Tiffany Raiford
What you do you consider most important when applying for a new credit card? Is it the interest rate? Is it the annual fee? Is it the points? If you ask anyone you know, chances are good their answers will differ significantly. Part of the reason is that not all credit cards are created equal, and not all people view their credit in the same manner. For instance, you might be very worried about having a card with a low interest rate because you know you can’t afford to pay off your balance in full each month. However, someone else you know might not care if the interest rate is 100% because they always pay their balance in full each month. Annual fees are always a big deal, but some people don’t consider them as awful as others. After all, what’s a few dollars a year to hold onto a card that offers so many amazing rewards? In fact, chances are very good that most people are concerned more with the rewards points offered by their credit cards than anything else. After all, this is what you get – free of charge – for spending money you would spend anyway. Chase is known for having amazing rewards associated with their many credit cards.
But no card beats the Chase Ink Plus Ultimate Rewards card, which offers a whopping 70,000 bonus points. Most cards offer bonus points to cardholders willing to spend a few dollars in the first month or two or three. But this card offers POINTS. Not 25,000 points. Not 50,000 points. This card offers 70,000 points to those who spend $5000 in 3 months. That’s an average of $1666 per month spent on the card. If you’re a pay it off in full kind of person, that’s not difficult to do if you use the card to pay your monthly expenses. But just what can you do with all those points? We have some suggestions for amazing ways you can use all those points.
Book Airline Tickets
With this many points, you can book all types of airline travel. While it’s difficult to say just what kind of travel you can book based on the specific airlines, your dates and your destinations, it’s safe to say you can book something really nice. Plenty of domestic flights will be free with this number of points. Many longer flights would be almost free, but would require just a little cash.
Book Hotel Rooms
Again, you can book many free nights at certain hotels for next to nothing or nothing at all. For example, if you use these points to pay for a hotel room at a Hyatt hotel in the top tier, you’d pay 30,000 points per night. You could stay two nights free of charge. And while that doesn’t sound like much, these hotels are very expensive, so you’re going to save a bundle. You could stay at a mid-tier Hyatt for far fewer points, staying many nights free of charge. For example, the Hyatt Regency San Francisco costs 15,000 rewards points per night, which means you could stay 4.6 nights free.
Book Rental Cars
You can book a rental car for nothing for a very long time. You can upgrade to a nicer car, get a long-term rental free of charge and enjoy all kinds of amenities with this little bonus point method. We highly recommend this, especially if you need a larger, more expensive vehicle.
Book Train Fare
Most people don’t care to book a train fare anywhere, but some do. Sometimes people don’t like to fly and aren’t into road trips, buses aren’t their thing and a train trip is much more exciting. However, you can book a nice, long train ride – or several – using your points. It can be an enjoyable experience for all.
Book Entire Vacation Packages
With 70,000 points to use, you can book anything you want – or so it seems. How about an entire vacation package that includes airfare, a rental car and a hotel room anywhere you want to go? Domestic trips will be far more affordable, but you will be able to at least get a nice discount on a more expensive trip.
Shop at Amazon
Did you know you can shop at Amazon with your points? Your points will pay for your entire purchase, depending on the product and the partnership with that particular Amazon product, or it will pay for a good portion of your purchase. It’s worth redeeming this way if you need a big-ticket item like electronics or furniture.
Get Cash Back
For every 2,000 points you have in your account, you can get cash back into your bank account. You get $20 for every 2,000 points you have in your account. That means you could get as much as $700 cash back. That’s a nice Christmas bonus just in time for the holiday shopping, don’t you think?
Get Gift Cards
Who doesn’t love a gift card? Depending on the location and the amount of the gift card you hope to purchase, you can get a significant and sizable gift card. You can also get many, many smaller gift cards so that you may enjoy meals, shopping experiences or travel using your cards. They make wonderful gifts, as well.
Book Experiences
An experience can be anything from a sky diving excursion to a theater performance. It just depends on what you’re into and what you want to experience. You can book these using your points and get many of them at no cost with such an impressive amount of points readily at your disposal.
Book Cruises
Cruises are fun, and they’re pretty inexpensive. You can book an entire cruise at no cost using your points if you choose to book a smaller cruise that’s not going too far or for too long. You can book longer, more upscale cruises, too. These will use more points and they might require a little bit of cash depending on the specifics of the cruise, but that’s nothing to worry about.
Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images
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