Chase Ultimate Rewards: 12 partners and what they actually book (2026)

What Chase UR actually gets you

Chase Ultimate Rewards is the most flexible transferable currency for award travel: 12 transfer partners (9 airlines, 3 hotels), every transfer at a straight 1:1 ratio, no fees (cross-checked against Chase's own transfer partner list on 2026-04-20). Points earned on the Sapphire Preferred, Sapphire Reserve, Ink Business Preferred, and Ink Business Premier transfer to the full partner list; Freedom-family cards earn UR but the transfer capability is unlocked only when a Sapphire or Ink card is also on the account (Chase Ultimate Rewards transfer partners page).

The 12 transfer partners (all 1:1)

List verified against chase.com transfer partners on 2026-04-20. Most recent change: Chase ended the Emirates Skywards partnership on October 16, 2025 (LoyaltyLobby; OMAAT). The rest of the list has been stable for years.

Active transfer bonuses right now

Top redemptions, sorted by value per point

How to actually use Chase UR

1. Identify the partner first, not the points. The "best" use of UR depends on where you want to go and what cabin. A West Coast flyer targeting Tokyo cares about Virgin Atlantic (ANA First at 72,500 miles from SFO or ORD, 85,000 from JFK, last audited 2026-04-15) and United. An East Coast flyer wanting Europe in business class cares about Flying Blue (45K one-way promo awards when the monthly cycle lines up) and Aeroplan. A hotel-heavy traveler cares about Hyatt. The sorted list above is the starting question.
2. Check availability before you transfer. Transfers are permanent. Use the radar or seats.aero to confirm award space on your dates before moving any points. Airline transfers from Chase typically land instant to 24 hours; hotel transfers (Hyatt, IHG, Marriott) are immediate.
3. Move only what you need. Transfer the exact booking total plus a small buffer for taxes. Orphan airline balances get stuck at the partner with no way to pull them back.
4. Stack with active bonuses. When a UR-to-partner bonus is running, the effective ratio goes above 1:1. A 20% bonus on a 60K award drops it to 50K UR; a 70% bonus to IHG makes otherwise-mediocre IHG redemptions competitive. Wait for a bonus if your target booking is more than a week out and the current bonus window reaches that far.

What Chase UR does not transfer to

Gaps in the UR partner list are the reason the other four transferable currencies exist. UR does not reach:

• Delta SkyMiles (Amex only)
• American AAdvantage (Bilt only among transferables)
• Alaska Mileage Plan (Bilt only)
• Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles (Citi, Capital One, Bilt)
• ANA Mileage Club directly (Amex only; Chase reaches ANA through Virgin Atlantic and United, which is why those two partners punch above their weight for Chase cardholders)
• Cathay Pacific Asia Miles (Amex, Citi, Capital One)
• Avianca LifeMiles (Amex, Citi, Capital One, Bilt)
• Etihad Guest (Amex, Citi, Capital One)
• Hilton Honors (Amex only)

Cross-referenced against every transferable currency's partner list on 2026-04-20. If most of your target redemptions sit in the above list, UR is a complement not a foundation. The Amex MR guide and Bilt guide cover the currencies that fill those gaps.

What can go wrong

• Emirates is gone. If you transferred UR to Skywards before October 2025 and didn't book, those miles are stranded in Skywards; no more UR top-ups. The only transferable currencies that still reach Emirates are Amex MR (5:4), Citi TY (5:4), Capital One (2:1.5), and Bilt (1:1) (Emirates partner audit, 2026-04-15).
• Southwest won't book international. UR to Southwest is useful only for Southwest flights. Southwest has no international partners, so don't transfer expecting broader reach.
• Marriott is a value destruction trade. Independent valuation sources consistently price Marriott Bonvoy points under 1 cpp (TPG monthly valuations puts Marriott at 0.7 cpp; Frequent Miler Reasonable Redemption Values shows a similar sub-1 cpp band). Transferring 1 UR (worth more than that when applied to any mid-value flight award) for 1 Marriott point burns value. Use Marriott points you already have, but don't feed them new UR.
• IHG has the same dilution problem. IHG points run roughly 0.5-0.7 cpp (IHG 4th-night-free audit, 2026-04-15). The current 70% bonus narrows the gap but does not close it. Transfer only for a specific booking where IHG is the best or only redemption (Kimpton, Six Senses), not as a general hoarding move.

April 2026 firsthand

Two live UR transfer bonuses right now (our bonus tracker, 2026-04-20): UR → Aeroplan at +20% and UR → IHG at +70%, both expiring 2026-04-30. The Aeroplan bonus is the more useful one in practice: it turns a 60K one-way US-to-Europe business award into a 50K transfer, and Aeroplan's distance-based chart (60K/way under 4,000 miles, 70K/way for 4,001-6,000 miles, from our Aeroplan audit on 2026-04-15) is already one of the strongest Star Alliance charts from the US. The IHG 70% is headline-grabbing but the dilution problem above still applies. Stack only if you have a specific property booked.