Contents
The Offer
- Chase & United are now allowing cardholders to redeem United miles towards the annual fee of Chase United cards. Miles are worth 1.5¢ each when using this option
Our Verdict
There is no advertised end date and your annual fee needs to have posted in the last few months to be eligible. Before doing this I’d highly highly recommend calling Chase & trying to get a retention offer first. 1.5¢ is a good deal in my opinion, although I don’t think it makes sense to keep these cards long term in the first place.
Hat tip to Dans Deals
is it worth it? well I can buy 15,625 united miles for $500, thats no good. Or i can transfer 15,625 chase points into 15,625 united miles. So in effect I keep my miles balance the same (which i need) and i spend 15,625 chase points to recoup $250. 1.6 cent per chase point. seems like a good deal especially since i dont have chase saphire reserve card.
its showing i can spend 15,625 miles to pay off my $250 annual fee. I believe thats 1.6 cents per mile rather than 1.5.
Thanks DoC for the alert. Happens my wife’s Biz Card account had the fee in April, and she kept it (after much hesitation) in part after confirming the 3x grocery promotion applied. (and thanks for that alert too 🙂 )…. So it cost her 6,333 miles for the af reimbursement, while she’ll be earning 9,000 or so miles back from spending. (and then there’s the new United/Chase app promotions….) Happens United is still a key/only airline at two or our nearest airports, including one with free parking (SHD – 😉 ) so all in all, keeping this card (w/ these promos) is a…. plus, if we get the nerve up to fly again.
ps, when she’d previously checked via s.m. (twice), Chase didn’t offer any retention offers for this Biz card. Anybody else get anything?
Did this yesterday. Miles were deducted from my account. Today I got an email saying there was an error, “no annual membership fee was found for the credit card and date submitted.” The miles are back in my account. I’ll try again in case I entered something wrong, but I got the United Biz in March and the AF posted in March so I don’t see what the source of the error is.
So happy I am done with all my airline cards and sicked to chase point only over a year ago.
Explorer Card worth it in normal times if you buy BE fares at least three segments per year and need a carryon or checked bag. Not worth it as Premier member unless you’re sure you’ll clear multiple solo upgrades on award tix (very edge case, but happens in funny places like ABQ that are blessed with regular E175 visitation). Right now going to drop it and pickup another SUB next time it’s elevated
I went ahead with it, I just got my United Biz at the start of March–at that point it didn’t yet look like travel for the entire year would be canceled–so I don’t want to poke the bear on trying to get the AF waived before I’ve even finished the MSR.
Worth the $95 for the expanded award space and free luggage.
Priority boarding and two lounge passes are also nice, although not to justify the AF.
Is this just for personal? The new business has the 5000 mile/year anniversary bonus so that would offset $75 of the $99 fee, if applicable. Paying $24/year net for two United Club passes, checked bags, and the ability to have an overhead carry-on for Basic Econ could certainly be worth it. But if it is just for personal, then I would almost certainly ditch it unless you pay a lot in baggage fees each year.
It’s for both
I’ll still be downgrading.
United is just degrading
I had been planning to downgrade before the coronavirus, but I had to cancel a May 2020 award flight, so suddenly I have 60,000 miles back in my United account that I want to use before they get devalued. I’m probably going to need the expanded award space provided by my Explorer card to find a 2021 flight to use them on.