Most points and miles posts treat the Amex vs. Chase decision like a spreadsheet problem. Compare transfer partners, count hotel properties, run the cents-per-point math, pick a winner. That misses what actually determines which ecosystem most people end up in: where they live, which airline dominates their home airport, and which card they happened to open first.
I had not opened a points card in the 10 years since I closed my last one. Amex sent me a pre-approval offer on the personal Platinum card in late 2023. I didn’t know anything about points and miles in general, or the Amex lifetime language rule specifically. While a great card, the Amex Platinum is a terrible card to start with in this arena. My second card? The Frontier Mastercard. Yes, please, learn from my mistakes.
I’m lol/24, which means I’ve opened enough cards in the past two years that Chase won’t approve me for anything (more on that below). I didn’t plan it that way, but I have zero regrets. The Amex ecosystem has produced free nights at properties I couldn’t have afforded otherwise, access to AA business class at 40% below what AAdvantage charges its own members, and a points operation I understand deeply after years of building it. If Chase-first is the theoretically optimal path, Amex-first is the one that actually worked incredibly well for me, despite my initial missteps.
A points ecosystem is the combination of a credit card issuer paired with its airline and hotel partners. The issuer is where you earn flexible points. The partners are where those points become flights and hotel nights.
Amex Membership Rewards connects to Delta and Hilton, among others. Chase Ultimate Rewards connects to United and Hyatt, among others. Citi ThankYou connects to American Airlines. The card you open first likely will shape everything that follows: which airline miles you’re accumulating, which hotel status you’re building toward, and which transfer partners you can reach. Change your mind later, and you’re not just switching cards. You’re abandoning a status track and starting a new one from zero.
Amex currently has 20 transfer partners: 17 airlines and 3 hotel chains. Chase has 14: 10 airlines and 4 hotel partners, all at a 1:1 ratio. Chase transfers to United are free and instant. Amex transfers to U.S. airlines like Delta carry a small excise fee: $0.0006 per point, capped at $99. Transferring 50,000 Amex points to Delta costs you $30.
None of that is why Chase-first is the conventional wisdom. The reason is 5/24.
Chase will not approve you for any of its cards if you’ve opened five or more new personal credit card accounts in the past 24 months, across any bank. Open three Amex cards and two Capital One cards in year one, and Chase is done with you for the foreseeable future. The r/churning community on Reddit has a flowchart, refined over years, specifically to route beginners through Chase before they use their 5/24 slots on Amex. The logic: Amex cards are easier to get, don’t enforce a comparable application limit, and will still be available after you finish Chase. Chase won’t wait for you.
If you’re starting fresh and you’re under 5/24, opening Chase personal cards first, using Chase business cards as spacers, and then pivoting to Amex is the move that maximizes welcome bonuses over time. Going Amex-first means those Chase bonuses are off the table until your 5/24 count drops, which takes years.
What the flowchart can’t account for is what you build in the meantime. I went deep in Amex before I understood 5/24. Twelve cards later, I have transfer partner access I’ve used in ways the flowchart never anticipated, a Hilton Aspire cert that books $3,900 hotel nights, and a points operation that has paid for itself many times over. The Chase bonuses I missed are real. So is everything I built instead.
One thing that changed in June 2025: Chase eliminated the Sapphire 48-month rule, which had prevented you from earning a Sapphire welcome bonus within 48 months of a previous one. That’s gone now. If you’re under 5/24 and haven’t held a Sapphire in a while, the window is as open as it’s been in years.
Today, Chase announced a major refresh to the Chase Sapphire Preferred card, introducing new 3x-earning categories, a doubled annual hotel credit, and a TSA PreCheck/Global Entry credit, all while keeping the $95 annual fee unchanged. However, Chase is also phasing out the card’s 10% anniversary point bonus and changing the Hyatt redemption rate.
The new enhancements and updates going into effect include:
Where you live largely decides this, and it should.
Delta hubs: Atlanta, Minneapolis, Detroit, Salt Lake City. United hubs: Chicago, Houston, Newark, Denver, San Francisco. If you’re in one of those cities, your airline should already be chosen. Picking the other ecosystem means earning miles you’ll redeem on a carrier you rarely fly, which compounds the problem every time you book.
