How Much Are Credit Card Travel Points Worth? Redemption Values of 75,000 Chase and American Express Points, US Rewards Earned, Redeemed and Forfeited, Annual Fees and Issuer Liabilities, from Issuer Terms, CFPB and SEC Filings, 2015–2026

Credit card points are advertised as travel currency, but their value depends on the redemption option, the card and the date, and the aggregate flows behind them are rarely reported alongside. We document the redemption values printed by Chase and American Express for a balance of 75,000 points and combine them with Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) data on the general purpose cards of major US issuers, the issuers' SEC filings, the consumer price index and household debt statistics. At Chase's base rate of one cent, 75,000 Ultimate Rewards points buy USD 750 of travel; Points Boost offers raise the ceiling to USD 1,125 on Sapphire Preferred and USD 1,500 on Sapphire Reserve for select bookings, and transfers to World of Hyatt from Sapphire Preferred fall to a 4:3 ratio, 56,250 Hyatt points, from 1 October 2026. American Express points are worth one cent on flights through its portal but 0.7 cents on prepaid hotels. Nationally, 92.3% of card purchase volume was on rewards cards in 2024, cardholders earned USD 47.0 billion and redeemed USD 43.0 billion of rewards, and the average rewards account held USD 191.86, 52.9% more than in 2019. The share of rewards accounts forfeiting rewards in a quarter fell from 4.80% to 2.81% but was 7.10% for subprime cardholders. The average annual fee on fee-paying accounts rose from USD 62.08 in 2015 to USD 127.02 in 2024. Chase's and American Express's rewards liabilities reached USD 32.52 billion at the end of 2025. Because a Chase point is fixed at one cent in cash terms, its travel value follows cash prices: airline fares were 3.5% below 2019 in 2025 but 23.4% above a year earlier in August 2026. All inputs are public.