I tire of this game. I just want to use my flight credit and be done with it. But now that I know you can use chase points for hotels I will be thinking about it. I thought before it was only for flights. But, back to what you were referring to, I always check back after booking anything to see if the price went down. I was just lucky this time it went down before I booked. I’ve been able to get cheaper hotel rates that way, by checking close to the trip. I will keep checking this one to see if it goes down again before my stay.
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I still can’t believe it: yesterday I called United and they seamlessly granted all my wishes for my trip. I am going to see my friends in Texas followed by my first time in Vegas, and it even was cheaper than expected b/c I didn’t realize that an “open ticket” is less $ than what I was looking at online for a new ticket. I used up all my credit except for about $40, which is now a new credit that I have a whole year to use (but I won’t stress about it). I’m so relieved that this is finally taken care of, and I will have a long overdue solo trip in just over 2 weeks! Eek…I have a trip in just over 2 weeks…
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Wonderful!
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So glad you got everything worked out for your flights!
For the record, @drvillarejos I just transferred some Chase points to Southwest and it took about 36 hours for that transfer to go through. When I transferred some points to Bonvoy it took at least 2-3 days.
My cancelled Chase Rewards reservations at Cabana Bay gave the points back immediately, but the cancelled reservation at Lowe’s Royal Pacific took over two weeks for the points to be refunded. I used the CB points to rebook our night at RP since there was availability the night we wanted.
By the time our other points returned there was no longer availability at CB at all with Chase Travel, but meanwhile I was stalking Rocketmiles (different deals on website vs app as well as at different times of day) and was able to find some decent high-mile deals at Endless Summer Surfside which will help toward my companion pass, so going that route instead.
Overall I’m really disappointed in my Chase Travel experience and hearing that other banks’ portals are no better is very discouraging. It will make me rethink applying for certain cards in the future if the purported benefits require booking through their portal.
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This is so interesting. I have transferred Chase points to Southwest several times and it goes through immediately. But I’m still wary of using the Chase portal itself.
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To add to that: Chase has cut back on the “Pay yourself back” program which allowed you to bypass the requirement to use the travel portal to get the Sapphire travel bonus on your Ultimate Rewards points. Grumble.
The Pay Yourself Back bonus is now limited (effectively) to charities and for the Sapphire Reserve, the annual fee. Not counting groceries and gas stations bc there are better cards for those categories anyway.
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Just for the record, this is the first time we’ve had any trouble with Chase. When I’ve booked flights through them (always on the phone) things have worked beautifully. It was only when I had a canceled flight that things got hairy. Over the past 10 - 15 yrs we’ve had at least 3 big family trips where most plane tickets were paid for entirely thorough Chase points.
What about using the Chase travel portal for activities? Has anyone had good or extremely bad luck with that? I booked my hotel myself b/c I didn’t want Chase involved in case I needed to change something (and prices dropped right before I booked so I didn’t feel compelled to use points). But, I’ve considered some pricey tours, such as the helicopter ones, and it would be great to use points for that. I do see the downsides, however, such as it looks like if I book a show I can’t choose my own seat assignment, only which category of seating. It seems like there is some flexibility as far as cancelling but some activities, such as shows, are nonrefundable—but they would have been if I’d bought it myself anyway.
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