With a robust network of cards and a number of ways to earn and redeem points, the Chase Ultimate Rewards® program is very popular with travelers.

While you can use your points for things such as gift cards, shopping, Amazon and cash back, you’ll almost always get better value when you redeem points for travel.

Here are a few ways to maximize your rewards to create some ultimate travel adventures.

1. Do the math

One thing many travelers like best about Chase Ultimate Rewards® is that they’re easy to redeem in the Chase travel portal. You can search the portal powered by Expedia for flights, hotels and rental cars and choose to pay cash or redeem your points.

If you have the Chase Sapphire Reserve®, you’ll get a guaranteed value of 1.5 cents per point when redeeming for travel in the portal. If you have the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card or the Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card, points are worth 1.25 cents each when you book travel in the portal with points.

The other option to use your Chase Ultimate Rewards® points for travel is to transfer them to a variety of airline and hotel partners. Chase partners with several large programs, including Hyatt, Marriott, Southwest and United, and all points transfer at a 1:1 ratio.

Sometimes, you’ll get the best value to redeem your Chase Ultimate Rewards® when you transfer them to partners. Other times, it will cost fewer points if you book directly in the portal.

Check out this economy flight from Washington, D.C., to Mumbai, India. If you transferred Chase Ultimate Rewards® and booked through United, this flight would cost 85,000 miles round-trip, plus $50.07 in taxes and fees:

If you have the Chase Sapphire Reserve® and book this United flight directly in the Chase travel portal, without transferring points to United, you would pay just 42,825 Chase Ultimate Rewards® for the exact same flights.

But here’s why it’s important to do the math and check your options: You can’t always assume that you’ll get the best deal for travel by using the portal.

Let’s say you’re flying from New York to Singapore and you want to splurge for a lie-flat business class seat on the long journey. If you search for options to redeem your Chase Ultimate Rewards® points in the portal, you’ll find a business class seat on Singapore Airlines going for a hefty 288,546 miles.

Then, you check directly with Singapore Airlines and discover that same business class flight for 198,000 Singapore KrisFlyer miles.

Since Singapore Airlines is a transfer partner, you could transfer 198,000 points and book directly through the airlines, rather than use 288,546 Ultimate Rewards® in the portal. That’s a difference of more than 90,000 points!

Always do the math and check your options. Don’t assume that you’ll get better value if you book directly in the Chase travel portal, or that you’ll always get better value by transferring to partners.

2. Book flights directly in the portal and earn miles

As you saw in the first example above, you could fly to India for 85,000 United miles, or you could save about half of that and book directly in the Chase Ultimate Rewards® travel portal for 42,825 points. There’s another benefit to redeeming Chase Ultimate Rewards® for flights in the portal: You’ll earn miles when you fly.

When you redeem transferred miles for a flight, you won’t earn new miles for the award flight you take. But when you book a flight with credit card points like Chase Ultimate Rewards®, it acts like a revenue ticket and you will earn new miles when you fly. When cash fares are low, you can find great deals by booking directly in the portal for a low number of points. Plus, you’ll earn miles in the process.