Gunnar and Kyle record a special, emergency episode to explain why a new 100,000-point sign-up bonus on the Chase Sapphire Preferred card should be on every traveler’s radar. Plus, they explain who is eligible for the bonus (including if you already have the card), and take a stab at explaining why Chase would be doing this in the first place.
Gunnar and Kyle record a special, emergency episode to dive into the biggest news in travel in months: A new 100,000-point welcome bonus on the Chase Sapphire Preferred card. They talk about why it should be on every traveler’s radar, explain who is eligible for to earn it (including if you already have the card), and take a stab at explaining why Chase would be doing this in the first place.
Everything You Need to Know About the Chase Sapphire Preferred 100k Bonus Point Offer
(00:00) Can Kyle transfer Chase points to the White Lotus?
(01:45) Why this offer is so exciting (and is it the best bonus of all time?)
(04:10) Which finger would you remove to earn 100K Chase Ultimate Rewards points?
(09:55) How long will this new bonus offer last?
(10:50) What is Chase doing here?
(13:30) Why we think Chase points are the best in the world
(15:05) We draft our top 3 redemptions using 100K Chase Ultimate Rewards
(25:00) How to Sign Up for the Chase Sapphire Preferred to earn 100K bonus points!
Full disclosure: If you decide to sign up for the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card through our website, we'll make a commission - and we appreciate it!
Produced by Gunnar Olson & Nick Serati
Edited by David Strutt
Show music: All That by Benjamin Tissot
Yo. Welcome to the show. I'm Gunnar Olson here with a guy who cannot wait to transfer a hundred thousand Chase Ultimate Awards to the White Lotus to book his next free night hotel stay. Kyle Potter. Is that a thing?
And if it's not, can it be? Of course. Chase Ultimate Rewards have the best transfer partners, including maybe someday the fictional White Lotus that we're talking about. But the reason why we're here today is for our first ever breaking news podcast, Kyle. We're gonna talk about something really exciting that we think all travelers out there need to find out about.
And that thing is the Chase Sapphire Preferred. There's a brand new bonus, a hundred thousand point bonus after spending $5,000 in the first three months of opening the card. And it's one of the biggest credit card bonuses ever, not just on the CSP, but on any card. So tell us why you're excited about it. I mean, this is huge news, and it's a massive opportunity, not just for, you know, the points and miles credit card obsessed sickos like us, but for everyday people, I mean, for, you know, the better part of a decade or more.
This has been the number one credit card recommendation for travelers out there, whether you're just getting started or you've been at it for years. And as word started to spread, within the last few weeks that this huge bonus was coming, we were shocked. It has been years since we've seen a bonus this big, and we honestly thought it would never come back again. Yeah. We are so glad it's back for ourselves and all the travelers out there.
So we're gonna talk about how to earn it, including maybe if you already have a CSP like yours truly, and, talk a little bit about why Chase might be doing this. And then at the end, we'll have some fun and talk about what we do with a hundred thousand Chase Ultimate Rewards. Welcome to the Thrifty Traveler podcast. So if you all can't tell already, we're extremely excited about this new offer, but it's crucial for us to stress how important it is to be responsible when it comes to your credit and signing up for credit cards. We always say here that credit cards are serious business, and we all live by that.
It's never a smart idea to sign up for a card you can't pay off in full every month, and it's never ever worth it to go into debt just for points. But assuming that we can all do this responsibly, Kyle, why is this credit card offer so sweet? Because like you said at the beginning, this isn't just, you know, the biggest bonus, the best bonus that we've seen on the Chase Sapphire Preferred card. It's arguably the best bonus of all time, period. Or certainly in the conversation, it needs to be to be able to earn a hundred thousand points in one fell swoop and not just, you know, Delta SkyMiles or Hilton honors points, all of which are great, but, you know, Chase Ultimate Rewards points because of their versatility and their flexibility are just the cream of the crop.
