chase’s.
Citi ThankYou Rewards 1.45 While Citi has some great transfer partners that Chase doesn’t have (EVA, LHW, Choice 1 to 2, Wyndham, LifeMiles), Citi doesn’t offer transfers to Hyatt, or Air Canada so we set its RRV slightly lower than Chase’s.
Capital One “Miles” 1.45 In our opinion, Capital One’s transfer partners offer slightly less chance of outsized value than Chase’s and so we set Capital One’s RRV slightly lower.
Wells Fargo 1.4 Wells Fargo only has a small handful of transfer partners at this time and so we set the RRV lower than the other programs.

The above RRVs assume that points are transferred to airline miles hotel points and used for medium to high value awards. If, instead, you pay with points for travel the redemption value will be lower.

Airline Miles

Program Reasonable Redemption Value Source
Air Canada Aeroplan 1.3 Original calculation details here: What are airline miles worth? Update here: A big change to Frequent Miler’s point values.
Air France KLM Flying Blue 1.3
Alaska MileagePlan 1.3 Original calculation details here: What are airline miles worth? Update here: A big change to Frequent Miler’s point values.
American AAdvantage 1.3 Original calculation details here: What are airline miles worth? Update here: A big change to Frequent Miler’s point values.
Avianca LifeMiles 1.3 Original calculation details here: What are airline miles worth? Update here: A big change to Frequent Miler’s point values.
British Airways Avios 1.09 Original calculation details here: What are oddball airline miles worth? Update here: A big change to Frequent Miler’s point values.
Cathay Pacific Asia Miles 1.09 Original calculation details here: What are oddball airline miles worth? Update here: A big change to Frequent Miler’s point values.
Delta SkyMiles 1.3
(or 1.5 for cardholders)
See: What are Delta miles worth?
Frontier Bonus Miles 0.95 Original calculation details here: What are oddball airline miles worth? Update here: A big change to Frequent Miler’s point values.
Hawaiian Miles 0.75 Original calculation details here: What are oddball airline miles worth? Update here: A big change to Frequent Miler’s point values.
JetBlue TrueBlue 1.33 Original: What are JetBlue TrueBlue points worth? Update here: A big change to Frequent Miler’s point values.
Korean SkyPass 1.3 Original calculation details here: What are airline miles worth? Update here: A big change to Frequent Miler’s point values.
LATAM Pass 0.62 Original calculation details here: What are oddball airline miles worth? Update here: A big change to Frequent Miler’s point values.
Miles & More (Lufthansa) 1.3 Original calculation details here: What are oddball airline miles worth? Update here: A big change to Frequent Miler’s point values.
Southwest Rapid Rewards 1.4 The new true value of Southwest points, 2018 edition. New: reduced by 7% to account for not earning miles on award flights.
United MileagePlus 1.3 Original calculation details here: What are oddball airline miles worth? Update here: A big change to Frequent Miler’s point values.
Virgin Atlantic Flying Club 1.3 Original calculation details here: What are oddball airline miles worth? Update here: A big change to Frequent Miler’s point values.

Hotel Points

Program Reasonable Redemption Value Source
Best Western Rewards 0.54 See: What are Best Western points worth? (5/17/21)
Choice Privileges 0.68 See: What are Choice points worth? (5/10/21)
Hilton Honors 0.48 See: What are Hilton points worth? (12/8/22)
IHG One Rewards 0.63 See: What are IHG points worth? (12/24/22)
Marriott Bonvoy 0.80 See: What are Marriott Bonvoy points worth? (4/7/23)
One Key (Expedia, Hotels.com, VRBO)  0.71 3500 points = $25 hotel coupon = .71 cents per point
World of Hyatt 2.10 See: What are Hyatt points worth? (12/7/22)
Wyndham Rewards 0.88 See: What are Wyndham points worth? (3/7/23)

