When Chase refreshed the Sapphire Reserve® and Sapphire Reserve for Business℠ cards last year, it introduced the concept of Points Boosts and in doing so did away with 1.5 and 1.25 (depending on your Chase card) cent per point (cpp) redemptions.
Points Boost was the ability to get up to 2cpp of value when redeeming your Ultimate Rewards for travel booked through Chase Travel℠. Initially the 2cpp rate was guaranteed for The Edit hotel bookings, but they soon removed that guarantee and slashed redemption rates for many Points Boost bookings.
In slightly positive news, there’s a new development on the Points Boost front. You can now get 2.5cpp of value on the Sapphire Reserve and Sapphire Reserve for Business cards. The downside is that this higher redemption rate is only an option for fewer than a dozen high-priced The Edit hotels worldwide.
The full list of properties is as follows:
- Four Seasons Hotel Osaka — Osaka, Japan
- Four Seasons Resort Rancho Encantado — Santa Fe, NM
- Gardena Grodnerhof Hotel — Italian Dolomites
- Grand Hyatt Deer Valley — Park City, UT
- Hotel du Couvent, a Luxury Collection Hotel — Nice, France
- InterContinental Dominica Cabrits Resort & Spa — Dominica
- Nobu Hotel San Sebastian — Basque Country, Spain
- Salterra, a Luxury Collection Resort & Spa — South Caicos
- Sofitel Legend The Grand Amsterdam — Amsterdam, Netherlands
- The Ritz-Carlton, Portland — Portland, OR
- The Surrey, A Corinthia Hotel — New York City, NY
As you might well guess, cash stays at these properties can be pretty pricey. With the Points Boost redemption amount being tied to the cash rate at 2.5cpp, it means Ultimate Rewards redemptions through Chase Travel will vary depending on your stay dates.
To give an example, here’s the cost for a three night stay at The Surrey in New York from November 12-15:
As you can see, with an all-in rate of $5,220, you’re looking at a total cost of 208,806 Ultimate Rewards points, or an average of 69,602 points per night.
It’s worth highlighting that this would be booked as a The Edit stay and so you’d receive breakfast for two people each day, a $100 property credit, and other The Edit benefits. For what it’s worth, that pricing appears to be cheaper than the cost when booking directly if you want to include breakfast for two people each morning, so it’s not like Chase Travel or the hotel is jacking up the price in order for you to receive those The Edit benefits for this specific hotel on these specific dates.
As another example, here’s the pricing for the Ritz-Carlton in Portland, OR for those same November 12-15 dates:
That’s a much more reasonable 24,360 Ultimate Rewards points per night. You’d also be eligible to earn Marriott Bonvoy points on the stay, earn elite night credits, and receive any Marriott elite status benefits you might be eligible for. That’s in addition to the benefits conveyed by it being a The Edit booking.
While the nightly points redemption rate might not seem bad, the cash rate isn’t anywhere near as appealing. If booking directly with Marriott, you could pay $370 per night before taxes and fees rather than $533 per night via Chase Travel. That $370 nightly rate when booking directly doesn’t include breakfast, nor would you receive other The Edit benefits.
For an award stay on those dates you’d be looking at redeeming an average of 91,000 Marriott Bonvoy points per night. Redeeming an average of 24,360 Ultimate Rewards points per night would therefore be preferable for many people. The cash rate when booking directly with Marriott with taxes and fees included is $429.20 per night. When compared that way, you’re effectively getting 1.76cpp of value which is still pretty good, but not as good as the 2.5cpp headline rate via Chase Travel (albeit with more benefits included).
This 2.5cpp redemption option is a welcome addition, although it’ll have extremely limited appeal considering it’s only valid for fewer than a dozen properties. We reached out to our Chase rep to try to find out how long this rate will be offered for these hotels. They weren’t able to provide an end date, so if you’re interested in redeeming Ultimate Rewards for any of these hotels, it’d probably be best to do that sooner rather than later.
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Thank you for writing an informative article that highlights the massive inflation that makes cash bookings via the Edit very unappealing. Amex credit can be spent on Hotel Collection and FHR, and FHR > Edit anyway. Breakfast is nice and all, but so is grabbing a coffee and a pastry for $10, and room upgrades are often “higher floor-esque”.