Mar 13, 2017, 3:34 pm
Last edit by: beltway
The official Chase description:
What counts as Travel?
Also, see THIS thread for additional locations.
Merchants in this category include airlines, hotels, motels, timeshares, car rental agencies, cruise lines, travel agencies, discount travel sites, campgrounds and operators of passenger trains, buses, taxis, limousines, ferries, toll bridges and highways, and parking lots and garages.
Some merchants that provide transportation and travel-related services are not included in this category; for example, real estate agents, educational merchants arranging travel, in-flight goods and services, on-board cruise line goods and services, sightseeing activities, excursions, tourist attractions, RV and boat rentals, merchants within hotels and airports, public campgrounds and merchants that rent vehicles for the purpose of hauling. Purchases from gift card merchants or merchants that sell points or miles will not qualify in the travel category.
Some merchants that provide transportation and travel-related services are not included in this category; for example, real estate agents, educational merchants arranging travel, in-flight goods and services, on-board cruise line goods and services, sightseeing activities, excursions, tourist attractions, RV and boat rentals, merchants within hotels and airports, public campgrounds and merchants that rent vehicles for the purpose of hauling. Purchases from gift card merchants or merchants that sell points or miles will not qualify in the travel category.
- Airline purchases, fees & gift cards
- AA e-gift certificate
- Delta eGift Cards
- UA in-flight bev
Hotels: - Marriott GC and hotel charges
- Airbnb & their GC
- hotels.com (NOT hotels.com e-gift cert!)
- Hotel restaurants not charged to room (verified at Renaissance LV)
- Priceline "opaque" hotel purchases
- Kruger National Park lodging reservation (booked on sanparks.org official site)
Transit, including parking, trains, ferries, toll roads, etc: - Taxi fares: Uber, Lyft, Gett, Way2Ride, London taxi, Fasten (Austin)
- Transit fees: BART, MTA, FastTrak, Clipper Card (Bay Area), MetroCard, DC Metro (WMATA) SmarTrip farecard and commemorative cards, NJ Transit, Oyster card, Ventra (Chicago), Las Vegas Monorail, Brussels (STIB/MIVB), Incheon Airport Bus tickets, Orca King county(Seattle area), Suica/PASMO (Tokyo IC transit card - Apple pay top up)
- Parking meters: Atlanta; Chicago; Portland, OR; San Francisco; Atlantic City; Seattle, (Los Angeles but NOT Santa Monica)
- Public parking garages: San Francisco; Montgomery Co. MD
- Toll passes: E-Z Pass (MA, MD, NH, NJ, NY, PA), Sunpass prepaid tolls, Washington State GoodToGo tolls, RiverLink tolls, TxTag, IPass (Illinois)
- Train tickets: trainline (UK train tickets), Eurostar.com, Bahn.com (when using Paypal), Amtrak, italirail.com, Train and bus travel in Scotland at ticket counter.
- Amtrak dining car purchases (YMMV, recent reports are below):
- Pacific Surfliner, November 2016 (tmiw): yes, counted as travel with CSR.
Pacific Surfliner, December 2018 (tmiw): did NOT count as travel (no travel credit), but did count as dining for 3x. - San Joaquin, December 2015 (serpens): counted as 3x on CSR, unknown if counted as travel.
- unknown train/date (StanJazz): counted as dining on Freedom and CSP.
- Pacific Surfliner, November 2016 (tmiw): yes, counted as travel with CSR.
- Ferries: Cape May, NJ to Lewes, DE and NYWaterway (Belford-Pier 11)
- Shuttles: Jackson Hole WY Airport official shuttle to town
- Unlimted JR Pass for Japan purchased from japan-rail-pass.com
Misc: - MileagePlusX Uber GC [NB MPX eBay did NOT count, so it appears to be only actual travel related items on MPX]
- Royal Caribbean drink package
- Cruise bookings
- Cruise Excursions Booked Prior to Cruise (and fully refundable)
- MIR Travel Agency
- undercovertourist.com
- Rental cars (verified Avis on page 7 of this thread, Hertz)
- Car Share (Car2Go) (ReachNow)
- Lahaina Cruise Co. (Hawaii Ocean Project whale watch cruise)
- Interval International Exchange Fee + Upgrade Fee
- Aircraft title transfer registration fees with ICAO's International Registry of Mobile Assets (Cape Town Convention and Aircraft Protocol)
- Viator/TripAdvisor
- Recreation.gov fees for reserving federal park campsites do not count as "travel"
- Point.me award search site starter pass
Also, see THIS thread for additional locations.
What counts as travel? [Sapphire, INK, Consolidated]
Jan 6, 2018, 5:05 am
#243
Moderator
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: Miami, Mpls & London
Programs: AA & Marriott Perpetual Platinum; DL & HH Gold
Posts: 48,958
Around June of 2017 Alaska Airlines made a change in merchant account used to process gift card purchases. It's no longer done through the primary merchant account used for airfare transactions.
Jan 24, 2018, 6:07 pm
#246
Join Date: Sep 2000
Location: New York, New York
Programs: AA Gold, Alaska MVP; Free Agent Super Duper Diamond Treasure Chest ;)
Posts: 4,682
Does Australian ETA (Visa) Fees Earn Travel Category Bonus?
Hello all,
Due to the nature of the key words, my search yielded far too many irrelevant threads to be useful.
If I pay the Australian ETA fee with my Chase Sapphire Reserve, will I earn the 3x category bonus?
Many thanks!
Due to the nature of the key words, my search yielded far too many irrelevant threads to be useful.
If I pay the Australian ETA fee with my Chase Sapphire Reserve, will I earn the 3x category bonus?
Many thanks!
Jan 24, 2018, 6:13 pm
#247
Join Date: Sep 2000
Location: New York, New York
Programs: AA Gold, Alaska MVP; Free Agent Super Duper Diamond Treasure Chest ;)
Posts: 4,682
So, the wife put some elbow grease in her research and found this TPG article with a specific example:
Pay the online service charge of AUD $20 (about $15) using a credit card. I used my Chase Sapphire Reserve since it has no international transaction fees — but unfortunately the charge didn’t code as travel.
Jan 29, 2018, 11:13 am
#250
Join Date: Feb 2015
Location: New York
Posts: 230
Feb 2, 2018, 11:38 am
#251
Join Date: Nov 2016
Programs: Amtrak,United, Hilton
Posts: 15
Lot D parking at O'Hare Airport counted as travel and got me travel credit. I was there for my Global Entry interview for which I received the credit. The Amtrak Dining Car that I posted before and is in the wiki as dining not travel was in July 2016 and was on 4 trains. The California Zephyr, The Coast Starlight, The Sunset Limited and The Texas Eagle. I don't think I can edit the wiki yet.
Feb 9, 2018, 3:31 pm
#253
Join Date: Feb 2018
Programs: Working on some
Posts: 24
Feb 9, 2018, 9:52 pm
#254
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Toledo, OH
Programs: Delta DM & MM, Hilton DM, Marriott gold, Hyatt Globalist, Alaska 75K, Wyndham Diamond,
Posts: 15,399
I can't find this in the thread. Has anyone had any luck with toll road transmitters (either E-Z pass or IPass) reloads working?
Feb 9, 2018, 11:55 pm
#255
Join Date: Apr 2009
Posts: 681
If you can do a small manual reload, that is probably your best bet to test it.