There is nothing better. So to be able to earn a hundred thousand of them in one fell swoop, by the way, on a credit card that has just a $95 a year annual fee. I mean, to be able to get a big bonus, which is what we're all about. A bonus that big in the six digits typically requires a credit card. And, you know, in the premium echelon where you're paying $3.25 or $6.50 or close to $700 in annual fees a year.
You know, the Chase Sapphire Preferred card has just a $95 a year annual fee. So you are getting some serious bang for your buck here. This is one of the few cards that I think really appeals to everybody on the spectrum that's listening to this podcast, whether you're just getting started, you know, with your first travel credit card or you've been doing this for years and you've got a wallet full of them, it's incredibly easy to redeem Chase Ultimate Rewards points. You can use the Chase travel portal. You get some extra value when you're doing that because, you know, when you're booking a flight or a hotel through the Chase portal, every single point is worth 1.25¢ apiece.
But then you get into the world of, you know, Chase transfer partners where you can transfer your points to Virgin Atlantic and Air France and Emirates and Singapore and, you know, amazing hotel chains like Hyatt. So, you know, there's that versatility. There's that value. But, you know, really, what it comes down to is that most people, you and I included, would give our left arms or at least a pinky, maybe a couple of fingers to earn a hundred thousand Chase points. So we're gonna do it.
And I think that's the biggest thing here, which I think you and I can get into now, is this isn't just, you know, big news for people who haven't had a Chase Sapphire card yet. This is big news for people who, you know, potentially have had one of these cards in their wallets for years. Because if you time it right, if your timing is right, you can get this big bonus again even if you still have that Chase Sapphire Preferred card in your wallet. Yeah. And I think it's a no brainer.
Every single member of our team, I believe, already holds this card. It's, you know, definitely one of the most valuable cards I have in my wallet. And I'm honestly just distracted now trying to think of which finger I would get rid of for a hundred thousand Chase Ultimate Rewards. And, it's the only thing I can think about now. So thanks for that image, Kyle.
I appreciate it. So pick a finger. I don't know. We’re not doing our normal on the spot, but I guess we are pick a finger gunner. I guess it would be left pinky, but I don't know.
I mean, it, yeah. I don't wanna get rid of any of them, Kyle. I like all of my fingers. Alright. Alright.
Not equally, I guess. But so alright. You mentioned, people who already have this card, like you and me, can still be eligible for it. Can you tell me a little bit about how that works? So, there there are two factors at play here.
The first and most important one for people who still have a Chase Sapphire card, whether it's the Preferred, the card that we're talking about, or the top tier premium Chase Sapphire reserve card is that Chase has, you know, a you can call it a 48 rule or a four year rule. Basically, what it means is you can't earn another bonus, until four years, forty eight months has passed since the last time you earned a bonus on a Chase Sapphire card. Not since you opened that card, but when you actually earned that bonus. But, you know, lucky for me and and lucky for you as well, it you know, for me, it has been, you know, more than six years since I earned a bonus on my Chase Sapphire Preferred card, which means I am well past this limit. So, you know, as long as it's been at least forty eight months since you've earned a bonus on a Chase Sapphire card, whichever one you have in your wallet, even if you've downgraded that card or canceled it already, you are potentially eligible for this, which is huge.
And there are a lot of people out there that fit the bill here. I mean, this is, like we said, the number one travel credit card that we recommend to people getting started in this, which means a lot of folks out there have had one of these cards in their wallet for, you know, close to a decade or more at this point. So the timing is right. Alright. So let's say it's been four years and you're eligible to apply for this card again.
How would you go about doing it? I mean, the important thing is that Chase won't allow you to have two of these cards at the same time. It won't allow you to have both a Chase Sapphire Reserve and a Chase Sapphire Preferred card. And you certainly can't have two. So what you need to do and and, you know, I would recommend to anybody who, you know, fits the bill here.
The timing is right. You're going to be eligible to do this. Call up Chase, downgrade or product change your existing Chase Sapphire Preferred card to one of the free Chase Freedom cards, either the Chase Freedom Flex or the Chase Freedom Unlimited. And then you give it, you know, a week, maybe two. And by then, you know, the Chase Sapphire Preferred card on your credit report should fall off.
