Originally Posted by eng3

Is it just more or was it different in the past? I thought that ANY travel purchase would allow you to get the $300 statement credit. Is this requirement to use it through the portal new? They might as well just say they are giving $300 worth of points.

I agree, the portal is terrible. 99% of the time, the hotels are more expensive than other 3rd party bookers.
For flights, I primarily book with United and get a discount through my company so it would be dumb to book through the portal.
Occasionally, I'll book other airlines through the portal since they have the price drop protection. Ofcourse, that's been downgraded to giving a credit that must be used in the portal.
Even that is risky because it doesnt show you any details until you get the airline record and can go look. Sometimes its just wrong.

I've been redeeming points by using them to give a statement credit on travel purchases.
I don't put any spend on the card typically other than the minimum needed

I'm currently using up all my auth users to provide priority pass to friends and family.

I was thinking of dropping the card and getting the business one to get the full priority pass.

Or I could go back to CSR, but it's hard to justify that annual fee. Seems like chase has given up too.

I guess as long as I still get the $300 "credit" and 10k points, it's still cheaper than the CSR if all I want is Priority Pass. When it started, I was probably breaking even not counting the sign up bonus and the airbnb credit. Now it's probably costing me a couple bucks.
Obviously if they drop priority pass, then it wont be worth it at all. It seems unlikely since that seems to be all that's going for this card. Maybe they'll start cutting auth users first.

There's FINALLY a C1 lounge I can access somewhat regularly (DEN). I'll give it another year and see.