How to redeem UR points for airfare and hotels?

For airfare, you can transfer directly to several airlines. I actually did just this to Costa Rica in April. Transfer to United at 1:1 and it was 35k miles round trip - MSY - SJO. We did an Airbnb at Manuel Antonio for like $80/nt and it was incredible. For Arenal, we stayed at the Arenal Observatory lodge for around $100/nt. That’s a load of URs you’ve got there btw!

I haven’t used the UR portal for a hotel yet, but maybe someone else could chime in on that. We did use it for a charter from Jaco to Isla Tortuga and saved $190 by booking through UR portal vs their site and it was a great trip.

Nice point load!

You just log onto chase and click your ultimate rewards and then book travel. You get 1.5 per ever point. It is usually better to transfer to airlines (especially southwest) because the airline points give you a better deal. I usually use them for car rentals and hotels though. Only problem I find is that the chase portal does not always work with the companies offering the best deals for what you need when booking a specific place.

I do have the CSR card.

How do you know when it’s better to book through portal or transfer out?

How do I know how much my points are worth? It says total points then says total value $7ksomething

So that is 1.5 cents per mile.
Where is the 50% increase for having the CSR card?

The 50% increase is only when booking thru the chase portal, not when transferring points out to a different program.

To see which option is best, you’re just going to have to price out your flight or stay on the chase UR portal and then directly through the airline or hotel you’re looking at.

Also, if booking a hotel, you may want to take a look at chase’s lhrcollection.com. You can’t book with points, but, this is chase’s answer to the Amex fine hotels program, and there have been a few instances where it made more sense for me to book thru LHR and pay cash, as booking thru there yields extra perks such as resort credits, free meals, late check outs, upgrades, etc.

Nayara Springs is incredible. Absolutely worth it.

The regular Nayara is connected by a footbridge, so you have access to all the restaurants, spa and pools.

I've booked plenty of hotels and flights in the UR portal. The portal prices are very competitive, sometimes cheaper sometimes not, but it's usually not by a wide margin.

Car rentals too. I've found the most mind boggling cheap car rentals on the UR portal.

They also have an expansive hotel selection, which IMO makes them even more valuable because you aren't relegated to one hotel family.

I'm enjoying this thread, have almost 400K UR points and would like to figure out how to get the best value for them. Probably not booking anything for a year or so, but am hoping to have enough points for a really premium vacation somewhere.