And then you're now eligible to apply for that again and then get this bonus after spending $5,000 in three months. The the kind of extra wrinkle here is that you still need to fall under what Chase calls its five twenty four rule. So that's the second layer of this, which is if you've applied for five or more credit cards, not just from Chase, but from any bank and been approved from for them within the past twenty four months, Chase just isn't going to approve you for a credit card anyway, regardless of where you fall within this kind of four year, forty eight month rule. So that's the second piece of it. We'll link to this in the show notes to figure out exactly how to calculate this, which cards count, and which ones don't towards your five twenty four status.
But that's that's another kind of linchpin in in making this work. But, again, there's gonna be a lot of people out there who are going to be eligible for this big bonus again. Yeah. So you mentioned, some of the requirements for for earning the bonus, which is gonna be spending $5,000 in three months. It's not nothing for a lot of people.
Do you have any strategies for hitting a spending bonus like that responsibly? I mean, the biggest thing is just to plan ahead and and plan it around big expenses in your life. You know, I know you're doing some big home renovation projects. That's kind of the perfect thing because typically, that's that's money that you've got set aside already to do something. So why not put it on a credit card even if you have to pay a small fee to process that transact transaction, you know, to pay a two or even three or 4% fee and earn a hundred thousand points in order to make that spending requirement and potentially one fell swoop, that is well, well worth it.
You know, I I need to buy a couch soon, so I'm waiting to purchase that couch until I can get this Chase Sapphire Preferred card in my wallet. Make that purchase. And I've knocked out the vast majority of the spending requirement, you know, with just one swipe. That's the best way to do this. But, you know, think about the expenses that you have coming up in your life.
You know, utility expenses, every little bit counts. Right? If you're able to charge, you know, if you're if you're paying rent and you're able to charge rent on a credit card, that is huge. You could, you know, knock out the spending requirement with just one or two months rent. Home projects, I mean, the list really goes on.
One last thing here, before we move on to some of their context about this offer. Our credit cards team is pretty plugged into this stuff. They seem to think that this, this new sign up bonus isn't gonna last very long. What should people know about, you know, I guess, is time of the essence here? Absolutely.
Let's be clear. We don't know how long this is gonna last. Chase isn't saying so far, but if past is prologue and it typically is, this bonus is not going to last long. I feel very comfortable saying we're talking about weeks, not months where you're going to be able to apply for this Chase Sapphire Preferred card for a hundred thousand point bonus before Chase calls it good and pulls it and drops it back down to the standard bonus of 60,000 points. So it that 40,000 points makes a huge, huge difference, if you if you can do this responsibly, if you're eligible for the bonus based upon your credit history, you gotta move fast.
Yeah. Absolutely. Part of the reason why you gotta move fast is that hundred thousand point offers like this just don't come around that much anymore, especially for a card this cheap. So what is what is Chase doing here? Like I said, I think this caught us all by surprise because the last time we saw Chase offer a bonus this big on the preferred card was back in the summer of twenty twenty one.
And it was just a different time. I mean, this was at a time, you know, over that summer, travel was still not anywhere close to back to normal. And and banks, Chase in particular, needed to do things, to get people into their ecosystem, to get people excited about travel and to open travel credit cards and spend on them. And the way that they did that, and Chase was not alone back in 2021 was to offer these eye popping, huge record setting bonuses. You know, we've seen Chase dabble in the year since, but nothing close to that.
I mean, we've seen a couple of 75,000, 80 thousand point bonuses. We've seen, you know, some and a new wrinkle in this where Chase and other banks offer a combination of, of a bigger bonus and a travel credit. So in Chase's case, you know, they tacked on a $300 credit to use through the Chase travel portal. You know, and all of that is nice, but nothing moves the needle quite like a hundred thousand point bonus to get into six digits for the first time in almost four years. I mean, this truly is, is, is a big moment for anybody that, you know, lives and breathes this stuff like we do.
Yeah. You know, we see a lot of, really competitive bonuses out there in the 70 thousands and, like you said, maybe even 80 thousands. But, their competitors, AmEx and Capital One, have, you know, probably a lot to do with this. Is competition just that fierce right now for new credit card applicants? I I think it has to be.