On paper, United miles are worth more. NerdWallet’s 2025 valuation put MileagePlus at approximately 1.5 cents per mile, compared with 1.1 cents for SkyMiles. The gap comes from Delta’s fully dynamic award pricing: no chart, no predictability, prices shift with demand. United still publishes a structured award chart, which means you can plan a redemption weeks out without worrying the price might double overnight.
For international premium cabin travel, United has a structural advantage that doesn’t show up in cents-per-mile averages. Star Alliance includes ANA, Lufthansa, and Singapore Airlines. Booking ANA first class through United MileagePlus is one of the most cited sweet spots in the hobby. Delta’s SkyTeam partnerships are thinner on that front, and SkyMiles’ dynamic pricing makes the occasional great deal feel as much like luck as strategy.
For domestic travel, especially with family, the gap narrows. Delta leads the major carriers in on-time performance, offers free WiFi for SkyMiles members on many domestic routes, and consistently ranks higher for overall on-board experience. If your travel is mostly domestic and you live near a Delta hub, the miles value gap doesn’t matter much in practice.
The two-ecosystem framing breaks down if you live in Dallas, Miami, Charlotte, or Philadelphia. Those cities are American Airlines hubs. Delta and United have minimal presence. If you’re flying out of DFW every week, the Amex/Delta or Chase/United calculus becomes a lot less tidy.
This is where my situation diverges from the clean comparison. I’m in Dallas, so AA is my actual airline. And AA has historically been the orphan of the transferable points world: no direct Amex path, no Chase path. Citi re-added American Airlines as a transfer partner on July 27, 2025, after nearly a four-year hiatus, making it the only major transferable currency with a direct path to AAdvantage. That’s a meaningful development for AA flyers, but Citi wasn’t an option I had when I was building my point balances.
So how did I end up with Alaska miles? Through a chain that no longer exists. When Alaska acquired Hawaiian Airlines, there was a brief window during which Amex transferred to Hawaiian, and Hawaiian miles converted to Alaska Mileage Plan miles. Alaska’s partnership with American prices AA business-class seats at 15,000 miles for a nonstop flight from DFW to Cancun. AAdvantage charges 25,000 miles for the same seat. I moved 1,166,000 Amex points through that chain before the June 29, 2025, deadline closed it, and I’m down to just over 200,000 Alaska miles now after putting them to work.
The full story is in why I speculatively transfer points and miles, but the short version is: the Amex ecosystem gave me access to AA metal at a 40% discount to what AA charges its own members, through a two-hop path that required acting before the window closed. That’s not a path a beginner would find or use. It’s the kind of thing that only works if you’re already deep in the Amex world and paying attention to opportunities (always be probing, in a way).
For a beginner at DFW today, I’d start with the Citi Strata Premier. It’s the only card from a major transferable currency that transfers directly to AAdvantage at 1:1, it earns 3x on air, hotels, restaurants, and groceries, and it doesn’t carry a 5/24-style application restriction. Get that card first, build an AAdvantage balance, then decide whether Chase or Amex makes more sense for the hotel side based on how you travel. Hyatt, if you want the highest value per redemption and stay mostly in major cities. Hilton, if you need the coverage and want the Aspire free night cert in your back pocket. The airline question at DFW answers itself. The hotel question is where the real decision is. Of course, there’s also DAL and Southwest, but then you’re already back to Chase.
The math here isn’t close.
Hilton Honors points are worth approximately 0.5 to 0.6 cents each. World of Hyatt points are worth approximately 1.7 to 2.0 cents each. That means a Hyatt point is worth roughly three to four times as much as a Hilton point. Hilton partly compensates with larger bonuses and higher earning rates, but the gap is wide enough that you need to earn a lot more Hilton points just to reach the same number of hotel nights.
A Hyatt Category 4 property runs 15,000 points per night. At 1.8 cents per point, that’s $270 in value from 15,000 points. A comparable Hilton property might cost 40,000 to 60,000 points at the same cash rate. At 0.55 cents per point, that’s $220 to $330 in value from two to four times as many points. The Hilton math can work, but you’re moving a lot more currency to get there.
