Some of our biggest points and miles mistakes

25.12.2024 - 15:45 / thepointsguy.com / Chase Sapphire-Preferred

At TPG, we're big fans of maximizing our points and miles to save money while traveling.

Although we have years of collective experience, even points and miles pros (including some of TPG's very own) make redemption, transfer and earning mistakes.

Here are nine real-world points and miles "oopsies" we have made, so you don't have to.

The biggest mistake I've made so far in my points and miles journey was transferring too many points from American Express Membership Rewards to Flying Blue to cover flights for a trip I was planning. This was early on, but I just picked a number that I knew would be more than enough to cover the flights.

I ended up with tens of thousands of points more than I needed for the flights, and I didn't have a good use for them. They would have been much more valuable to me in their original form of Membership Rewards points. It took me more than a year to find a flight where I could redeem the leftover Flying Blue points.

I should have instead found the exact flight I wanted to take and calculated the exact number of points I needed to transfer to cover those flights. Transferable points are much more useful when you can actually transfer them rather than leaving them in an account where there are fewer options to utilize them.

— Tarah Chieffi, senior writer

My first big points redemption didn't work out as planned. In early 2023, I reported on a timely World of Hyatt deal for readers, where stays at the Andaz Maui at Wailea Resort were available for 35,000 to 40,000 points per night on a widespread number of dates. This was a fabulous deal for a Category 8 Hyatt and a chance to save money on my first trip to Hawaii.

Related: A review of The Andaz Maui at Wailea Resort in Hawaii

Because I didn't have enough World of Hyatt points at the time, I transferred Chase Ultimate Rewards points through the Chase Travel℠ portal to my World of Hyatt account at a 1:1 ratio. This is one of my favorite transfer partners of the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card.

I had been waiting for an opportunity like this to transfer the welcome bonus I earned upon opening the Chase Sapphire Preferred.

By the time our reservation for October 2023 came around, we were concerned about the appropriateness of traveling to Maui after the island suffered devastating wildfires in August. We ultimately decided not to go and thus canceled our trip. Luckily, Hyatt credited the points back to my World of Hyatt account, where they remain today. Once you transfer points from your Chase Ultimate Rewards account, you can't transfer them back to your Chase account.

So, in this case, all was not lost since the points are still available for use. However, they are limited to booking a World of Hyatt property.

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