It can be tempting to use your stash of credit card points to pay for an upcoming flight. I mean, why not? You’re sitting on 50,000 points. It’s like free money, right? Let’s talk about the pros and cons to paying for travel with your points and look at a real world example of a domestic flight that we can use credit card points or airline miles to get the best value.

Paying for Travel with Points

Every credit card issuer we talk about here has an option to use your points to pay for flights. For most people (before reading FreeQuinnt Flyer), this was the only option they knew about for using their points. It really is the easiest way to use your points. All you need to do is log in to your credit card’s online account and click your card’s version of “use your points”. Then just plug in your destination and when you want to go and the website will populate the cost of various flights in both cash and points.

With Chase you’ll get the best value at 1.25 if you have the Sapphire Preferred or 1.5 cents per point if you have the Sapphire Reserve. Here’s a sample booking for Charleston, SC to Dallas, TX. As you see, I can either pay $450 roundtrip or since I have the Sapphire Preferred, I can use 35,984 points for the same flight. That works out to 1.25 cents per point.

Now, booking the same flight through American Express Travel, I’d only get 1 cent per point value, or 44,980 points. Seems pretty straightforward, right? Just book through Chase and save about 10,000 points. Not so fast. This is yet another reason transferable points are so valuable. We can even use both Chase or American Express points for these exact flights for half the points.

An even better option would be to book directly with American Airlines using AAdvantage miles. That would only cost 13,000 miles plus $11.20 in taxes and fees. Way better than spending 36,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points or even 45,000 American Express Membership Rewards points. 13,000 AA miles are worth around $195 to me so that is a steal.

Don’t have any American miles? If you don’t fly them a lot or don’t have one of their credit cards to pick up a big signup bonus, those miles are pretty hard to come by. The only other good option to acquire them is with the Bilt Mastercard. Simply transfer those Bilt points 1:1 to American and book your flight. Don’t have the Bilt Mastercard or AA miles? Fear not, of course I have more options for you which I why I love transferable credit card points so much.

Avios

This brings us to the world of Avios. This probably isn’t a word that many of you have heard before. Avios is the points currency for a number of different airlines around the world including British Airways, Aer Lingus, Qatar Airlines, and Iberia. Each of these airline programs have their own way to redeem Avios for flights on their partner airlines. Some better, some worse. There are sweet spots for each. I’ll get into the intricacies of Avios in another post so I’ll keep this very high level to get my point across.

There are two really great things about Avios. First, They’re super easy to acquire. Each of the four airlines that use Avios are transfer partners with one or multiple credit cards so you can convert your points into Avios. Second, you can transfer your Avios in one program to any of the other programs that use Avios. This opens up a whole new world of redemption opportunities.

You may be wondering why I’m bringing up four airlines of which none are based in the United States if we’re talking about a flight between South Carolina and Texas. All four of these airlines partner with American so you can use those Avios to book the same flight for 18,000 points.

I know this may seem complicated, but all it takes is a little bit of extra time and you can save tons of points. In this example we cut the number of points needed in half.

At best, booking directly with Chase points would have cost 36,000 points. However, if you just transfer those same Chase points to Iberia you only would have needed 18,000 points.

This is a great example of getting great value out of your points. In this instance we’d get 2.5 cents per point. Much better than the 1 to 1.5 cents per point you’d get booking with your points through your credit card.

Paying Cash Instead

You won’t always find flights where its a better value to transfer your points than using your points to book through your credit card travel portal. You’ll always want to check your options and do the quick math on what’s the better value.

If it doesn’t work out my recommendation would still be to pay cash for your flight (and don’t forget to use a card like the American Express Platinum to get 5 points per dollar spent on airfare). I know it’s nice to get free flights but my preference is to get outsized value from my points. I’d rather pay cash for a flight than use points for a poor redemption. Save those points for another trip where you can use them for an incredible redemption like we did in the Maldives with one of our best redemptions.

I value all transferable points like American Express, Chase, Citi and Capital One at 1.7 cents per point. At best you’ll get 1.5 cents per point redeeming through the Chase travel portal if you have the Sapphire Reserve. At worst, you’ll get 1 cent per point everywhere else.

Wrapping Up

Just because you have the points sitting in your account doesn’t mean you should use them. While it’s nice to get a free flight, don’t forget to check all of your options as there can be better deals to be had out there. Try not to waste your points on the easy redemption to get a free flight. Looking long term can save you tons of money by utilizing those hard earned points for a more aspirational trip abroad!

The responses below are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.