Right? There's no other reason why we would see Chase doing what we considered unthinkable and bring back this hundred thousand point bonus. You know, what it is is it's just pure marketing. They every bank needs to get more people in the door in order to, you know, make purchases, spend on their credit cards, you know, potentially, but hopefully not if you're listening to us and being responsible paying interest on those, which is where banks make the real money. And the most effective way for for banks to spend their marketing dollars isn't ads.
It's not paying Jennifer Garner to go on television, though that probably helps for Capital One. It's offering a big bonus like this. And like I said, nothing moves the needle like a hundred thousand point bonus. I'm I'm still as much as we talk about it, I still am shocked that we're talking about this again. You know, we talk about this in the office all the time, and and we tell, our readers and listeners as much as they will listen that Chase Ultimate Rewards are some of the best points in the world.
If I could have any points, just one currency, I would choose Chase Ultimate Rewards. And it's because of that value and because of their transfer partners. Chase's transfer partners are some of the best if you want to fly around the world in any class and some of the best if you wanna stay at some of the best hotels as well. And we have established you would give up your left pinky for a hundred thousand of them. Yeah.
Left pinky, gone. I'll take a hundred thousand Chase points, to, book my next trip, and I'll lose one digit to do it. And the other thing worth keeping in mind for people do who don't have the time or energy for any of this is that you can transfer this hundred thousand point bonus into a thousand dollar to your bank account, not just turn it into a statement credit or a gift card, but you can actually transfer a hundred thousand points into a thousand dollars straight to your bank account. So, I mean, either way, you're coming out ahead. There's no wrong way to do this.
Can you do better than that? Again, absolutely. But there's there's no wrong way to do this other than just letting it pass you by if you are eligible for it. Yeah. Exactly.
There are very simple ways to use this bonus too. There's, you know, while there are best ways, there are no wrong ways here. This is, a hundred thousand Chase Ultimate Rewards is very valuable no matter which way you use it. Let's talk about a few of our favorite redemptions. I think we each picked three and I'm gonna let you go first.
But with a hundred thousand Chase Ultimate Rewards, what would you, Kyle Potter, do besides send them to the White Lotus, which does not exist? Send them to the White Lotus. No. My my favorite redemption, and we're we're really spilling secrets here on the podcast. You can book, economy flights operated by Air France or KLM by using Virgin Atlantic miles.
So you transfer your chase points to Virgin, and then you book an Air France or KLM flight from The US to Europe for as low as 30,000 points round trip. The key here is that for most cities and some cities are actually a little bit cheaper than that. From most cities, though, you're gonna get hit with 3 to $400 in surcharges. So, you know, you can book, Air France or KLM economy from Detroit or Chicago, you know, to Paris or Amsterdam, or even connect onward to Rome or Madrid or wherever for, you know, 30,000 points or less, but you're gonna pay $500 except for from our hometown of Minneapolis, where for whatever reason, for the last several years, Virgin Atlantic isn't passing on those fees only when departing and returning to Minneapolis, which means you can book, you know, from Minneapolis to Paris, Rome, Amsterdam, London with a connection, Athens with a connection. I mean, the list goes on for as low as 30,000 points and about 200 to $200 2 50 dollars in fees.
It is far and away one of the best economy flight deals that we send. It's one of the most popular deals that we send our premium members. Don't tell Chase. Don't tell Virgin Atlantic. Just go out and book this.
This is the top of my list. And so with a hundred thousand points, you could get at least three tickets if you have an existing stash of Chase points or some additional credit card points that you can top off your Virgin Atlantic account with. You could get the whole family to Europe, in the fall or next year for for this bonus. It's huge. Yeah.
That's a special one. That's a really cool redemption. For my first pick, I'm gonna do something a little lazy and just tell you exactly what I did with my last hundred thousand chase bonus. And that is to, book a honeymoon stay three nights at the park Hyatt Zanzibar. Running it back.