Hotel Free Night Certificates

We estimate hotel free night certificates by taking the maximum point value of the certificate and multiplying by a fudge factor to account for the fact that free night certificates are less valuable than points (certificates expire in a year or sooner, certificates are less flexible in how they can be used, etc.).  For Hilton and IHG certs we use an 0.85 fudge factor.  For Hyatt and Marriott, we use a slightly worse fudge factor of 0.8 in order to account for the fact that each has severe limits on how they can be used (i.e. Hyatt certs can't be used for higher category hotels and Marriott certs cannot be used at hotels that cost more than 15,000 points above the cert's top amount).
Certificate Reasonable Redemption Value Calculations
Hilton $490 120K points (even though some Hilton hotels charge more) multiplied by Hilton RRV ($0.0048) multiplied by a fudge factor (0.85).
Hyatt Cat 1-4 $252 15K points (based on standard pricing rather than peak) multiplied by Hyatt RRV ($0.021) multiplied by a fudge factor (0.8).
Hyatt Cat 1-7 $504 30K points (based on standard pricing rather than peak) multiplied by Hyatt RRV ($0.021) multiplied by a fudge factor (0.8).
IHG 40K $214 40K points multiplied by IHG RRV ($0.0063) multiplied by a fudge factor (0.85)
Marriott 35K $224 35K points multiplied by Marriott RRV ($0.008) multiplied by a fudge factor (0.8)
Marriott 50K $320 50K points multiplied by Marriott RRV ($0.008) multiplied by a fudge factor (0.8)
Marriott 85K $544 85K points multiplied by Marriott RRV ($0.008) multiplied by a fudge factor (0.8)

Other

Program Reasonable Redemption Value Source
Amtrak Guest Rewards 2.56 Points are worth up to 2.56 cents each on Acela trains and up to 2.9 cents each on other routes.
Arrival+ Points 1 Even though there is a 5% rebate when points are redeemed for travel, this estimate is based on the amount of travel that can be bought with existing points regardless of rebates.
CNB Rewards 1.11 When points are used for airfare, the points are more valuable for more expensive flights.  Point values range from 0.9 to 1.16 cents per point. Flights costing $300 offer about 1.11 cents per point value.  See: The Exact Value of CNB Crystal Visa Infinite Points.
FlexPerks 1.5 FlexPerks moved to fixed 1.5 cents per point value as of 1/1/2018
Merrill+ Points 1.44 Assumes using 25,000 points for $360 flight
PenFed Premium Travel Reward 0.85 How much are PenFed points worth?
Uber Cash 0.9 Valuing at 90% of face value since Uber gift cards are often available at a discount.
Most other bank points 1 Most bank point programs have points redeemable for 1 cent each for gift cards or travel.

 

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Daniel A

Question – if Hyatt points are 2.10 how are Chase UR worth 1.5? Chase UR are Hyatt points!

Greg The Frequent Miler

I know it’s weird but you have to think about the term “reasonable redemption value” to get it. We think its reasonable to expect to average 2.1 cpp or better when redeeming Hyatt points. But we also think its reasonable to expect to average 1.5cpp or better when redeeming Chase Ultimate Rewards. Yes, if you transfer to Hyatt you should expect 2.1 cpp or better, but what if you book travel through the Chase portal? Or transfer to United? etc.

Daniel A

Greg, thanks for the reply. Yeah, I get it. When I first started with points the primary allure of Chase UR was United transfers and I used my initial catch of points there. Thanks largely to Frequent Miler, I discovered Hyatt and adjusted up my value for Chase UR. I really appreciate your work, it’s expanded the world of points for me and this is a prime example. Related, you also helped me discover business cards which has allowed me and P2 to collect amounts of Chase UR I would have previously never dreamed possible.

Jacinto

What if we created a new RRV value for “FM mavens”. i.e. those who only:

  • use URs at Hyatt for > 2.5 cents per point
  • use TYPs for Choice transfers at 1:2 ratio
  • use Wyndham points for Vacasa 1BRs at 13.5k per room
  • etc.

There are probably many of your readers in the above categories, who hold onto points waiting for those opportunities. They would benefit from that new RRV category?

Nick Reyes

Personally, I think it makes sense to be more conservative so that you don’t make poor decisions on the “earn” side. For instance, I wouldn’t choose to earn 1 Hyatt point over earning 2% cash back on a purchase. Sure, I might redeem that Hyatt point for more value — but there may not be a Hyatt where I need to go or maybe there is but it’s only 1.8cpp, so if I gave up 2% back to earn the points, it would be a losing proposition — whereas if I kept the value of the points more conservative, I’d make choices that would lead to wins a greater percentage of the time.

So while Daniel above says that “Chase UR are Hyatt points!”, that’s just not going to be true 100% of the time. Just a few days ago, I was in Guadeloupe, where there are no chain hotels. A 2.5c RRV for Chase points would mean that I shouldn’t have used the Chase UR portal to book a vacation home for 1.5cpp. That’s not what I ultimately did, but would that have been a bad choice? I don’t think so. My stash of Hyatt points was worthless for that circumstance.

