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Update: As of 5/20/22 or earlier, LATAM is no longer available as a transfer partner from Hyatt. That’s unfortunate since this was the most interesting of Chase’s “secret transfer partners.”
Chase Ultimate Rewards points can be transferred 1 to 1 to a number of airline and hotel loyalty programs. At the time of this writing, Chase points transfer directly to the following transfer partners:
- Airlines: Air Canada, Air France/KLM, British Airways, Aer Lingus, Emirates, Iberia, JetBlue, Singapore, Southwest, United, and Virgin Atlantic.
- Hotels: Hyatt, IHG, and Marriott
Thanks to a reader going by the name “Bruce Wayne,” I recently learned that Chase has two more 1 to 1 transfer partners. Sort of. The trick is to transfer to Hyatt and then to these programs…
Chase points transfer 1 to 1 to Hyatt. And Hyatt allows transfers to a number of airline programs, but usually at a poor rate: 5K Hyatt points to 2K airline points; or 50K Hyatt points to 25K airline points. With some programs, though, Hyatt offers better conversion rates…
Transfer 50K to 50K: LATAM Pass, Aeroméxico
Hyatt offers better conversion rates for LATAM Pass (shown on Hyatt’s website as “LanChile Airlines”) and Aeroméxico. In both cases, you can transfer 5,000 Hyatt points to 4,000 airline points. Or, if you transfer 50,000 points at a time, you can transfer 50,000 Hyatt points to 50,000 airline points.
I don’t know of any good uses for Aeroméxico points, but LATAM Pass points do have good uses, especially for booking LATAM member airline’s themselves. We’ve covered this here: LATAM Pass: A sweet spot to South America hiding in Chase’s secret transfer partners. It’s also worth noting that none of the major transferable currencies transfer directly to LATAM Pass, so this may be the only practical way for many of us to get those points. Conversely, Amex Membership Rewards points transfer 1 to 1.6 to Aeroméxico, so if you want Aeroméxico points for some reason, that’s a better way to go.
Better than 2 to 1: Air China, Virgin Atlantic, Qantas, Southwest
In addition to LATAM Pass and Aeroméxico, Hyatt offers better than 2 to 1 conversions to Air China, Virgin Atlantic, Qantas, and Southwest. Here are the conversion ratios:
- Air China: 50K to 40K
- Virgin Atlantic: 50K to 37.5K
- Qantas: 50K to 30K
- Southwest: 50K to 30K
I can’t think of any reason that it would make sense to do any of these conversions, but I’ve included them for completeness. Virgin Atlantic and Southwest, in particular, make no sense to transfer from Chase since both are direct one to one partners from Chase.
Transfer 50K to 25K (no, don’t)
These airlines transfer at Hyatt’s normal rates (5K to 2K; or 50K to 25K):
- Air France
- ANA
- AA
- Asiana
- BA
- Cathay
- China Airlines
- China Southern
- Delta
- Emirates
- Etihad
- Hawaiian
- JAL
- Korean
- Qatar
- Royal Brunei
- Singapore
- Thai
- United
I do not recommend converting points to the above airlines at a 2 to 1 ratio except in very specific situations. For example, if you find an incredibly valuable award and have no other way of getting those miles, it may be worth doing the conversion. Keep in mind, though, that you may be better off simply buying miles in those cases rather than converting your points.
General Chase Transfer Info
Here’s some info you’ll need if you plan to convert points to miles as shown above:
- Chase points convert to Hyatt instantly.
- Hyatt’s terms state that conversions may take 6 to 8 weeks. I expect that it’s much faster in practice, but I haven’t yet tested it.
- Hyatt’s online conversion form is found here: world.hyatt.com/content/gp/en/rewards/air-auto/points-to-miles.html
- All conversions are final and non-reversible
Chase Secret Transfer Partners Conclusion
Via Hyatt, Chase Ultimate Rewards has indirect transfer partners that I wasn’t previously aware of. Among the options, I think some will find one to one transfers to LATAM Pass to be truly useful, especially if transfers happen much faster than Hyatt’s “allow 6 to 8 weeks”. Overall, though, for me this is just a fun and geeky thing to know about.
