Many commenters seem bewildered that some people cash out their Chase Ultimate Rewards points at 1.25% per point with Pay Yourself Back instead of using travel partners or using Chase Travel at 1.5%. And so I thought to share why I use the 1.25% cashout option.
Two responses which came up in the comments:
1.25% cash redemption is relevant for those on Team Cash Back, i.e. those who don’t travel much.
1.25% cash redemption is relevant for those who generate vast amounts of Ultimate Rewards points and couldn’t possibly use them all on travel.
Personally, I somewhat fall into the first camp. While I do travel multiple times per year, it’s usually domestic. I also never got into the whole luxury travel thing. If I’m flying Spirit economy, my points don’t help me much. And my flights are typically very specific, e.g. I need a non-stop flight departing Tuesday between 2pm and 9pm.
The counter-argument is that you can still book any flight with Chase Travel at 1.5 cents per points, so why cash them out at 1.25%?
My experience has been that when booking through Chase Travel the prices are often a bit higher. I also find it easier to book directly with the airline, especially when there are things like paying for luggage add-on, etc.
For this reason, people like myself find it simplest to just cash out points using Pay Yourself Back. We took a big hit when Chase lowered the Pay Yourself Back from 1.5 to 1.25, and now we’re taking another hit with the dwindling options for 1.25% cashout. For now, I’ll use up my points when the annual fee posts or I’ll try to find a gift card vendor who codes as Gas to cash out my points.
(Full Disclosure: I’m a complete novice at travel booking.)