A devaluation or a refresh (take your pick), a low-cost high-reward wallet, waking up on Wyndham and more [Week in Review]

I caught myself sleeping on Wyndham.

I have an upcoming stay in Las Vegas. On weekdays, a number of great properties in Las Vegas can be affordable enough to be fully covered by Platinum card Fine Hotels + Resorts® or The Hotel Collection credits. Booking through Amex FHR or THC can be a great deal because it includes breakfast and a $100 dining credit in many cases. While breakfast in Las Vegas is usually just another dining credit (of about $60) that may or may not cover a full breakfast at a restaurant within the hotel you choose, I find that between the breakfast credit and the $100 dining credit, I can save a substantial amount on food, which can be surprisingly expensive in Las Vegas.

The other thing that can be surprisingly expensive in Las Vegas is a weekend night. We decided to include a Friday night beyond my FHR reservations. As a recently minted Caesars Diamond Plus member, I have complimentary room offers Sunday through Thursday at most Caesars properties, but only discounted rates for Friday or Saturday nights during the week we are visiting. Depending on the property, my discounted Friday night rates start around $250 all-in for the cheapest properties.

I thought about using the Hilton Resort credit from the Hilton Honors Aspire card, since all three properties at Resorts World are eligible for the resort credit (as is the Virgin Hotel Las Vegas and a number of Vacation Club properties). However, even after considering credits, my discounted rates at Caesars properties were more attractive.

Then it dawned on me that Wyndham Rewards still has a partnership with Caesars Rewards. As a result, it is possible to book all of the Caesars properties in Las Vegas using Wyndham Rewards points, pending award availability. Sure enough, on the Friday night that I needed, several of the Caesars properties on the Las Vegas Strip (with public room rates starting around $325 per night or my discounted rates starting around $250 per night) were available for either 15,000 or 30,000 Wyndham points per night. For a Friday night in Vegas, either can be a solid deal, depending on the property.

It is worth noting that we could alternatively stay at Rio for 15,000 World of Hyatt points per night, which is a solid deal as compared to the $500+ best flexible rate for the Friday night in question. Rio is a little farther from where we want to be in this case, so I was glad to get a property on the Strip for a similar number of Wyndham points, which I don’t use as often. The downside of booking a Caesars property via Wyndham Rewards is that I don’t think the resort fee will be waived, despite my Caesars status. If it isn’t, I’ll end up paying ~$60 all-in, which isn’t free, but still offers well over 1c per Wyndham Rewards point. I’m glad that I woke up on Wyndham!

On the blog this week, read all about the painful devaluation of Ultimate Rewards points (for transfers to Hyatt), the refreshed Chase Sapphire Preferred® card, how to save miles and get the connection you want with a multi-city booking, Carrie’s re-entry to the points-and-miles hobby (with a surprisingly strong wallet for $0 in annual fees), and more.

This week on the Frequent Miler blog…

Chase Sapphire Preferred® refresh: More 3X, bigger hotel coupon, better travel protections, same annual fee, devalued transfers to Hyatt

This week, Chase has completely refreshed the Sapphire Preferred card. In the process, the big headline was that they slashed the transfer ratio from Ultimate Rewards to World of Hyatt. That part of the news was very disappointing; however, there’s lots of good news here, particularly for those who don’t care much about the transfer ratio to World of Hyatt.

The Sapphire Preferred is getting significantly better with new bonus categories, including 3x on gas and 3x on numerous vacation rental platforms. Its hotel credit is being bumped up to $100 annually, and it adds a statement credit once every 4.5 years for Global Entry, TSA Pre-check, or NEXUS. Overall, this is a net win for anyone who isn’t overly invested in the World of Hyatt system.

Chase slashing Hyatt transfer ratio to 4:3 for Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card and Chase Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card

If you are one of those people who is very much invested in the World of Hyatt ecosystem, the biggest news in the changes to the Sapphire Preferred card is that the transfer ratio from Chase Ultimate Rewards to World of Hyatt will drop to 4:3, effective immediately for those whose accounts are opened on or after June 15, 2026 or on October 1st 2026 for those whose accounts were opened prior to June 15, 2026.

That’s going to significantly devalue the use of Chase Ultimate Rewards for Hyatt properties. On the heels of the launch of the new World of Hyatt award charts, this is a devastating blow that will skyrocket the cost of many Hyatt properties (you’ll need as much as 60 to 80 percent more Ultimate Rewards points than you would have needed last month, before the transfer ratio was cut and the new award chart was launched). It simply won’t be a no-brainer to transfer to Hyatt in the future for those with the Sapphire Preferred card.

There will surely still be some opportunities to get decent value, but more average Hyatt redemptions will quickly become sub-optimal, offering less than Reasonable Redemption Value for Chase points. That’s a seismic shift in the landscape. If you are highly invested in Hyatt, you may want to consider the Sapphire Reserve, which maintains the one-to-one transfer ratio, or consider holding off and upgrading to the Sapphire Reserve if and when you have a need to redeem a sizable chunk of Hyatt points.

My take on the refreshed Sapphire Preferred Card

Ever the optimist, Greg takes a very level-headed approach with his take on the changes to the Sapphire Preferred card. I have to agree with him that the Sapphire Preferred has become a great card for those who don’t care very much about hotel rewards. For that crowd, the newly refreshed Sapphire Preferred card is a really good card. If you do value this card and also value using World of Hyatt once every couple of years, Greg provides some great strategies for how you can get full value when needed.

