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I do. Its complicated, but between my wife and I we got Chase Reserve, Chase Preferred, and two Chase business cards. I was able to aggregate the points into my Chase Reserve Account. I have approximately 450,000 points in that account. I actually like the Chase portal for the most part.
My primary complaint is that it doesn't have all the options that I can get via ITA or google search. It seems they do only single airline reservations or at least the instances where they would "hack" are extremely rare. I'm searching for some multi-city itineraries to Asia and maybe only 1/3rd of the best fare options I'm finding on google are actually available for redemption through the Reserve portal. Expedia as an OTA has always lagged behind Priceline/Orbitz in options but I expect it to be better than the Reserve portal.
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Originally Posted by Aredhel
I do, but I never use the portal. I transfer all my points earned with Chase Freedom and Chase Freedom Unlimited to my Chase Sapphire Reserve, and then move them to airline frequent flyer programs (usually United’s) to book frequent flyer tickets (generally for international business class).
Yeah, business/first class awards are always the best use of points. Now that I have children I'm afraid to go that route, plus I just don't mind having more points available for more flights now that there are so many extra seats to pay for!
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Originally Posted by Paka
Use the Chase Venture One...double points on everything I buy and then just book the travel I want to at the best price I can find it and use the "purchase eraser" to "pay" for it with my points.....no booking thru them at all, just find my own best deal.
Interesting. Any annual fee? What is the points to dollar conversion? Thanks!
Quote:
Originally Posted by mikeyyc
I used the Chase Reserve portal extensively this summer to do a trip to SE Asia. While I did transfer some points out to leverage some United miles I had, using the portal was nice when it came to some hotels, as you get 1.5 points on redemption, so in essence you're getting a 33% discount when you're booking your hotel rooms.
Yeah, I've searched for hotels through Reserve a dozen times or so but I'd say the value simply isn't there most of the time. Twice out of that dozen times I have actually reserved cause the price was competitive enough to justify it. With hotels, the best use for me has always been transferring to Hyatt points for award bookings. It's not always awesome and of course it is limited cause the Hyatt portfolio isn't terribly extensive, but there are some amazing deals. I've gotten $300-500 hotel rooms for 10k-15k points. I also booked for a wedding I am attending next month where the wedding block price was $189++ and the Chase reserve portal was pricing at around $200++. After taxes I think the points cost was around 15k/night with the 1.5x value. Anyway, Hyatt award was 5k/night!! I booked 4 rooms for my extended family for 3 nights each lol. I also booked a room in Atlanta for Super Bowl weekend. 5k/night and the cash price was $405/night, which I would expect to go up some as the date draws near. That one however cannot be canceled, so I'll have to either find a way to sell it third party or I will just use it myself.
Quote:
Originally Posted by markg91359
I like the portal. I've found cheap flights to Munich and Paris by using it. By cheap, I mean about $400 or slightly less round trip out of Boston or New York.
Yeah, it's awesome if I can get the flights I want. That is really the key to it all. I have NEVER found any flights yet that weren't available via ITA/google. I have (very very rarely) found prices on Priceline, Expedia, kayak and sky scanner that were better than ITA search.
That sounds like the Capital One Venture card. No?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Paka
Use the Chase Venture One...double points on everything I buy and then just book the travel I want to at the best price I can find it and use the "purchase eraser" to "pay" for it with my points.....no booking thru them at all, just find my own best deal.
That sounds like the Capital One Venture card. No?
Fee of 90 something per year, but more than pays for itself since we can find the best priced deals and then use or "travel erase" option there for 90 days even tho we pay our card in full each month. MORE then coveres the fee!
Fee of 90 something per year, but more than pays for itself since we can find the best priced deals and then use or "travel erase" option there for 90 days even tho we pay our card in full each month. MORE then coveres the fee!
It seems most of these cards fall into 3 different annual fee categories, with the benefits obviously increasing as the fee goes up.
You have the $0 annual fee cards, with very minimal/limited bennies.
The $95 annual fee cards, with some pretty good bennies. (most people have these cards)
Then the $450 annual fee cards, with some crazy bennies, but a really high fee, although some cards throw some sort of travel credit in there, which makes the fee easier to swallow.
Use the Chase Venture One...double points on everything I buy and then just book the travel I want to at the best price I can find it and use the "purchase eraser" to "pay" for it with my points.....no booking thru them at all, just find my own best deal.
The Venture card is offered by Capital One, not Chase. Still a good card as I have that to supplement the CSR.
I've not used UR for airline tickets, but have used them for hotels. Personally, I've always been able to find much better airfare elsewhere. But the hotels are really nice and I've found them to be much more valuable (and it's a bigger part of my vacation). My biggest gripe is that UR booked itineraries are considered third-party, so you will not get credited for loyalty rewards.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cjseliga
It seems most of these cards fall into 3 different annual fee categories, with the benefits obviously increasing as the fee goes up.
You have the $0 annual fee cards, with very minimal/limited bennies.