Tying the value of Wyndham to Vacasa is a little tricky since we don’t know that the Vacasa partnership will last forever or that the value will remain the same, etc. And Vacasa’s footprint is tiny!

At the end of the day, we want our RRVs to be broadly useful comparison points that indicate the value you can reasonably expect to get without much effort at maximization. Of course it is very much possible to do far better. Most of my Amex points are redeemed for international premium cabin travel, but if I valued Amex points at the ~6cpp that I usually get (or whatever it is) then I would sooner spend at 1.5x on an Everyday Preferred card card than at 3x on a CSR — and I don’t think a decision like that really makes sense over the long-term.

And if you’re holding points waiting for opportunities, there is also the opportunity cost of the interest your money could be earning if you cashed those points out and put the money in the bank or if you had chosen cash from the get-go and/or the risk of those points for those specific purposes devaluing. I “hold onto” lots of points across many programs, so I’m certainly not telling you not to do that, just that I think valuing points based on a stated desire to hoard them until you find specific use X in order to get some extra high value out of them is playing too fast and loose IMO.

Jacinto

All good points Nick, but I think your long term audience might be disproportionately made up of “points maximizers”. Newer readers, maybe not so much.

This blog posting of RRVs is the one that I constantly refer back to. Instead of having only one value per currency, my proposal is along these lines:

RRV (current) Reasonable Max
URs 1.5 2.5 (Hyatt)
MRs 1.5 6.0 (Intl 1st class)

Nick Reyes

I understand what you’re saying, but I don’t think it’s clear cut like that. I find it incredibly murky to value points for international premium cabins at prices I would never consider paying, but I do value them more than the cashout value of the points. I think trying to do what you’re suggesting seems so subjective from person to person and so likely to mislead the majority of people. I consider myself a points maximizer, but I have many times redeemed Hyatt points at less than 2.5cpp — and even when I redeem them for far more, that’s murky at best. I have an upcoming stay where cash rates are $1K+ and I’m using 35K Hyatt points per night. Sure, that’s more than 2.5cpp (which would mean that 35K Hyatt points are worth $875), but at the same time I’d never pay $1K per night, so it’s not really saving me 2.5c per point. Like if I had the ability to earn $875 cash or 35K Hyatt points, I’m taking the $875. But if I say that Hyatt points are worth 2.5cpp, that means that if my choice were $800 in cash or 35K Hyatt points I’d be choosing the points. Let’s double that for a second and say that there was one credit card offering a welcome bonus of 70K Hyatt points after $4K spend and another credit card offering $1600 after $4K spend. By your 2.5cpp valuation, the 70K Hyatt points would be the better choice (at a value of $1750) — but I just don’t think that’s a sound decision for most people. I think I’d unequivocally recommend the $1600 in that fictional example.

And in fact, Hyatt sells their points directly for 2.4c per point — so if the choice were literally between earning $875 or 35K points and I really needed the points, I’d take the $875 and buy 35K points for $840 and keep $35. They sometimes put points on sale for even less (most recently 2cpp). The same is true for many types of airline miles — if I tell you that Membership Rewards points are worth 6cpp toward premium cabin international travel, that’s not really true since you can probably buy miles from most airline programs for far less. Avianca LifeMiles is a great example because they very frequently sell their miles for around 1.3cpm. If you value Membership Rewards points at 6cpp, you might choose to earn 1x on a Platinum card over earning 2.625% cash back on a Bank of America Premium Rewards card with Platinum Honors — but you could have instead earned that cash back and bought two Avianca LifeMiles for every dollar spent rather than getting one. The “six cents per point” concept wouldn’t hold up and it would make a bad decision (spending at 1x rather than 2.625%) look like a swimmingly good one (and I recognize that 6cpp wasn’t your number or actual suggestion, it was my number that you plugged into your example).

Lastly, I love points maximizers and we certainly have plenty of points maximizer readers. And I can see why you might think that our audience skews disproportionately to advanced hobbyists, but for many reasons (traffic numbers, types of questions we see via email, FB group, older blog posts, etc and a lot of other things), I know that while we have and love a vocal audience of maximizers, we have a much wider portion of the audience that isn’t using Hyatt points at 2.5cpp or Amex points at 6cpp. Let me be clear: I love to redeem my points for far more than RRV — but I think it makes sense to compare my earning options based on RRV rather than inflating the numbers to amounts that I “might” be able to get that may or may not be relevant to the actual value to me.

