Sadly this has long been the reality with so many cards and their various portals or products. It is also why I almost never place value on these benefits at the level of the bloggers, websites et al.

In addition to their travel portals being ridiculously unfriendly to use, the prices are almost always inflated. The products they offer for miles or points are always at an inflated MSRP that is often never the true selling price at any merchant. Ultimately, the cards promote all of this to sound valuable, technically tell the truth, and count on enough people being too oblivious or too apathetic to care.