Chase offering 20% bonus on point transfers to Southwest

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Travel credit cards are desperate to show their worth during a pandemic that has drastically reduced the amount of people who hit the road.

Unlike American Express and Citi, Chase rarely ever offers transfer bonuses for its flexible points earning cards. Fortunately, that’s changed.

Chase launches 20% bonus for Southwest transfers

Today, Chase has launched a promotion where you can earn 20% more points when transferring Chase Ultimate Rewards points to Southwest Airlines.

The transfer ratio is normally 1:1, but with this deal it’s now 1:1.2. For example, if you were to transfer 10,000 Chase points to Southwest you’d end up with 12,000 Southwest points during the promo period.

While Chase points normally transfer to your Southwest account immediately, it’s possible the 20% bonus won’t post until a few days after the transfer is complete. You’ll have until October 31 to take advantage of this promotion, so make sure to initiate the transfer on or before that date.

We value Southwest points at 1.4 to 1.5 cents, meaning you’d be getting 1.7 to 1.8 cents per Chase point with this deal, which is what we actually value Chase points at. To make sure you’re maximizing your miles, read our guide on the best ways to use Southwest points.

Fly to Cancun, Mexico on Southwest for less with the new Chase transfer bonus. (Photo by photopixel/Shutterstock)

Another thing to consider is that Southwest Points don’t expire, so if you know you’re going to fly Southwest at somepoint in the future, it could be worth speculatively transferring some points over to take advantage of the bonus. That being said, we normally don’t recommended speculative transfers as it’s almost always better to have flexibility with your transferrable points and not to lock them into one airline rewads program.

Finally, remember that if you’re not traveling, Chase has just extended its Pay Yourself Back program. If you want to cash out your points to cover purchases made at restaurants, grocery stores, home improvement stores, this is a great time to do that too.

How to earn Chase points

You’ll need an Ultimate-Rewards-earning Chase credit card to be able to transfer your points to Southwest. The cards that earn transferable Ultimate Rewards points are:

  • Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
  • Chase Sapphire Reserve®
  • Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card

The Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card recently launched an 80,000 point welcome bonus after spending $4,000 in the first three months. If you were to hit the bonus before the end of the promotion, your 80,000 Chase points could turn into a whopping 96,000 Southwest points with this deal!

You can also earn Chase Ultimate Rewards points with the following cards, you’ll just need one of the previous three cards mentioned to actually transfer points to travel partners like Southwest:

  • Chase Freedom Flex℠
  • Chase Freedom Unlimited®
  • Ink Business Unlimited Credit Card
  • Ink Business Cash Credit Card

Bottom line

It’s great to see Chase launching lucrative promotions for current cardholders. If you have a Southwest trip in mind coming up, this is an easy opportunity to get more value out of your points, and if you’re someone who frequently flies Southwest, it could be worth transferring some points now for future travel.

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Brendan Dorsey is an editor at Million Mile Secrets. He loves all things travel, points, miles and credit cards. He's worked for TIME and The Points Guy and has appeared on MSN, Yahoo Finance, Readers Digest, USA Today, CreditCards.com and more.

Editorial Note: We're the Million Mile Secrets team. And we're proud of our content, opinions and analysis, and of our reader's comments. These haven’t been reviewed, approved or endorsed by any of the airlines, hotels, or credit card issuers which we often write about. And that’s just how we like it! :)

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