See Also:
- Chase Transfer Partners (includes more indirect transfer partners beyond the ones highlighted in this post)
- LATAM Pass: A sweet spot to South America hiding in Chase’s secret transfer partners
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I could see a 2:1 conversion on ANA making sense since their roundtrip rewards are just that lucrative compared to competition. For example, I just booked a flight 88k point + $400 Mexico to Tunisia Roundtrip in business class on Turkish Airlines, thats 44k each way, even at 176k chase points, its still a good deal 88k each way still beating United at around 100k each way.
Yep, good point
Update: It looks like Hyatt has removed LATAM as a transfer partner unfortunately. That leaves only Aeromexico as a 1 to 1 transfer from Hyatt.
Seems like Latam (not even listed as Lan) has now been removed as a Hyatt transfer partner (at least for me).
[…] Chase’s Secret Transfer Partners […]
[…] Links-Chase Ultimate Rewards secret transfer partners.-CNN probably just hasn’t heard about […]
[…] Indirect Chase transfer partners 50,000 Chase -> 50,000 Hyatt -> 50,000 LATAM or Aeromexico. Very narrow use cases. […]
[…] Greg wrote about Chase’s secret transfer partners. The one partner in that list that Greg mentioned may be worth checking out is LATAM Pass. Reader […]
What do you recommend to do with 17k Latam points if I am not flying right now? Can I transfer them to Hyatt in the other direction? Thanks.
No you can’t transfer the other way. I’d hold on to the points until travelling again.
Thanks. They expire January 1, and Latam will not extend the expiration date. Any suggestions? I can use them on Amazon, but that isn’t a terrific use for them.
That may be what you have to do to get any value at all out of those points.
Thanks. I can’t even determine what the value per point is. Amazon refers me to Latam, Latam refers me to Amazon.
Bruce Wayne, hunh? Sounds like some rich dude that knows what he’s doing. 🙂
Back in the day, 50K UR -> 50K Hyatt -> 30K SWA was really useful to get the SWA CP when those type of transactions would still work toward the SWA CP.
Latam and Aeromexico use kilometers instead of miles. That is why you get more kilometers for this conversion. 50,000 Kilometer is slightly more than 31,000 miles.
The LATAM Pass program uses Points now. The old LAN system used kilometers. It appears the conversion rate has not changed.
Bruce, do you know how long it takes to transfer points from Hyatt to Latam? Would like to do it for a trip in May
Thanks Greg, this is awesome news. I did not know about transfers to BA, but even better is knowing Air Canada is coming on board. They have been offering some great awards lately and I have a ton of Chase points so I’ll be looking….
Nice geeky insight!
FWIW, I was confused at first about the “better than 2:1” but once I thought about it as “better than 1:0.5 but not as good as 1:1” I understood
The very long transfer times sound awful
Thanks. About the transfer times: I’ll probably sacrifice some points just to find out how long it really takes. My bet is that it will be done much quicker than the terms suggest
What post are you trying to protect with this roast fodder?
50k hyatt->30k SW is a bit over the top lol. Even for Nick who loves his SW and is neutral towards Hyatt. I guess this makes a good teaser trailer post, now you have to deliver with LATAM.
Was this not clear enough? “I can’t think of any reason that it would make sense to do any of these conversions, but I’ve included them for completeness.”
It’s painfully clear to anyone who reads this blog. 😉 It looks like my emojis were edited out of my initial response 🙁 LATAM just better be Turkish level is all I’m saying 😉 Hard transfer case to make when everyone loves Hyatt and can often get 2¢+/pt pretty easily.
Weird. Not sure why emojis disappeared from your earlier comment. Anyway, no, LATAM is definitely not anywhere near Turkish level, but no other transferable currency transfers 1 to 1 to LATAM so it’s a find definitely worth reporting.
Nice catch! I’d add that Hilton is also a ‘secret’ transfer partner of Chase in a way. Transfer to Virgin Atlantic at 1:1 and then convert Virgin Points into Hilton at a ratio of 1:1.5. Good option if you’re not eligible for co-branded Hilton card bonuses or don’t have enough Membership Rewards points.
Thanks. Yep, all of our transfer partner guides include a section listing indirect transfers like Chase -> Virgin Atlantic -> Hilton. The Hyatt path is new to that list since I didn’t previously know there were options for 1 to 1 transfers.
https://frequentmiler.com/chase-transfer-partners/
At that rate you’re better off cashing out your Chase points and then buying HH. If you have a CSR you’ll get around 3 HH/1 Chase UR point (during one of the frequent Hilton point sales).