For our return trip from Italy, I focused primarily on Premium Economy flights. Knowing it would be a daytime flight, I didn’t want to spend an exorbitant amount of points to get the four of us home in business class. I also want my children to realize that business class is a special treat, and not an assumption.
I was also hoping to arrive back at an airport within about an hour’s flight from Nashville that had direct Southwest flights. I focused on flying back into Chicago or Atlanta. Ultimately, I found tickets from Milan Linate (LIN) to Chicago O’Hare (ORD) via Flying Blue on KLM.
The itinerary was: Milan Linate LIN to Amsterdam (AMS) and then on to Chicago O’Hare (ORD). I found four tickets in premium economy for 105,000 points and $831. I could have taken advantage of the 25% Chase transfer bonus again, but I wanted to keep the rest of my Chase points for use on Hyatt hotels. Only Chase and Bilt transfer to Hyatt. I transferred 105,000 AMEX points to Flying Blue. The cash price of the four tickets was $9,745, which I would have never paid in a million years.
(Flight Cost – Fees Cost )/ Total Points = Cents Per Point
($9745 – $831) / 105,000 = 0.084 = 8.4 CPP.
When booking through the AMEX portal, points are worth 1 cent each. If booked through the AMEX portal, these flights would have cost 974,500 MR.
When booking through the Chase portal, my points are worth 1.5 cents each because I hold the Chase Sapphire Reserve card. Chase points are worth 1.25 cents each if you have a Chase Sapphire Preferred card. If I had booked them on the Chase portal, they would have been 649,666 UR!
Knowing how to transfer points to airline partners will save you hundreds of thousands of points!
