Finally, you have managed to accumulate many credit card points and the good news is that you can earn a free flight. But in order to make it happen, you will need to invest much more effort than it actually required. In this situation the problem is that neither banks nor airlines are interested in making the points earning process really simple. Instead they hide the most valuable offers behind many menus and lots of technologically complex terms.
First of all, it is necessary to distinguish between flexible points (Chase Ultimate Rewards, American Express Membership Rewards) and program-specific points (Delta SkyMiles or United MileagePlus). It is much easier to work with flexible points.
No matter what kind of points you choose, the easiest way to go is to use the basics of online redemption of your points. All you need is to simply enter the portal and book yourself a hotel room or even a flight. This procedure resembles couponing in grocery store, but you can get an average value of one cent per point.
But in this case things become interesting if you consider the existence of transfer partners. In other words, you need to transfer your points from Chase and Amex to another airline such as JetBlue or British Airways. Why do you need to do it? It is because the airlines sells their tickets for 100,000 miles, but you can find the same ticket for 50,000 miles if you use transfer partners.
It resembles the exchange of your money for the local currency of your destination country. On some occasions you will have an amazing hotel experience for a fraction of price due to the transferring of points to Hyatt. And other times transferring to Virgin Atlantic will be the only way for you to book an ANA flight to Tokyo.
Do not be afraid that this procedure might seem complicated. First, try to start with booking a domestic round trip with the help of transfer partners. Once you manage to find the flight which appears for you for free, you will never be able to look at the cash prices in the same way.