Chase Points Boost is becoming a Points Bust: Some redemptions now only 1.15 cents per point

When Chase refreshed the Sapphire Reserve® card and launched the Sapphire Reserve for Business℠ card last year, it did away with 1.5 cent per point (cpp) redemptions via Chase Travel℠ and replaced it with a feature called Points Boost.

Points Boost gives holders of those cards the opportunity to redeem Ultimate Rewards points for 1.5cpp-2cpp of value for select hotel stays and flights, while holders of certain other cards can redeem their points for 1.25cpp-1.75cpp of value.

Over time, Chase seems to have been whittling away at the value you can get with Points Boost. If you’re lucky, you’ll still occasionally find 2cpp redemptions, but boosted values now have a far lower floor of only 1.15cpp.

A Points Boost recap

As a reminder, these are the values that you could expect to see less than a year ago when Points Boosts launched:

Sapphire Reserve & Sapphire Reserve for Business

• Hotel Point Boosts:
  • The Edit hotels: 2cpp
  • Other hotels: 1.75cpp
• Airfare Point Boosts:
  • Economy: 1.5cpp
  • Economy Plus & Premium Economy: 1.75cpp
  • Business & First Class: 2cpp

Sapphire Preferred & Ink Business Preferred

• Hotel Point Boosts: 1.5cpp (The Edit is not available to these cards)
• Airfare Point Boosts:
  • Economy: 1.25cpp
  • Economy Plus & Premium Economy: 1.5cpp
  • Business & First Class: 1.75cpp

In December 2025—just six months after launching Points Boosts—Chase axed its guarantee that Sapphire Reserve cardholders would get 2cpp of value for The Edit bookings. While they recently increased the redemption rate to 2.5cpp for a paltry 11 hotels, they slashed redemption rates for hundreds of other properties.

That was disappointing on the hotel booking side of things and it looks like something similar has occurred with flight bookings.

New Points Boost findings

Different airlines are Points Boosted

Chase has been upfront all along that the airlines you’ll see via Points Boost will change over time. When launching, they advised the following:

The airlines in the program will change on an ongoing basis. To paint a picture for what cardmembers can expect at launch, they will see airlines including United Airlines, Air Canada, Southwest Airlines, Emirates, Qantas, Singapore Airlines, and more.

Right now, Points Boosts for domestic flights seem to be limited to Alaska, JetBlue, and Southwest; that’s based on some research that Greg kindly did as a Sapphire Reserve cardholder, but let us know in the comments if you see other domestic airlines boosted.

Reduced maximum Points Boosts for premium domestic flights

At launch, Sapphire Reserve cardholders could expect to get 2cpp of value when redeeming for domestic first class flights when those were eligible for Points Boost. Those types of flights now seem to top out at 1.75cpp. Again, let us know if you see anything higher.

Low floor for domestic Points Boosts

Based on Greg’s findings, there are currently four different Points Boost rates you might find:

• 1.15cpp
• 1.3cpp
• 1.5cpp
• 1.75cpp

As a reminder, at launch the floor was 1.5cpp. It’s now dropped to 1.15cpp, with there being another lower-than-1.5cpp tier at 1.3cpp. It’ll therefore be important to do the math when you do see Points Boost rates listed as Chase doesn’t list the redemption ratios.

Low floor for international Points Boosts too

It’s sadly not only domestic flights where 1.15cpp redemptions are prevalent. 1.15cpp Points Boosts show up for international flights as well, although that’s more common with economy flights than for travel in premium cabins.

International flights: One rate or the other

Greg found that rather than there being several Points Boost redemption tiers for international flights, there appeared to be only two rates for many airlines: 1.15cpp and 2cpp. That thankfully means that 2cpp redemptions haven’t gone away entirely, but they certainly don’t seem to be as common as they once were.

A couple of international exceptions

Although many international airline Points Boosts can be redeemed at either 1.15cpp or 2cpp only, there are at least two exceptions.

Air Canada seems to be fixed at 1.25cpp for all boosts, with the exception of business class which is usually boosted to 2cpp.

Meanwhile, JetBlue on international routes usually seems to be boosted to 1.5cpp.

Some new Points Boost examples

When searching flights from New York to London, Greg found several Points Boosts on different British Airways flights in different cabins.

For the JFK-Heathrow daytime flight, the Business Promo rate was available at a 2cpp redemption level:

On a couple of different overnight flights, both Standard Economy and Economy Select Pro were available via Points Boost, but at different redemption rates. For one flight, both options were at the 1.15cpp level…

…but on another you could redeem for 1.5cpp of value—the same rate that Sapphire Reserve cardholders used to be able to redeem at through Chase Travel before Points Boosts were introduced.

With United flights, Greg didn’t find any economy flights available via Points Boost, but Chase does boost premium cabins on United. In the screenshot below, Economy Plus got a 1.5cpp boost and first class got a 1.75cpp boost.

Summary

Chase appears to have devalued Points Boosts for both hotel and flight bookings. While there’s still good value that can be had, those opportunities seem to be far less common than they once were and Points Boost redemptions now drop as low as 1.15cpp.

Want to learn more about miles and points? Subscribe to email updates or check out our podcast on your favorite podcast platform.