Running it back. Babe, we're going back to Zanzibar. At 25,000, World of Hyatt points per night, the Park Hyatt Zanzibar is a really affordable Park Hyatt, all things considered. It was also an incredible stay. The service is amazing.
Free breakfast for all guests no matter what. Beautiful views. Zanzibar is just a a special, interesting, very cool place to go travel. You can also get some nights at 21,000 points when they're off peak. So you can make that four nights at the Park Hyatt Zanzibar, but that's what I would do with my first pick.
Kyle, I'll go back to you. What is your second pick for how you'd use a hundred thousand Chase URs? Alright. So the bonus itself is a hundred thousand points. But in order to earn that hundred thousand points, you have to spend at least $5,000, which means at the end of the day, you're gonna get at least a 5,000 points, which is more than enough to book Emirates first class on its Airbus a three eighty, the signature double decker with a shower up in first class and a bar at the back of the business class cabin that you can visit, which will cost you a 2,000 Emirates miles each way.
So you transfer a 2,000 chase points to Emirates. And while you can do this from JFK to Milan, I would urge anyone who has Emirates first class on their bucket list to instead book the flight back from Milan back to JFK. Again, this is the route that's operated with their A380, which means you get the full Emirates experience shower included. But most importantly, because you're flying from Milan to JFK, the flight is a little bit longer. Slides going west take a little bit longer.
So instead of a pretty quick six and a half, seven hour flight, you're talking about more like eight and a half hours. Every single second counts when you're flying Emirates, but it also departs during the day. Whereas, you know, the flight from JFK to Milan leaves pretty late at night, which means it's a shorter flight. And the focus of the entire experience is just getting a quick meal and going to bed and then waking up when you're landing. That's not what you want when you fly Emirates first class.
You wanna really soak in the experience. So by booking this for a 2,000 points from Milan back to JFK, that's how I do it. Our, chief flight deal analyst, John Shellbetter, is currently in Milan. And I think today, as this podcast drops, is taking this flight in first class. So I really hope he's listening to this in that seat right now, on the way back.
But he that is definitely how he would use the bonus if he had to do it. And then he's gonna get home and he's gonna get the Chase Sapphire preferred card again. And so he can he and his wife can do this all over again. I'm sure. Unbelievable.
Johnny Nani, if you're listening, we're so happy that you're in, Emirates first class right now. I'm gonna stick with Emirates for my second choice here. I've mentioned it before that 35,000 round trip Emirates points, to get you on that same route, JFK to Milan or Newark to Athens. And that's an economy, but it's 35,000 points round trip. You can also book it for 17,000 points one way.
It's just an unbelievable redemption. Same, with Kyle. It's enough for three people once you hit the bonus. It's just a great, a really great way to travel to Europe. And I would just highly, highly recommend doing that.
It's one of our favorite redemptions period. One of the best values in all of travel. Kyle, what's your third choice? So flights to Southeast Asia are long. I I have done this in economy.
I have done it in business class, and I am more than happy to fly, you know, seven to eight hours in economy to Europe. 14 To 15 Hours, to Asia, Southeast Asia in particular. I don't know that I that I have it in me to do that again. I'm feeling a little bit like Parker Posey and White Lotus. I I just I can't anymore.
So I'm gonna use and not even all of these points as as few as about 60,000, which you can transfer to Air France and then book a China Airlines business class flight from the West Coast over to Taipei, which is the perfect jumping off point to get to pretty much anywhere you need to go, whether it's in Southeast Asia or or up in Northern Asia as well. 60,000 points. The trick here is that finding the availability, to book these flights through Air France has gotten a little bit tricky lately. But we noticed and we sent a deal to our premium subscribers just a few weeks ago from Vancouver that China Airlines flight tends to be much, much easier to book. So, you know, I take 60,000 points and then maybe I save the rest so that I can get from Minneapolis to Vancouver, either booking through the Chase travel portal or maybe transferring those points again to Air France or Virgin Atlantic to book a nonstop from on Delta from Minneapolis to Vancouver in order to position myself to hop on this thirteen, fourteen, fifteen hour flight in the lie flat business class seat and make my way eventually back to Thailand, Vietnam, certainly explore Taipei, whatever.