The $95 annual fee cards, with some pretty good bennies. (most people have these cards)
Then the $450 annual fee cards, with some crazy bennies, but a really high fee, although some cards throw some sort of travel credit in there, which makes the fee easier to swallow.
Agreed. And the key is to find the one that works for you the most. The most expensive isn't always the best for the individual.
The CSR has a $300 travel credit - knocking that fee to $150. And if you get Global Entry, the fee is then decreased to essentially $50 for that year.
However, CSR has been much more costly for Chase than they anticipated. So they are nerfing a lot of the benefits. You now will no longer get points for that $300 they credit back to you, and their lounge access is now a bit more restricted in terms of bringing in guests (it was unlimited). There are other benefits that they've "modified" over the last 18 months to bring their cost down.
I've not used UR for airline tickets, but have used them for hotels. Personally, I've always been able to find much better airfare elsewhere. But the hotels are really nice and I've found them to be much more valuable (and it's a bigger part of my vacation). My biggest gripe is that UR booked itineraries are considered third-party, so you will not get credited for loyalty rewards.
Interesting. Like I said, for me the best airfare is available about 33% of the time, so I have used UR for flights many many times. However for hotel it only worked out to my advantage on 2 out of about a dozen occasions so around 17%. What class of hotel are you searching for? Also, I had no idea the hotels wouldn't give you credit for the stays...that is good to know...and indeed a legitimate gripe. I do not know as the two bookings I did make with UR I ended up canceling.
Quote:
Originally Posted by macroy
The CSR has a $300 travel credit - knocking that fee to $150. And if you get Global Entry, the fee is then decreased to essentially $50 for that year.
However, CSR has been much more costly for Chase than they anticipated. So they are nerfing a lot of the benefits. You now will no longer get points for that $300 they credit back to you, and their lounge access is now a bit more restricted in terms of bringing in guests (it was unlimited). There are other benefits that they've "modified" over the last 18 months to bring their cost down.
Yep they've eliminated certain peripheral (and presumably rarely used but who knows) benefits such as purchase price protection. I recently had a situation which allowed me to make a claim for delayed baggage, which would reimburse me for toiletries we purchased due to the overnight delay. However when it started to file the claim, I realized the paperwork required would take me 30 minutes minimum, likely more if something wasn't done correctly, which I decided wasn't worth the <$15 reimbursement. In the past I have benefited from the rental car damage protection and the lost or stolen protection, I have attempted unsuccessfully to use extended warranty protection (although once again in that case I probably could have done it but just decided it wasn't worth the time)
The Venture card is offered by Capital One, not Chase. Still a good card as I have that to supplement the CSR.
I've not used UR for airline tickets, but have used them for hotels. Personally, I've always been able to find much better airfare elsewhere. But the hotels are really nice and I've found them to be much more valuable (and it's a bigger part of my vacation). My biggest gripe is that UR booked itineraries are considered third-party, so you will not get credited for loyalty rewards.
Agreed. And the key is to find the one that works for you the most. The most expensive isn't always the best for the individual.
The CSR has a $300 travel credit - knocking that fee to $150. And if you get Global Entry, the fee is then decreased to essentially $50 for that year.
However, CSR has been much more costly for Chase than they anticipated. So they are nerfing a lot of the benefits. You now will no longer get points for that $300 they credit back to you, and their lounge access is now a bit more restricted in terms of bringing in guests (it was unlimited). There are other benefits that they've "modified" over the last 18 months to bring their cost down.
Good to know. Personally, I would like to see some restrictions on bringing guests to the lounges. I'm noticing that the priority pass lounges (Chase card lounges) are getting too full to be enjoyable. I'd like to see a smaller number of users.
Good to know. Personally, I would like to see some restrictions on bringing guests to the lounges. I'm noticing that the priority pass lounges (Chase card lounges) are getting too full to be enjoyable. I'd like to see a smaller number of users.
There will come a point where the airports/airlines themselves will make the decision for Chase by not accepting Priority Pass cardholders. I already saw that at the Zurich airport, she kept telling people with the card that as of 9/1 they were no longer accepting them.
There will come a point where the airports/airlines themselves will make the decision for Chase by not accepting Priority Pass cardholders. I already saw that at the Zurich airport, she kept telling people with the card that as of 9/1 they were no longer accepting them.
That may be their internal customers. You don't use your Chase card for Priority Pass. You get a Priority Pass membership card. They don't know if you paid for it, or got it through your bank.
This is interesting to follow since I'm considering the CSR, or perhaps some other premium card, before I do resume traveling again. The travel credit & lounge access are the main attractions, I already have GOES & price protection, don't know anything about UR points but currently have a boatload of AA points to use up for several years but in the future may prefer UA travel because of destinations (& AA Gold lost lounge access).
I missed the big 100K bonus since all I saw then was the annual fee & didn't look further into the details, I'm retired & don't have money to waste, reconsidering...
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