What Would I Do with 150K Points?

Chase just announced a limited-time offer on the Chase Sapphire Reserve®:

Earn 150,000 bonus points after you spend $6,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.

‍

That is the highest public welcome offer this card has ever had.

I saw that number and did what any reasonable person who is still pretty new to points and miles would do.

I panicked a little.

150,000 points sounds incredible. Like, flee-reality-and-go-to-Bali incredible.

But when you’re still figuring out the difference between transfer partners and travel portals, a number that big can feel less like a windfall and more like a pop quiz you didn’t study for. My colleagues here at Daily Drop are basically getting their PhDs in this stuff, while I’m still trying to figure out what to major in.

First Stop: My Brain Went Straight to Vegas

I know, I know. I can hear some of you already. She’s got 150,000 hypothetical points, and the first place her brain goes is Vegas?

Look. When I started poking around at all the transfer partners, award charts, and booking strategies, my brain did that thing where it folds in on itself. I’ve been at Daily Drop for a few months now, and I’m learning, but I am not at the level where I can casually score a lie-flat seat to Tokyo. And I have a sneaking suspicion a lot of you are right there with me.

Naturally, my brain defaulted to a place I already know and love. I’ve been going to Vegas for years. I took my kids there for their 21st birthdays. I know the restaurants, and I know the vibe.

Plus, my good friend lives in Phoenix, and we try to see each other at least once a year. We haven’t yet this year, which is basically a friendship felony. What if we met up in Vegas?

I looked at airfare through the Chase Travel portal. A nonstop round trip from Columbus to Las Vegas came to 57,217 points for me. For her to fly from Phoenix to Las Vegas and back? 27,680 points. 

My search for hotels (in the Chase Travel portal) brought up Mandalay Bay. Which I LOVE. It’s part of whatever “Points Boost” is (still learning, people), and I could book a room there for 46,904 points.

Now we’re cooking with gas.

Mandalay Bay, plus both our flights, for a girls’ weekend in Vegas: 136,102 points. That’s well under 150,000, with points to spare. I’m no points expert, but even I can feel the lightbulb flickering on here.

But then... I remembered something.

The Power of Transfer Partners

You know that thing where you’re rummaging through your kitchen looking for snacks, and you completely forget you have a whole other cabinet where you hide the good stuff from everyone else? That happened to me, except with Daily Drop Pro.

The last time someone visited me in Ohio, I booked their hotel room directly with the hotel. Paid cash. Didn’t even think to check whether I could’ve used points. Sigh. I’m not making that mistake twice.

So I pulled up Daily Drop Pro and started poking around. And that’s when things got interesting. I saw I could book a non-stop flight for just 14,000 miles (28K round-trip), barely denting my hypothetical point balance. That’s a solid half of what I found flights for in the portal.

I started getting excited. What else could I do with these points? I used Daily Drop Pro to find my friend’s flights.

4,000 points one-way, or 8,000 points round-trip. That’s over 4x fewer points than the portal’s 35,000 points.

So far, my running total using Daily Drop Pro to find flights I could use transferable points on came to 36,000 points. Again, that’s for round-trip flights for both of us. And I still had over 100K points to use for our hotel.

However, there wasn’t really a good budget points option for our hypothetical dates, so going through Chase’s Travel Portal was still the best option.

With the Mandalay booked through Chase and the airfare booked through transfer partners, I’m sitting at 82K points (roughly). That’s only around half of those beautiful points!

What I’m saying is: 150K can go a looong way.

But What Would the Pros Do?

My daydream was fun, but I was curious. What would someone who actually knows the points game do with this kind of windfall?

Megan: The Adventurer

If you’ve been in our Facebook Lounge or attended any of our live classes, you probably know Megan. She lives and breathes this stuff. When I asked her what she’d do with 150,000 points, she didn’t give me one answer.

She gave me four. Because of course she did.

• Business class to Egypt. Transfer to Aeroplan, fly business from New York to Egypt for about 70,000 points per person. Economy on the way home for around 39,000. That’s roughly 109,000 points for a round trip to Egypt, with enough left over for a hotel or even a second trip.

• Premium economy to Edinburgh. Edinburgh is Megan’s favorite place on earth, and she’d use Virgin Atlantic miles to fly premium for 25,000 to 35,000 points per person. And if you want proof this works at scale: Megan flew seven people to Edinburgh in premium economy for her own wedding. 121,000 points total. Seven people. For a wedding. I’ll just be over here with my mouth open, thanks.

• Business class to Amsterdam. She’d look for a business class deal around 60,000 points outbound, then fly premium on the way home for about 37,000. Roughly 97,000 points round-trip.

• Business class to Helsinki for the northern lights. This is Megan’s dream trip. Fly Finnair from Chicago, about 63,000 points for business class or 44,000 for premium. When she mentioned the northern lights, even my overwhelmed brain stopped spiraling long enough to go, oh. I want that.

What I love about Megan’s approach is that she thinks about the experience first and works backward to the points. She’s not doing math for the fun of it. She’s figuring out how to get to the places she cares about, and then finding the smartest way to make it happen.

Alison: The Strategist

Alison writes your welcome emails when you first join Daily Drop, so some of you have already met her without realizing it. When I asked her this question, there was zero hesitation.

She’d fly United’s new 787 Polaris Suite to London for 80,000 points.

She’s already been looking into it, and actually, just as this article went to publication, she booked it! She found availability in August (high season!), and because she holds a United card, she gets a cardmember discount on some award flights (which she’ll tell you all about in this guide). This is the kind of thing that sounds like a foreign language to me, but Alison rattled it off like she was reading a menu at her favorite restaurant.

Her backup plan is equally specific: an all-inclusive stay in Mexico at Secrets Akumal. Calm blue beach in a bay. Coral reef right off the beach. Sea turtles. She found rates around 30,000 points per night, and mentioned that even with the upcoming Hyatt devaluation (womp womp), it would still be worth it to her. With 150,000 points, that’s five nights at a gorgeous all-inclusive resort where the hardest decision you’d make all day is whether to snorkel before or after lunch.

When I asked Alison if she’d consider just booking a bunch of economy flights instead, she said: “I GUESS I could plan multiple trips in economy... but I like to be comfy.”

Fair enough, Alison. Fair enough.

The Cheat Sheet: Three Approaches, One Pile of Points

For the visual learners out there (hi, that’s me), here’s how it all shakes out: 

What Would You Do?

Three people. Three wildly different answers. And none of them are wrong.

I’m the one who panicked, defaulted to, “Ahhh! Let me look at the airline I know to the place I know to see what I can afford! Ahhh!” And then remembered everything I learned since I started working here.

Megan sees 150,000 points as a menu of incredible international experiences and knows exactly how to order from it.

Alison knows what she wants, finds the best version of it, and doesn’t apologize for wanting to be comfortable.

That’s the part that surprised me about this whole exercise. 150,000 points is a LOT of vacation. Whether that looks like a girls’ weekend in Vegas, business class to Egypt, the northern lights in Finland, or five nights at an all-inclusive resort with sea turtles.

But it was Alison who said my favorite words of all time: “all-inclusive.” I’m the kind of vacationer who doesn’t want to worry about a single thing when I finally unbuckle from the daily responsibilities of adulting. One price. Everything handled. Snorkel, eat, nap, repeat.

So… if I actually pull the trigger on this card? I might just end up on a beach in Mexico, doing absolutely nothing, on points.

And honestly? That sounds like the best 150,000 points I could ever spend. I should jump on the offer before it ends.