Don’t Miss Out on Easy Points: Spy on My Personal Chase Credit Card Calendar for January 2019 – How I Stay Organized While Earning Points

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I use Chase credit card points to take amazing trips — I’m headed down to the Dominican Republic for a warm winter beach escape and this past summer I flew Business Class to Europe using Chase points that I combined from my

• Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card – #1 credit card for folks new to using points for travel instead of money
• Ink Business Cash℠ Credit Card – no annual fee and awesome 5X and 2X points categories
• Ink Business Unlimited℠ Credit Card – no annual fee and unlimited 1.5X points on purchases
• Chase Freedom

And you may have heard, I have my eye on the Chase credit card with the most lucrative sign-up bonus of them all —

Ink Business Preferred℠ Credit Card – earn 80,000 Chase points — that’s worth $1,200 for Southwest flights, or a round-trip award flight to Europe, or 1-way to Europe in Business Class, or 3 free award nights at a top-rated all-inclusive Hyatt resort, or $1,000 for any flight you want to book through the Chase travel site, or $800 cash —  after you spend $5,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.

Here’s my Chase credit card calendar for January 2019.  I’ll explain it below.

Important Dates on My Chase Credit Card Calendar

January 1, 2019 — Reminder to register for Chase Freedom rotating credit card 5X categories for January through March

January 2, 2019 — pay phone bill with my Chase Ink Business Cash℠ Credit Card.  Because with this card you earn 5X Chase points for per $1 spent on… “the first $25,000 spent in combined purchases each account anniversary year at office supply stores, internet, cable and phone services.”  You can take it as cash back or do what I do and move all the points to your Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card for amazing travel awards.

There are 3 magical Chase credit cards that enable you to transfer your Chase Ultimate Rewards points to partner airlines and hotels (that’s the secret to getting really incredible travel like free flights!):

• Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card – this is the credit card I have
• Ink Business Preferred℠ Credit Card – this is the one I want next
• Chase Sapphire Reserve® – this is a fantastic travel credit card for folks who know for sure they’ll be using all the perks

Having any ONE of the three Chase credit cards above gives you the ability to transform Chase points into…

• United Airlines miles — That’s how I fly to Europe.  And I don’t even actually fly on United.  I fly on United’s cousin airlines such as Lufthansa, TAP Portugal, LOT Polish, Air Canada, Brussels Air, etc..
• Hyatt points — that’s how I stayed (twice!) at the beautiful Hyatt Zilara Cancun.  It’s an all-inclusive resort right on the clean white sand beach.  I loved the restaurants and cocktails and the jacuzzi in my ocean-view suite.
• Southwest points – I’ve flown Southwest to Punta Cana, Cancun, Austin, and more.  And in 2019 Southwest will start flying to Hawaii.  I’ve always had friendly service and I love the 2 free checked bags per passenger.
• and there are more top partners to help you travel free or super affordably all around the world such as British Airways, Iberia (Hello, Spain!), Singapore Airlines, JetBlue, Marriott, IHG, and others.

January 5, 2019 — Date night.  With Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card you earn 2X points at restaurants AND… in my experience night clubs almost always “code” as restaurants too!

January 9, 2019 — pay internet and cable bill with my Chase Ink Business Cash℠ Credit Card for 5X points.  As you see, I don’t do automatic bill payment. 🙂

January 15, 2019 — I’ve got a New York City trip coming up pretty soon!  And that’s when I’ll take a look at flights.  Depending on the price and non-stop routes, I’ll decide between

• paying for it with my Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card to earn 2X Chase points or
• flipping my Chase points into Southwest points to fly for free with free checked bags or
• turning my Chase points into JetBlue points for a free flight or
• using Chase points on the Chase travel site (it’s like Expedia) where my Chase points are worth 1.25 cents each

I love having great options thanks to my Chase Sapphire Preferred!

January 18, 2019 – I’ve been to Santo Domingo once before and had a lot of fun.  If I go again while down in the Dominican Republic, I’ll look for a free hotel stay using points from my IHG® Rewards Club Premier Credit Card

January 21, 2019 — My $95  Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card annual fee will be due soon.  When you sign-up, there’s no annual fee in year one with the card.  I’ve held onto my trusty Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card for over 5 years because it’s always been well worth the $95.  I mean, without it I couldn’t have booked Business Class flights to Europe!  So the only thing I need to consider this year is whether to pay it again or “upgrade it” to the Chase Sapphire Reserve® which has more benefits along with a much higher annual fee.  

If you’re trying to decide between those 2 cards and you’re unsure, I recommend going for the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card because you can always upgrade to the Chase Sapphire Reserve later on.

January 23, 2019 — reminder to hit up one of the Chase Freedom 5X categories

January 31, 2019 — it says Freedom but at the end of each month I also move points from my

• Ink Business Unlimited℠ Credit Card and
• Ink Business Cash℠ Credit Card

to my Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card.

Because I like having all the points sitting in the account of my most powerful card.

Your Chase credit calendar might be simpler than this if you do automatic bill pay and such.  But I wanted to give you an idea of how I think about Chase points and the points travel planning process I go through.