Daniel A

Re: Hawaiian points. I think the valuation is way too low. Someone should easily get in excess of 1.0 – which I consider the minimum value. I consider 1.5 or above a solid redemption and have even recently got an inter-island trip at 2.1. You can certainly find worse than 1.0, but any reasonable effort should get at least 1.0. That said, I assume for many people they accrue only small amount of points and the redemption rates often don’t make it worth transferring Amex points so for them the points have no value.

[…] However, you need to know what they are worth to do the best redemption/transfer.  On average bank (Chase/Amex) points are worth about 1.5 cents each.  Airline miles and Hotel Points vary widely in worth.  So, make sure to know what the value is […]

EricF

When valuing free night certificates, if the hotel chain often runs sales of their points at a price lower than your rrv, that sale price should be used instead of your rrv. Not doing this has led to overvaluation of Hyatt and IHG certificates.

In my opinion your “fudge factors” are too high. If I had the choice between a certificate worth x points or 0.8x points directly, I’d take 0.8x points every time for the flexibility and the lack of a hard expiration date.

And I’d knock Marriott’s fudge factor down a bit more for non-transferable certificates (without the “additional guest” gamble).

[…] miles. I earned 5,000 base miles, plus a 150% bonus (7,500 miles) for a total of 12,500 miles. We value the redemption of Alaska miles at 1.3 cents each, so for each of these $200 flights, I got back ~$162 worth of […]

[…] miles. I earned 5,000 base miles, plus a 150% bonus (7,500 miles) for a total of 12,500 miles. We value the redemption of Alaska miles at 1.3 cents each, so for each of these $200 flights, I got back ~$162 worth of […]

[…] estimons le remboursement moyen de Points-récompenses d’adhésion à 1,55 cents chacun. Si nous tenons compte du crédit de relevé de 200 $ à 80 % de sa valeur […]

Brandon Unruh

Just a question…why do you value AMEX points more than the other ones? I’ve found Amex to be the worst transferable currency of all. Delta is the only domestic carrier and most of their other partners are in the other programs. All of their big MR cards carry high AF with coupon books in order to get the value back. Plus they have a “Once in a Lifetime Rule” so once you got your initial Sign up bonus that’s it where you have tons more opportunities with say Chase or Citi.

Everyone always praises the Gold card with the 4X on dining and groceries…but I can get 5X back having 2 Citi Custom Cash cards. And by also having the Premier I can transfer to Wyndham for VACASA rentals or Turkish for economy domestic flights that far exceed value.

Chase and Bilt transfer to Hyatt and United which Amex doesn’t have. Cap One and Citi transfer to both Wyndham. And Turkish can be transferred from Bilt, Cap One, and Citi.
Amex may be the OG but the other have all caught up and actually passed them by IMO.

BTW. Love the work and everything you do for us enthusiasts. I’ve become addicted to your YouTube shows and articles.

Greg The Frequent Miler

Great question. Honestly, we made that decision about the relative value of the programs a long time ago. At that time, IIR, Citi didn’t offer any hotel transfer partners. And even Chase has gotten better with the addition of Aeroplan. It’s time for us to reassess this.

Nick Reyes

I agree with Greg that there are numerous reasons to reassess our RRVs, but to respond to a couple of your points:

why do you value AMEX points more than the other ones? I’ve found Amex to be the worst transferable currency of all. Delta is the only domestic carrier and most of their other partners are in the other programs

First thought: I have never transferred a Chase, Citi, Capital One, or Amex point to a domestic carrier I don’t think….nor have I ever really considered it. The domestic US programs just rarely offer the best chance at outsized value — to me, having access to numerous foreign partner programs increases the odds of being able to use one of them to better value than the domestic programs the vast majority of the time (though I recognize that there can be exceptions and that the flexible cancellation policies of the domestic carriers now has an influence on value even in situations where their awards are priced higher than competitors with less flexible policies). At any rate, the number of domestic transfer partners has never really been a consideration for me in terms of the quality of a transferrable currency.

As a quick fact-check, I’ll note that Amex does transfer to other domestic programs: JetBlue (albeit at a poor ratio) and Hawaiian. Those two cases just further prove my point though in that most domestic programs aren’t your best option in most instances.

