Should You “pay for Yourself” With Chase Points?
Over the past seven months, credit card holders have had to make some tough decisions to encourage travel. With fewer travel options, you might consider canceling your bonus credit card , especially if there is a high annual fee. You may have also thought about the best way to redeem your points and miles .
In May, Chase introduced another buyback option for Chase Sapphire Reserve and Chase Sapphire Preferred cardholders: the option to increase cashback by 25-50% for grocery stores, home goods stores and dining (restaurants, takeaway and delivery apps) until September … thirty.
Typically, your Chase Ultimate Rewards are one cent per point for a cash back or have a 1: 1 redemption value, but this promotion increases the value to 1.25 cents for Chase Sapphire Preferred and 1.5 cents for Chase Sapphire Reserve for categories above.
If you’re sitting on a stack of Chase Ultimate Rewards and trying to weigh your options, think about it before the September 30th deadline.
Weighing the pros and cons
Before making a decision, think about your family budget. If you’re struggling to pay your bills or are sitting on a high-interest credit card balance, it might make sense to redeem points through Pay Yourself Back.
Plus, if you won’t be booking flights, hotels, or car rentals for the foreseeable future, you can relax in the knowledge that Pay Yourself Back offers the best refund possible.
But if you’re going on vacation or sometime next year, you can get over 1.25 and 1.5 cents by transferring points to partner hotels and airlines. You can read more about these strategies from The Points Guy here .
How to use Pay Yourself Back
If you decide to use Pay Yourself Back, there are a few steps you need to follow. Start by logging into your Chase account and navigating to the Ultimate Rewards portal. You will see a menu item for a refund. This allows you to reimburse yourself for purchases in the past 90 days, including groceries, home improvement stores, and restaurants. You can select each transaction and use Ultimate Rewards points to recover expenses. You will receive a loan statement for each transaction within two to three days.