Where Hilton wins is coverage. Roughly 8,600 properties worldwide vs. Hyatt’s 1,300. In secondary markets, smaller cities, and highway stops, Hilton is there, and Hyatt isn’t. For road warriors or travelers who don’t stay in major metros, that footprint matters more than the per-point value. For anyone whose travel concentrates in cities where both chains have a presence, Hyatt wins on value every time.
There’s one place Hilton’s value story turns entirely in its favor: the free night certificate on the Hilton Aspire card. The Hyatt free night certificate issued by most Chase cards is capped at Category 4, which covers properties running roughly $300 to $400 per night in cash. The Hilton Aspire certificate has no points cap and works at any standard room across the full Hilton portfolio, including Small Luxury Hotels of the World properties. I redeem mine at Hermitage Bay in Antigua, where the cash rate runs around $3,900 per night. A $550 annual fee producing a $3,900 hotel night isn’t a points question anymore. No Hyatt free-night certificate comes close to that ceiling. Read more about the value in my post, I Pay $12,489 a Year in Credit Card Annual Fees, and I Come Out Way Ahead.
I’m all in on Hilton. With the luxury hotel benefits I get each year with the Amex Platinum cards and the Chase Sapphire Reserve, any other stays are usually Hilton, although Rove is changing my behavior on that a little.
The ecosystem comparison above is a snapshot. All of the programs have moved in the past 18 months, and not in the same direction or at the same speed. That matters when you’re deciding where to park your points long-term.
Hilton has been the most aggressive. Three major devaluations in under a year: the cap on top-tier properties went from 95,000 points per night in late 2024 to 150,000, then 200,000, then 250,000 by September 2025. That’s a 163% increase in the cost of aspirational stays, with no advance notice on any of them. Mid-tier properties followed in early 2026. The one thing Hilton hasn’t touched: free night certificates. If you hold Aspire cards, those certs have survived every round so far. But the underlying points balance is worth less than it was a year ago, and there’s no reason to believe the devaluations are finished.
Hyatt held its award chart intact longer than any major hotel program, then moved in May 2026. The structure expanded from 3 pricing tiers to 5, and standard pricing increased 20-37.5% across the board. 112 properties moved to higher categories; 24 moved to lower categories. It’s still the most transparent hotel program in the business, still publishes its chart, and the increase was announced months in advance rather than overnight. Relative to Hilton, Hyatt’s devaluation looks almost gentlemanly. In absolute terms, it still costs more than it did.
AAdvantage is the outlier. No major partner award chart devaluation in 2025 or 2026. It’s the last major U.S. carrier still publishing a fixed chart for partner redemptions, and those rates haven’t changed in a decade. The program has been chipped at around the edges: basic economy fares stopped earning miles in December 2025, the fixed upgrade chart was replaced with dynamic instant upgrades in mid-2025, and partner earning bonuses were capped in early 2026. The core redemption value for partner awards, the reason Alaska miles at 15,000 for DFW-Cancun business class are possible in the first place, remains intact. For now. Every article written about AAdvantage in 2026 includes some version of “this is probably the year the partner chart goes dynamic.” It hasn’t happened yet.
United MileagePlus has devalued in ways that hit non-cardholders hardest. The Excursionist Perk, which let you add a free one-way segment to a multi-city award, was eliminated in August 2025. Mile-earning rates on revenue fares dropped for members without a United co-branded card starting in April 2026. The PlusPoints upgrade chart becomes fully dynamic in February 2027, making upgrade costs unpredictable for top-tier elites. The partial offset: cardholders get at least 10% off award flights (15% for Premier members) and expanded access to Polaris saver seats. United is increasingly a two-tier program: cardholders in good standing, non-cardholders noticeably worse off.
The broader pattern across all four points is that they are being pushed toward cardholders and away from people who earn through flying or other partners. The programs that generate the most credit card revenue, Delta/Amex and United/Chase, are structured to reward the card relationship above all else. That’s useful information when you’re choosing which ecosystem to enter. You’re not just choosing a transfer partner. You’re choosing which bank’s cardholder to become.
The ecosystem framing assumes you need a credit card to play. One program launched in 2025 entirely breaks that assumption.
