You can get a ton of value from credit card rewards, whether you opt to get straightforward cash back, or go with points and frequent flyer miles that can be used for free flights or even first class adventures. The best way to collect a lot of points quickly is by earning large sign-up bonuses for opening new cards, aside from using the right cards to maximize rewards on your every day spending.

Here are some of the best sign-up bonuses available from Chase, which has one of Insider Picks' favorite credit cards rewards programs. Credit card rewards points and frequent flyer miles can be incredibly useful, regardless of what kinds of points you earn or what you eventually choose to do with them. One of the best ways to boost your stash of points and miles is by collecting sign-up bonuses for opening new cards. One of my favorite rewards programs is the Ultimate Rewards program run by Chase.

Chase Ultimate Rewards points are transferable — the most valuable kind of reward points — and the robust program offers a few great ways to redeem your points for cash, purchases, or travel. Best of all, if you have more than one Ultimate Rewards-earning card, you can pool the points from all of your cards for bigger redemptions.

Here are the sign-up bonuses, current at the time of publication, on a few of the best Chase credit cards. The Sapphire Preferred is one of the most popular all-around rewards credit cards, and it's easy to see why. This card earns 2x points per dollar spent on just about all travel and dining purchases, and 1x point on everything else.

Even more lucrative — the Chase Sapphire Preferred lets you transfer your UR points to a few different frequent flyer and hotel loyalty programs. This comes in handy because, in many cases, it costs fewer points to book a trip if you go through one of those programs, as opposed to using the points as cash. You can read more about why transferring points to frequent flyer programs gets you more value here. 95, which is waived the first year. The Sapphire Reserve is basically a beefier version of the Preferred.

While the card comes with the same sign-up bonus, it earns points on everyday spending faster, nabbing a higher 3x points per dollar spent on travel and dining purchases, and 1x on everything else. It also offers similar, though in many cases, enhanced travel and purchase protections. Unlike the Preferred, the Sapphire Reserve comes with a Priority Pass Select membership, which gets you and any travel companions free access to more than 1,000 airport lounges around the world.

You can use points from the Reserve the same ways as with the Preferred, except that you'll get a 50% bonus when booking travel through Chase, making your points worth 1.5¢ each. 300 travel credit each cardmember year. 300 in travel-related purchases you make, including things like subway fare, taxis, parking, and tolls, as well as airfare and hotels.

If you're not sure whether the Preferred or Reserve is the better card for you, take a look at this breakdown. Also keep in mind that you can typically only earn the sign-up bonus for one Sapphire-branded card every two years. Regardless of which Sapphire card you already have or whether you plan to open one, the Chase Freedom Unlimited is one of the most useful all-around rewards cards available. That's because the card earns 1.5% cash back. 1¢), so that's 1.5 Ultimate Rewards points on every dollar spent.

If you have a premium card like the Sapphire Preferred or Reserve, you can pool your points from the two cards. Because the Freedom Unlimited earns 1.5 points per dollar spent, it's perfect to use for purchases that aren't dining or travel when paired with one of the other Chase cards.

Best of all, the card has no annual fee and often has 0% APR for the first 15 months on purchases and balance transfers. After that, there's a 16.49%-25.24% variable APR. If you have a major purchase ahead of you, you can take advantage of the introductory APR to pay for it over time without having to pay any interest.