Abusing Chase Aeroplan PYB Leads to Shutdown
Chase recently launched a great feature for the Aeroplan credit card. You can redeem Aeroplan miles for purchases made with the card, at a value of 1.25 cents each. There’s no limit on how many points you can redeem through December 31, 2023. But for the following years there’s a cap of 50,000 points.
But Aeroplan is a transfer partner for Chase Ultimate Rewards, American Express Membership Rewards, Capital One Miles, and Bilt Rewards. That means that besides the miles earned with the card, you can also transfer your points to the Aeroplan program. You can then use the Chase Aeroplan Card for travel purchases, and redeem the transferred points through PYB. In theory it provides a 1.25 cash-out option for all those programs.
A Chase representative told me that “Air Canada and Aeroplan’s intention is that the Pay Yourself Back feature be used for points earned with Chase, through the Chase Aeroplan Card or Ultimate Rewards Points Transfer.” And now one data points seems to prove that Chase intends to enforce those intentions.
One redditor shared recently that after logging into his Chase account, he noticed that all personal and business credit cards were closed. The most plausible reason is the use of Aeroplan Pay Yourself Back, because he transferred around 5 Million Membership Rewards points to Aeroplan and used them all for PYB 2-3 weeks prior.
And it gets worse. He then received a letter from Chase saying that they will close all checking, savings, and investment accounts in 30 days and asked him to transfer all the assets out before the deadline.
I have seen some other data points of people doing the same thing, but at a much lower scale, with no issues. But considering that Chase does not want Aeroplan cardholders to use PYB for cashing out other currencies, you should be very careful when using this feature.
Guru’s Wrap-up
I think Chase should just introduce a way to stop these unintended uses from working at all, instead of going after cardholders who just take advantage of their credit card features. Yes 5 million points is excessive, but this could even happen unintentionally since all Aeroplan miles, earned with the card and transferred from other programs, are pooled together.
It’s also worth mentioning that this is just one data point,. You might be able to do this and get away with it, but I wouldn’t risk it if you value your Chase relationship.
If you want to redeem Membership Rewards points for cash, then your best bet is the Schwab Platinum Card. You only get 1.1cpp instead of 1.25cpp, but it is a safe option.