Chase’s Hyatt gut punch & refreshed Sapphire Preferred® | Frequent Miler on the Air Ep362 | 6-12-26

With the World of Hyatt / Chase Ultimate Rewards devaluation and the refreshed Sapphire Preferred card top of mind all week, it will come as no surprise that those two separate but related topics were the main event for this week’s Frequent Miler On The Air. We also covered quite a range of other miles and points topics before getting to the Main Event. You’ll find timestamps in the show notes so you can jump around to the parts you most want to hear.

Wells Fargo changes: transfers to other users ending, points will no longer automatically be combined

Chase wasn’t alone this week in making customer-unfriendly changes. The always eagle-eyed Travel with Grant caught notice on his most recent credit card statement, indicating that Wells Fargo is ending points transfers between users. This will be frustrating for households where multiple partners carry a Wells Fargo card and are accustomed to combining their rewards into one account. However, we’ve been able to confirm that it will still be possible to combine rewards between your own Wells Fargo accounts, which is certainly good news.

My low-hassle $0 credit card wallet for re-entering the points game (A Carrie commentary)

Carrie writes this week about re-entering the points and miles hobby after mostly being out of the game for a few years (it turns out that no credit card is required to be the glue that holds Frequent Miler together). When Carrie first started picking up new cards, I thought that maybe she was missing out by starting with cards that had relatively lower bonuses, but this post explains the brilliance of her strategy: a foundation of solid no-annual-fee cards that she can keep forever will help her maintain a strong average age of account. Making sure that those cards reward your major spending categories is a terrific move. How many of us keep a card we don’t want simply because it is the oldest card in our collection? Carrie won’t have that problem. For more on which cards Carrie has picked and why, see the post.

 Multi-city to save miles with Air Canada Aeroplan

I recently realized that I could save miles by using the Air Canada multi-city tool instead of booking as a single one-way award. The itinerary would still be treated as a single ticket, but I was able to pick the segments I preferred by using the multi-city tool. While I’ve done that plenty of times in the past with much more complicated itineraries, this was the first time I tried to do it on a simple one-connection one-way itinerary to Europe without a stopover. I realized that this could actually be really useful in trip planning because it opens up more connecting flights rather than relying on what the award search tool provides. And, in my case, it saved a substantial number of miles.

United MileagePlus now allows partner bookings with pooled miles

This is a small bit of news, but I felt like it was worth including in the week in review because it is a huge improvement for the United MileagePlus program. While it has been possible to pool miles for quite some time, it is now possible to use those pooled miles to book partner awards. While there were some workarounds before, it has become significantly easier to combine your family’s rewards resources, which marks a huge improvement and makes United Mileage Plus much more family-friendly.

How to transfer Avios between British Airways, Qatar, Iberia, Aer Lingus, Finnair and Loganair

Avios is an airline reward currency with a family of its own. These rewards are unique in that they can be transferred between the major airline programs that use the Avios currency. That’s really useful because each of the airlines that use Avios maintains its own separate award chart with its own unique sweet spot awards. Keep in mind that when you see a transfer bonus to one of these programs, it is effectively a bonus to all of them since you can move your Avios from one participating program to another. This post shows you how to do it.

Wells Fargo’s Premier version of the Autograph Journey | Coffee Break Ep109 | 6-9-26

The Wells Fargo Autograph Journey Card is a very interesting $95 card. More interesting yet is that there is a Premier version of the Autograph Journey card that’s only available to Wells Fargo Premier customers. The card features a better introductory bonus and a few small upgrades over the regular Autograph Journey card.

What’s most surprising is that a Premier account may be within reach for more people than I’d have assumed. As we discussed on this week’s coffee break, Greg found it far easier to qualify for Wells Fargo Premier, or at least easy enough to do so without depositing $250,000.

How to maximize the value of your American Express Platinum Card®

If you had asked me a year ago if I could envision a credit card worth paying $895 to hold, I would have told you absolutely not. Amex really shocked the credit card world when it revamped the Platinum Card last fall and actually made it worth its price tag. This post explains how you can maximize the value of your own Amex Platinum Card in order to get more value out than the amount of cash that you put in. While there’s no doubt that this card isn’t for everyone, I think it can be a fit for a much wider range of people than you would assume after only hearing the words “annual fee” and “$895”.

Hotel review: Hilton Woking, England

Stephen spent a couple of days taking in his hometown (he grew up in Woking) from a new vantage point: the top floors of the Hilton Woking. Stephen’s review is both thorough and entertaining to read, whether or not you’re planning a trip to Woking.

What’s the single best card for your “player two”? | Ask us Anything Ep87 | 6-3-26

On our most recent Ask Us Anything, we were asked the title question. If you’ve gotten to know the Frequent Miler team over the years, you won’t be surprised to hear that there were several different answers between different team members. That just goes to prove that there’s not one right way to engage in this hobby; instead, there are different solutions for different customers.

If you’re interested in how we answered that and what other questions we received this month, you’ll want to check out the post and podcast from our recent YouTube live. If you’d like to ask us questions of your own, feel free to join us on the first Wednesday of each month on YouTube at 9 p.m. Eastern.

That’s it for this week at Frequent Miler. Keep an eye on this week’s last chance deals to grab them before they’re gone.

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