All of their big MR cards carry high AF with coupon books in order to get the value back

It’s a good point that the Amex Platinum and Amex Gold card have high annual fees. On the flip side, the no-annual-fee Blue Business Plus is all you need to transfer to partners and the card earns 2x everywhere on up to $50K in purchases per year (then 1x). With that card and an Everyday Preferred ($95 annual fee), depending on your spending patterns, I don’t think it would be terribly difficult to outpace what you’d earn with your choice of 3 Chase cards with a total annual fee of $95 (somewhat dependent on your spending categories and quantities). If you also had the Amex Green card ($150). I don’t think I’d say that “All of their big MR cards carry high AF with coupon books”. The Platinum and Gold card do, but there are 9 other cards that offer Membership Rewards welcome bonuses that I don’t think fit that characterization.

Plus they have a “Once in a Lifetime Rule” so once you got your initial Sign up bonus that’s it where you have tons more opportunities with say Chase or Citi.

The Lifetime rule definitely stands out at first glance.

At second glance, I think you’re missing the forest for the trees there from several standpoints:

  • There are 11 different cards that earn Membership Rewards points that offer welcome bonuses. Citi has 4 ThankYou cards that can offer welcome bonuses and they all have 48-month clocks (and the Double Cash frequently has no welcome offer at all and the Custom Cash and Rewards+ frequently offer 20K points or less for a welcome bonus). If you applied for all four Citi ThankYou cards, you wouldn’t have as many points as you could get with just 1 out of the 11 Amex cards offering Membership Rewards points….and you’d be done collecting welcome bonuses for four years. I don’t think there is any comparison there — you can earn far, far, far more Amex points from welcome bonuses than you would earn from Citi welcome bonuses for many, many, many years. On the Chase side, you have 7 cards that offer welcome bonuses that offer Ultimate Rewards, so the comparison is closer — until you consider that of Amex’s 11 welcome offers, 5 of them offer welcome bonuses as high or higher than the 2nd largest Chase Ultimate Rewards Welcome bonus and 2 Amex cards (consumer and business Platinum) each offer 150K points, which is 50% more than Chase’s highest welcome bonus. Yes, the annual fee on those Platinum cards is higher — but I think the suggestion that there are “tons more opportunities” with Chase or Citi just isn’t accurate.
  • Amex frequently has targeted no-lifetime-language offers. Many people have opened multiple Business Platinum cards concurrently — so the “lifetime” thing isn’t as cut and dry as it sounds.
  • Anecdotally, the “once per lifetime” thing seems to have a definition that is in actuality shorter than a lifetime.

I would actually say that there is far more opportunity with Amex on a welcome bonus standpoint as a base point. When you also consider their frequent authorized user bonuses and common upgrade bonuses (which aren’t subject to lifetime language) and more generous referral bonuses (which can make a big difference in a 2-player household as you could get more points from referring Player 2 than you’d get for opening a Freedom Flex or Freedom Unlimited card welcome bonus), I think the scale is really heavily weighted towards far more opportunity to amass Amex points than any other currency on the market.

Your point that you’ll pay more in annual fees to amass those points is a good one, but I think the margin is so great as to largely wipe out the fee differences.

Everyone always praises the Gold card with the 4X on dining and groceries…but I can get 5X back having 2 Citi Custom Cash cards.

Absolutely sound strategy for a lot of people. The flip side to that is that you’ll only earn 5x on up to $12K in spend per year (versus up to $25K in spend on the Gold card) and you’ll have likely only earned a 20K welcome bonus on one of those Custom Cash cards and the other will likely have been product changed from something else. By contrast, a 90K + $200 welcome offer on the Gold card could be mentally spread out over a lot of purchases to meet or exceed the return on the Custom Cash strategy for quite a few years (or that current welcome offer certainly helps to mitigate the fee for a few years even if you don’t value the monthly credits.

by also having the Premier I can transfer to Wyndham for VACASA rentals or Turkish for economy domestic flights that far exceed value.

Great programs that I love. If you make good use of these, awesome. Turkish in particular is obviously a favorite of mine. It’s been tougher than I’d like for me to take advantage of the domestic United sweet spot lately because they’ve been releasing so few seats to partners, but when they do it is awesome.

Wyndham can obviously be another high-value use. My counterpoint to that is that the Wyndham Earner Business card offers 8x at gas stations. That’s my main Wyndham point collector and it makes me fairly unlikely to need to transfer from Citi.

Chase and Bilt transfer to Hyatt and United which Amex doesn’t have. Cap One and Citi transfer to both Wyndham. And Turkish can be transferred from Bilt, Cap One, and Citi. Amex may be the OG but the other have all caught up and actually passed them by IMO.

