Chase Ultimate Rewards Points Redemption: Barcelona To Lima In Business On AeroMexico & KLM

Many card products nowadays allow you to convert points earned to airline miles or hotel points, or they have in-house travel agencies that allow you to use points towards paid bookings.

Generally, using credit card points towards paid travel is not a good deal, but it is occasionally a good deal when the paid flights, especially in business, are competitively priced.

You can access Chase here.

Air France—KLM’s Flying Blue is changing how it rolls over excess XPs (its version of Tier Points), which will affect my account next membership year beginning on July 1.

The problem is that I would lose close to 200 XPs if I don’t reach 900 XPs by June 30^th, as I currently have 801 sitting on my account.

These XPs determine your program status. If you have had Platinum status continuously for 10 years, you will have it for life (yours or the program’s).

If I can get exactly 900 XPs (or slightly more), I will then have 7 years and only 3 Platinum qualification years left (900 XPs are needed, but a maximum of 300 per year).

I need to get to South America next week, so I was looking again at AeroMexico fares ex-Europe. These usually allow you to use KLM and Air France-operated flights over the Atlantic on AM code.

I looked at some destinations in Northern South America (Lima and Bogota), but the latter was not considered long-haul, per Flying Blue.

Chase Ultimate Rewards Travel Redemption:

Barcelona (BCN) – Amsterdam (AMS) = 15 XPs

Amsterdam (AMS) – Mexico City (MEX) = 36 XPs

Mexico City (MEX) – Lima (LIM) = 24 XPS

XPs Earned = 75

XP’s earned from SAS flights = 20

Current XP Balance = 801

Forward Looking XP Balance = 896 XPs

The AM ticket also earns, perhaps, around 20K Flying Blue miles.

Air France and KLM sell SAF (sustainable aviation fuel) credits, and I thought I could buy some to get the last four remaining XPs.

But!

Conclusion

This airline ticket cleared my Ultimate Rewards accounts, but I earn anywhere from 10K to 20K points monthly, as I swipe this card for travel and restaurant related expenses (3 points per USD = 4.5% “cashback”).

Chase Travel does not always offer the most exciting itineraries, but it seems that you can book these AM ex-Europe fares ticketed through them without any extras.

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