Originally Posted by
madbrain
....The hotel is on sale on expedia.com, but not on sale on the Chase portal.
It sounds as if Expedia is NOT adding anything to the UR portal price, but rather that Expedia is offering a discount on their own site that doesn't apply to the site they operate for Chase. I wouldn't generalize from this one instance.
Originally Posted by
OATS09
....I don't think it's so much that Chase is now using Expedia to make bookings but more so that they are using their backbone/framework/infrastructure ...
Chase does not operate the travel portal. It was outsourced to Connexions (same as Citi), now it is outsourced to Expedia. Discussion here:
Chase credit travel portal transitions to Expedia [Transition Complete]
Originally Posted by
OATS09
....I could book a flight for $800 through the portal or $500 through Orbitz or about $550 directly through the airline.....
It's not unusual for airlines to offer their lowest fare bucket only for direct booking on their own site, but Expedia owns Obitz and I would expect their pricing to generally be very similar.