Hilarious/frustrating call today in a futile attempt to book airline tickets with my Chase Sapphire Reserve points. Trying to book one-way ZQN-AKL. Google flights, airnewzealand.com, Chase's own UR portal all quote prices around ~$150 per person. Tried yesterday to book, get all the way to the last bit, but when ticketing suddenly there's an error and now pricing only available at ~$800 per person!

Same thing today. Again, these $150ish tickets are available EVERYWHERE else, including the airline website.

Call Chase travel today, go through 2 levels of agents who just give a "Sorry, inventory is dynamic, we have limited inventory, the price is what it is" excuse, which doesn't make sense because I can book it anywhere else, and Chase's own UR portal shows many seat available at the lower price, until ticketing.

Wait on hold for awhile to finally connect to a "supervisor" (that's Chase travel agent number 3, for those keeping score), who talks to *their* supervisor, and I get the same story about "inventory is dynamic, nothing we can do, but you can book straight with the airline and get a statement credit at 1 cent per point." I explain that I've been trying to book this over multiple days and the pricing is available everywhere else. She then "checks with her supervisor" again, and this time says "Our apologies, the website is having issues. Lots of other people have had similar problems, but the team is working to fix the website and you should try again in a couple hours." This is hilarious, because I've been trying to book this over multiple days now.

No explanation of when the "issue" started, no estimate of when it will be fixed, no case number that be assigned to me, no e-mail confirming conversation today, no they cannot offer statement credit for booking with the airline at 1.5 cents per point, nothing at all, just "try booking on the website again in a few hours."

I swear Chase UR portal is only ever good for booking within the US. Non-US flights and car rentals are either non-existent or a complete joke.