Evaluating Chase’s new Points Boosts

Chase is in the process of jettisoning the simple old way of getting 1.25x to 1.5x value from your points through Chase Travel℠ and replacing it with the new “Points Boost” feature where you can get up to 2x. For flights and hotels, Points Boost has a greater upside, but only when boosts are available. In short, you have a good chance of coming out ahead if you like booking certain flights (especially United flights), and luxury hotels. Unfortunately, Points Boosts do not appear to be available for any Activities, Cars, or Cruises booked through Chase Travel.

Overview

For those who applied new as of June 23, 2025, Points Boosts are the only way to get enhanced point value when booking flights and hotels through Chase Travel with the Sapphire Preferred, Ink Business Preferred, Sapphire Reserve, or Sapphire Reserve for Business cards.

For cardmembers who applied or otherwise obtained their card prior to June 23, 2025, points earned prior to October 26, 2025 are eligible to be redeemed at 1.25x (Sapphire Preferred and Ink Business Preferred) or 1.5x (Sapphire Reserve) through Chase Travel until October 26, 2027. During that time, if a Points Boost is available at a better rate, you will automatically receive that better value.

When you search for flights or hotels through Chase Travel, Points Boosts automatically show up in the search results and you have the option to check a box to view only Points Boosted results.

Points Boost Range: 1.25x to 2x

I ran a number of searches when logged in with various cards to see what boost values we can expect. Here’s what I found when Points Boosts were available:

Sapphire Reserve

• Hotel Point Boosts:
  • The Edit hotels: 2x
  • Other hotels: 1.75x
• Airfare Point Boosts:
  • Economy: 1.5x
  • Economy Plus & Premium Economy: 1.75x
  • Business & First Class: 2.0x

Sapphire Preferred & Ink Business Preferred

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

Points Boost Availability

Hotels

Overall, availability of hotel boosts varies tremendously by location…

• Sapphire Reserve: Since all of The Edit hotels are automatically boosted to 2x, I found decent availability of hotel Points Boosts in major cities that have a good number of The Edit hotels. In other cities, availability of Points Boosted hotels varied a lot. Some small cities I searched had a decent selection and others had very few or none. In Spain I found 43 Points Boosted hotels in Madrid, 49 in Barcelona, and none in Toledo.
• Sapphire Preferred & Ink Business Preferred: These cards have fewer Boosted hotel options since they don’t have access to The Edit. In Spain, I found 31 boosted hotels in Madrid, 41 in Barcelona, and none in Toledo (but I did accidentally find 1 in Toledo, Ohio).

Airfare

Chase told us that Points Boosts would be available for select airlines (which will change over time) and that the value you get will depend on the cabin-class booked. Specifically, they wrote:

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.

The air inventory for Points Boost will include Economy, Premium Economy, Business and First-Class. Points Boost offers for flights are dependent on the cabin classes and offers will range from 1.25x up to 2x based on airline, cabin class and card.

Here’s what I found (your experience may vary):

Points Boost values vary by cabin class as follows

• • Economy: 1.5x (Sapphire Reserve), 1.25x (Sapphire Preferred & Ink Preferred)
  • Economy Plus & Premium Economy: 1.75x (Sapphire Reserve), 1.5x (Sapphire Preferred & Ink Preferred)
  • Business & First Class: 2.0x (Sapphire Reserve), 1.75x (Sapphire Preferred & Ink Preferred)

These differential boosts can lead to interesting opportunities where it can make sense to book a higher class of service without paying more points. In the following example, economy and first class can be booked for about the same number of points (just over 11,000 points), whereas Economy Plus costs nearly 13,000 points. If you were planning to book Economy Plus with points, you’d obviously be better off booking first class instead. And since the difference in price between economy and first class is so small, you might as well book first class even if you were planning to fly economy:

Availability of Points Boosts varies tremendously by airline

For each airline that Chase told us would be included in Points Boosts, I didn’t do an exhaustive search for availability, but here’s what I found with the searches I ran:

• United: Points Boosts were available for almost every single flight (I found a few that weren’t boosted, but they were hard to find)
• Southwest: No boosts. I couldn’t find a single Southwest flight with Points Boosts.
• Air Canada: Some flights were boosted
• Emirates: Some flights were boosted
• Qantas: Some flights were boosted
• Singapore Airlines: Some flights were boosted

Reminder: Chase also told us that the list of eligible airlines will change over time.