Rove is a standalone loyalty program with no credit card, no credit check, and no income requirements. You earn miles through hotel bookings on the Rove portal, cash flight bookings, and a shopping browser extension similar to Rakuten. Those miles transfer 1:1 to 18 airline and hotel partners spanning all three alliances: Oneworld, Star Alliance, and SkyTeam. Partners include Lufthansa Miles & More, JAL Mileage Bank, Flying Blue, Virgin Atlantic, and SAS EuroBonus, among others. The Accor transfer runs at 1:1.5, which is better than most credit card programs offer.
I’m currently accumulating Rove miles through hotel bookings and the shopping extension. I haven’t transferred out yet. The strategy is patience: Rove runs transfer bonuses periodically, and moving miles into the right partner at a 20 or 30% bonus changes the math considerably. Without a pressing need for miles in any specific program right now, there’s no reason to move them before a bonus appears. There is a 50% transfer bonus to Turkish Airlines running from June 1 through June 30, 2026.
For anyone who is lol/24, building credit, or just done opening new cards, Rove is a parallel track that didn’t exist before 2025. You’re not locked out of the transferable points game because a bank won’t approve you. You’re earning a flexible currency on top of whatever card you already use, and waiting for the right moment to deploy it.
Bilt is worth one sentence for renters: it earns points on rent payments with the Bilt card and transfers to World of Hyatt at 1:1. If you’re renting, want Hyatt nights, and haven’t touched Chase yet, it’s worth a look before you open a Sapphire.
If you’re under 5/24 and haven’t opened a Chase card yet, I’d probably say to go there first. Sapphire Preferred or Reserve, then Chase business cards as spacers, then pivot to Amex. The welcome bonuses are worth it, and the window doesn’t stay open forever.
If you’re already over 5/24, or you went Amex-first as I did, the Amex ecosystem is deep enough to build something pretty amazing. 20 transfer partners, the Hilton Aspire cert, creative paths to airlines you wouldn’t expect. I have 12 Amex cards, and I use every one of them. The Chase bonuses I didn’t get are a cost, but everything I’ve built in the Amex world has given me a huge return.
And, I’d do it again.
If you’re at DFW or any other AA hub, start with Citi, build your AAdvantage base, then layer in Amex or Chase on the hotel side depending on how you travel.
The one thing I’d tell anyone, regardless of where they start, is to pick a hotel program and commit to it early. Status, free night certs, and elite benefits compound over the years. Splitting nights between Hilton and Hyatt because you couldn’t decide costs you more than picking the wrong one.
Does it matter which ecosystem I start with?
Yes, Chase-first maximizes welcome bonuses because of 5/24. Amex-first means you may never get those Chase bonuses. That’s a serious tradeoff, but not a catastrophic mistake. The Amex ecosystem is deep enough to build serious value on its own, and 12 cards in, I haven’t run out of runway.
Do Amex points transfer to Hyatt?
No. Hyatt is a Chase Ultimate Rewards partner only. If Hyatt is your target hotel program, Chase is the issuer you need.
Do Chase points transfer to Delta?
No. Delta is an Amex partner only. United is the major U.S. airline in the Chase network.
What is lol/24?
Shorthand for being so far over Chase’s 5/24 rule that there’s no realistic near-term path to approval. If you’ve opened eight or ten cards in the past two years, you’re lol/24. You’ll need to wait for accounts to age out of the 24-month window before Chase will look at you again.
Can Amex points be used for American Airlines flights?
Not directly. There’s no Amex-to-AAdvantage transfer path. The indirect option that existed via Hawaiian Airlines closed on June 29, 2025.
Which credit card transfers directly to AAdvantage?
Citi, as of July 2025. The Strata Premier and Strata Elite both transfer at 1:1. It’s the only major transferable currency with a direct path to AAdvantage.
Is Alaska Mileage Plan worth pursuing for DFW travelers?
Yes, if you can get miles into it. Alaska prices AA flights consistently below the rates AAdvantage charges for the same seats. The challenge is supply: the Amex-to-Hawaiian path that let me build a large Alaska balance closed in mid-2025, and there’s no equivalent replacement yet. Note that American Airlines appears to block nonstop domestic saver award flights within 144 hours of departure. Hopefully this is temporary.
Learn + Earn + Burn + Churn
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
American Express Chase Citi Credit Cards Delta SkyMiles Points And Miles
You must be logged in to post a comment.