Yeah. It's a crazy deal. We we sent it to, our Thrifty Traveler Premium members. We also wrote it about it on our website. So you can go check it out there at thriftytraveler.com.
But, kind of an eye popping deal that I can't believe still exists. So, don't ask questions. Just go use that, Chase URL bonus and book it. For my third option here, I'm copping out a little bit once again, but, I'm basically using I'm using this for basically a year's worth of cheap domestic flights. I would almost exclusively book them through the transfer partners like Southwest using rapid rewards, JetBlue and their TrueBlue points, Aeroplan, for Air Canada Aeroplan.
You can transfer your points there to book some United flights. And then the same thing for Air France, KLM, and Virgin to book Delta flights. And then finally, those obvious programs to book American flights. So, using the transfer partners, I can get what I would say is probably about a year's worth of flights to get to, you know, expensive, remote weddings or to go see your family and relatives or or to book during kind of the high season when those airfares are looking like 506 hundred bucks round trip. This is the better way in my opinion.
And with a hundred thousand Chase URs, I I think you could probably get at least a year's worth of domestic flights out of the way. And that's not to mention using the Chase travel portal to book cheap flights you find as well. You know, if you get a an alert from us at Thrifty Traveler Premium that, flights to Chicago are under $99, you can go book them through the Chase, travel portal and use your points that way. And and that's even less or sometimes even better than, rapid rewards rates on those same routes. So that's how I would use my, third option.
How do you like my three? Aside from your cop out, which is a very good cop out, by the way. That's a it's a really good call. And I I like that we kinda covered the gamut here of, you know, ultra luxury, which a lot of sites and podcasts like ours tend to really harp on, for good reason. It's really cool.
But I wanna I just wanna stress there's no wrong way to do this. You know, travel is ultimately very personal. What you want out of your travels and what you want to do with your points is entirely up to you just as long as you use them. Earn the bonus while the getting is good, and then use those points as quick as you can for a trip that you otherwise might not take or couldn't afford. That is the only capital T truth that we can share here about the best way to do this.
We have some ideas. We have own ideas, but that doesn't mean that our ideas are better than yours. Yeah. That's absolutely right. Alright.
So let's get this card in some people's hands. If anyone's listening out there and can't wait to sign up for this hundred thousand point offer, how do they apply and how do they get this card, Kyle? Yeah. So the the links are out there now. We'll drop a link in our show notes to kind of our main post with the big news about this big bonus.
And and if you do choose to apply through us, you know, we appreciate it. It supports Thrifty Traveler. That is a piece of of how we make money just like many other travel sites out there. Otherwise, just be sure, you know, if you have a friend in your life who already has a Chase Sapphire preferred card in their wallet, ask them if they can send you a referral link. You know, it may take a couple of days, even a week.
We we aren't quite sure, for when we'll start to see these hundred thousand point offers show up through friend and family referral links. But, you know, if you can't help us, certainly help a friend, get some some points for their trouble for referring you as well. Chase will give your friend a nice little referral bonus, and then you'll get that hundred thousand point bonus too just as soon as those, links get updated. Yeah. That's great advice.
I I hope you all at least consider picking this card up. It's, like we said, just an unbelievable deal and enough to warrant, the first ever breaking news edition of the Thrifty Traveler podcast. So I wanna thank everybody so much for joining us. Like always, it would mean a lot to us if you'd rate us five stars on your podcast platform of choice. And like and subscribe to Thrifty Traveler on YouTube.
All of that will help other people find the show. And if you have some feedback for us, send me a note at podcast@thriftytraveler.com. We're already getting good notes there, and we'd love to hear from all of you as well. Kyle, can you let us know who helped put the show together this week? Sure can.
This episode was produced by our senior editor, Jackson Newman, and the guy in the room with me, Gunnar Olson, who is edited by David Strutt. Our theme music is by Benjamin Tissotl. Gunnar, I hope the next breaking news pod is as fun as this one. I hope so too. See you later.