Deflated Real World Point Value

Point Boost numbers show the value you’ll get from your points compared to Chase Travel’s cash rate. For example, a 1.75x boost means that you’ll get 1.75 cents per point value based on Chase’s determination of the cash rate. Often, though, the cash rate through Chase Travel is higher than found through other options, such as booking direct. In those cases, the effective value of your points is less.

Here’s a real example: Nick was looking at a hotel in New York, listed on The Edit, where the stay would have cost $650 through Chase Travel. Since all of The Edit hotels are boosted to 2x, that would have cost him 32,500 points. But he also found that the same hotel cost only $530 when booking directly through Marriott. If you forget about the extra perks that The Edit offers, you could argue that when booking the $650 stay through Chase for 32,500 points, Nick would only get 1.63 cents per point value when comparing to the true cash rate ($530/32,500).

Of course, there’s nothing new about this. With the old approach where Sapphire Reserve cardholders could get 1.5x for all redemptions through Chase Travel, the effective rate was often less due to Chase having inflated prices.

Inflated hotel prices: In my recent deep dive into The Edit, I found that many hotels were overpriced (but not usually by as much as Nick found), but a few were about the same as booking direct.

Inflated flight prices: In a quick look at flight prices I found that economy flights were often overpriced through Chase, but business and first class prices matched what I found on Google Flights. Caution: I didn’t do a very thorough analysis. This finding was based on 10 or so datapoints.

My Take

The Winners

The winners in the new scheme (besides Chase) are those who like to book luxury hotels through The Edit, and premium cabin flights, especially on United Airlines.

Luxury Hotels (when boosted)

I separately did a deep dive into The Edit and found that if you can live with the relatively small number of hotels available on the platform, it should be possible to do really well. If you have either the Sapphire Reserve or Sapphire Reserve for Business, you’ll get access to The Edit hotels and you’ll get 2x boosts on all of them. When pricing through The Edit isn’t too far above the cost to book direct, you’ll get excellent value from your Chase points by booking this way and you’ll still earn hotel rewards and elite benefits at participating chain hotels.

Premium Cabin Flights (when boosted)

When I compared flight prices found through Chase to those found on Google Flights, I saw that economy tickets often cost more through Chase, but business and first class was usually exactly the same. If this generally holds, it means that the boost amounts are truly the value you’ll get. So, for business & first class flights you’ll get 2 cents per point value with the Sapphire Reserve or Sapphire Reserve for Business, and 1.75 cents per point value with the Sapphire Preferred & Ink Business Preferred. Either way, that’s good value.

Finding boosted flights can feel like a lottery unless you’re looking to fly United Airlines. In my experience, almost all United flights appear to be boosted. For those who fly United often, points boosts can be a great way to use your points.

The Losers

Activities, Cars, or Cruises

Travel booked through Chase in these categories is not boosted at all. If you don’t have grandfathered 1.25x or 1.5x redemption power, then there’s no reason to ever redeem points for these as you’ll only get 1 cent per point value.

Unboosted Flights & Hotels

Under the new scheme, you’ll only get 1 cent per point value (compared to Chase Travel’s prices) when flights & hotels aren’t boosted unless you have grandfathered 1.25x or 1.5x redemption power.

Final Word

With my old Sapphire Reserve card, I hardly ever redeemed points through Chase Travel. In my opinion, 1.5 cents per point wasn’t enough value to be worth the pain that travel portals tend to incur (inflated prices, lack of ability to apply membership or coupon discounts, lack of hotel point earnings, finger pointing between the portal and the travel provider when things go wrong, etc.). With the new scheme, though, I probably will look for opportunities to use my points for 2 cents each towards The Edit hotels and premium cabin flights. For the former, you do earn hotel points and elite credits for stays at The Edit hotels (or at least, you should once Chase fixes issues people have reported). For the latter, when discounted business class fares are available, it can be a very good deal to book with a 2x Points Boost and earn airline miles for the flight.

So, for me, Points Boost seems to be a good thing. For anyone who liked taking advantage of the old 1.25x or 1.5x scheme, it’s mostly bad news. While there will be a few opportunities to do better than before, there will be far more “opportunities” to get terrible 1x value. In those cases, even if you want to book through Chase Travel for some reason, you’d be better off paying for the booking with your card in order to earn points, and then redeem points for cash for the same 1 cent per point value in order to pay your credit card bill. Or, better yet, take advantage of the ability to Pay Yourself Back for 1.25x to 1.5x value for select non-travel spend.

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