How The Chase Sapphire Preferred Helps Me Save On Fall And Holiday Travel – Forbes Advisor – Technologist

Easily the number one way my CSP helps me save on fall and holiday travel is with the 25% bonus redemption value on all points redeemed through Chase Travel.

As a specific example, I started October 2024 with about 100,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards® points. I was able to amass this small fortune by using the Chase Trifecta, a strategy where you earn between 3 and 5 points on most purchases by rotating between the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card, Chase Freedom Unlimited® and Chase Freedom Flex® cards, depending on which one offers the highest rate on the purchase.

The second step in the Chase Trifecta strategy is to log in to your Chase account and use Combine Points to move all of your hard-earned points to your Chase Sapphire Preferred account. That way you can redeem the rewards via Chase Travel for 25% bonus value.

Now with 100,000 points pooled into my Chase Sapphire Preferred account, I could book up to $1,250 worth of travel, so that’s exactly what I did. I booked a couple of Comfort Plus seats for my partner Holly and myself on Delta, a rental car and even treated us to an upgrade from a compact sedan to a Ford Mustang.

For her part, Holly reminded me not to be naughty in the 315-horsepower muscle car since it wasn’t Christmas just yet and Santa was still watching.

In the end, booking with the 25% redemption bonus saved me about $200 on our travel plans; enough to cover a big chunk of my annual family gift budget.

If you’re starting from scratch, keep in mind that the Chase Sapphire Preferred currently has a welcome bonus of 60,000 bonus points after spending $4,000 in purchases in the first three months, plus up to $300 in statement credits on Chase Travel purchases within the first year from account opening. So it’s no wonder the Chase Sapphire Preferred made our list of the Best Airline Rewards Cards.

All this, and my “Chief Elf” card was just getting started.