I love my Chase transfers to Hyatt (and would also happily transfer Bilt points to Hyatt). In fact, I like Hyatt enough that I can’t bring myself to transfer enough points to United to book an award for my family of four — not only do I not want to part with so many Chase or Bilt points for a non-Hyatt redemption, but neither do I also want to pay the additional margin that United charges for an award over what I’d pay via Avianca, Turkish, ANA, or Aeroplan (all of which offer better values in at least some instances). I know Amex doesn’t have Turkish. I wish they did! But they do have the rest of those — and Chase is missing both Avianca and ANA. Chase does have Aeroplan though — and similar to how I feel about United, I’d have a hard time transferring Chase points to Aeroplan when I can amass more Amex points relatively easily (and thus transfer those to Aeroplan) whereas it is harder for me to amass as many Chase points, so I like to save what I’ve got there for Hyatt.

All of that said, I think you’re going to love this weekend’s podcast :-). So wait at least until tomorrow afternoon to get angry at me :-).

Brandon Unruh

Yeah I’ve been focusing all of my Chase Redemptions for Hyatt and use the Bilt as a combo for Hyatt/Turkish as needed. And Citi and Cap One as needed for Wyndham/Turkish.

I have the Wyndham Business for 8x gas purchases and 5x utilities, use the Custom Cash for 5% on Entertainment, AAA Daily Advantage for 5% Groceries and 3% Wholesale Clubs. US Bank Cash Plus for 5% Fast Food and Department Stores, an old Ducks Unlimited Card for 5% on Gas and Sporting Goods Stores, Target 5%, Lowes 5%, Discover and Freedom for 5% rotating categories, Amex Business for 4X Shipping. Use Chase/Bilt for dining at 3X, and Venture X for catch all 2X. Then like 7 hotel cards which are sock drawer cards. And 2 airline cards United/Allegiant as most of my paid flights are through them.

I’m getting 5% or better on most of my spend by with my current set up. Dining is the only big category I’m not but luckily Chase/Bilt points are so valuable for the non fast food restaurants.

My plan for my next card was going to be the Citi Premier for a 75k bonus which I will use for a year then probably product change to a Custom Cash for another 5X card that I make my primary restaurant card. Even without Premier you can still transfer to Wyndham 5:4 with Custom Cash effectively making it 4X still.

For me I’ve found most of my transfers have been Wyndham and Hyatt so it’s worked great for me so far. I’ve got 4 AMEX cards now (2 Marriott, Hilton, BCE) and planned on focusing on the MR cards for later in the game because of the “Lifetime Rule”. The Gold Card and Blue Business will definitely be among those….but don’t think I could get the value out of Platinum or could manufacture the spend needed for the other Business MR cards. If I had a blog or YouTube Channel like you I could definitely see the value with all of the referral and affiliate points you could earn!!! Maybe that should be my next move

Thanks for the feedback! Look forward to the show!

Brandon Unruh

Loved the episode! Great to see CITI get some love.

I did also just see your episode about the ANA Around the World ticket so now I’m super excited to get me some AMEX points built up too 🙂

EricF

Greg,

Regarding hotel RRV calculations:

When you wrote in your IHG most recent RRV update:
 
“I identified the first three search results with standard award availability and a guest rating of 4 or better”

How many hotels did you have to skip over, for each hotel chain, that you would have otherwise included in the calculation, because there was cash booking availability but no standard award availability? That number would be useful to compare across hotel chains. I don’t think the RRV should be modified by this data, but it would be useful to see it reported (as a percentage) along side the RRV.

Greg The Frequent Miler

Great idea. Unfortunately I didn’t keep track of that information, but I don’t remember ever having to skip very many except for specific dates in specific locations. For example, I remember having to skip a number of Marriott hotels in Miami one time and so I expect that there was something happening there for the date I was looking at that caused all of the standard rooms to get gobbled up.

Chris

Every airline RVV source says “New: reduced by 7% to account for not earning miles on award flights.”

Greg The Frequent Miler

Thanks for the reminder about that. I’ve now updated the Source notes.

Dave Hanson

Chase UR points have to be worth more than Hyatt points. But now Hyatt is labeled at fully 40%(!) more than Chase points.

Seems to me like it’s not that the individual valuations are so ill conceived–I get what you are doing. But those are not modified in context of conversions and opportunity cost, and they should be.

Servo

No US Bank Altitude Reserve?

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