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Booking travel with Chase Ultimate Rewards just got better after it was announced that Chase has partnered with Expedia to run their Ultimate Rewards travel portal. The move is excellent news for Chase cardholders since Expedia group also owns Travelocity, Orbitz and Hotwire.com travel search engines, which should result in many more options. The move will double the inventory available to cardholders, and will include:
- Access to bookings at over 270,000 hotels worldwide
- Access to flights on over 250 airlines
- Access to Expedia’s travel deals
- Improved breakdown of costs, fees, and taxes when making a reservation
- The ability to make redemptions with points plus cash payments
Our Take
This is a great move by Chase and improves the value of Ultimate Rewards points, despite the loss of Korean Air as a transfer partner. Don’t get too excited about the new Chase site, since it will not come online for all cards at the same time. Freedom cards now have access to the new site; however, it will be rolled out to holders of other Chase cards over the next few months.
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Expedia owns Hotels.com
Question for anybody… this month we bought a Subaru financed through Chase who handles Subaru financing… is there any method of garnering points in these monthly payments which have to come through a checking account… where one would actually come out ahead?
Posting the same question repeatedly isn’t going to make it get answered any faster. I’d suggest you look at Plastiq and in most cases, you’ll find out the price for the transaction won’t make sense for what you’ll earn.
I don’t like Expedia. Not the best news for me but nothing I can do. I will think before using my points like this but so far that’s how I used my points best.
Sounds like good news! I hope we don’t pay for this change in extra $’s.
I prefer hotels.com too 🙂
There is something I don’t really like in having the Expedia group taking over more and more portals over time, I hope it is just overthinking from my side, time will tell.
Great news!!! Love progress of booking options.
Plane ticket prices are generally consistent across the various portals, though there’s often a price difference among hotels. We usually prefer hotels.com when booking hotels due to cashback portals, the loyalty program, and the discounted gift cards, plus the prices are usually the best. If Expedia can offer at least the same price as hotels.com consistently, then I can see myself leaning towards using UR travel for hotel reservations more.
Well, this should be interesting moving forward. Sure hope it all works smoothly/
Good news, thanks for sharing.
I’m wondering what the difference would be between booking thru the chase portal vs directly on expedia. Is it just that we can use UR points if we wanted to ?
If i’m not using points, would there be any additional value ?
The benefit is you can use Ultimate Rewards to pay directly. Otherwise, I see no benefit at this time.
Seems unchanged for Saphire Reserve.
As the post indicates, it is being rolled out in pieces.
I know, I would have figured though that Saphire Reserve would have been one of the first cards to get this new benefit….
I agree, if they’re pitching this as all upside, why wouldn’t they start with their premium card? Do they expect it to be so rocky they’re starting with a card for which surely travel redemptions are a small portion, since there’s no bonus compared to redeeming for cash?
Looks to me a definite benefit to the scheme.
IMO a great partnership with lots if opportunities.
Chase has enough engineers… why do they need to partner with expedia?
Expedia has more? Why do you think they partnered?
Very cool,
but personally I try to book directly from the airlines.
It saves major headaches and finger pointings if/when things go awry
Any chance of booking Southwest online through this anytime soon? Would be nice…
I say the chances are between 0.0% and 0.0%.
Have never been a portal fan but maybe this will drive prices down a little.
If our flight was rescheduled, 2 hours earlier or later who would we call?
Depends on what you’re looking to do. If you want another flight, the airline directly. A refund, Chase Travel.
This is _probably_ good news. But we’re paying for it one way or another.
I’m not sure if this is a good thing. I will have to check it out via the Chase Freedom website. I have always thought that tickets bought through the Chase website were treated differently by the airline than those bought through the travel portals, though I might be mistaken. Unlike previous posters, I like using the portal because it allows me to earn status with the airline with less money out of my own pocket.
Personally I never use the chase portal to book tickets. I always transfer them to airlines where I can easily get more value than 1.5c per point by converting them to award tickets. If an award ticket costs too many points compared to the cash price, just pay cash and save those points for next time.
I’m not too sure if I will be using the Expedia option via Chase, but it’s always nice to have options.
Sounds like good news! Let’s just hope we don’t pay for this change in other ways…
This is actually decent news. Planning to try the portal today. I’ll let you know thoughts after using it.
Partnerships are great, but there’s just something about this one that scares me. I honestly can’t tell you why I feel that way though.