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What counts as travel? [Sapphire, INK, Consolidated]

Old Mar 13, 2017, 3:34 pm
FlyerTalk Forums Expert How-Tos and Guides
Last edit by: beltway
The official Chase description:
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.
What counts as Travel?
  • 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.
  • 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.

Print Wikipost

What counts as travel? [Sapphire, INK, Consolidated]

Old Apr 30, 2019, 11:14 am
  #331  
 
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: SFO or OAK
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Posts: 1,445
Originally Posted by Rare
BTW, we did the tour in one of their Hughes helicopters with the doors off. Highly recommended!
Exactly the same tour I plan on booking!

If it codes as 'entertainment' then I should use our Citi Prestige (still get 2X on entertainment until Sept). Or I can hope that things have changed in the 2 years since you booked it, and Jack Harter now will code as travel.
mangoMan is offline  
Old Jul 8, 2019, 3:14 am
  #332  
 
Join Date: Jun 2012
Posts: 3,344
Refilling a NETs card at Singapore MRT station kiosk, only coded as 1x (shopping)

I guess not too surprising...

Grab rides coded as 3x
paperwastage is offline  
Old Aug 20, 2019, 5:47 pm
  #333  
 
Join Date: Jun 2019
Location: MSP
Posts: 7
Originally Posted by stan1162
I booked a rental deposit (Hilton Head) thru VRBO, the rental agency is billing on the card I used for the deposit as The Vacation Company. Any guesses if this will bill as travel 3 X??? I will use the CSR for the rest of the fee.

and its coded as 6513 which I think does not earn 3X. I got a great price for the rental, so I'm happy. Just would have been nice.
You've probably already gotten your answer by now, but FWIW... In January, I booked a rental and the deposit coded as "travel" on CSR. It actually used my annual travel credit as well. I was looking for its MCC before we go so I know which card to use to pay the balance. It's 6513. It sounds like it varies by issuer if they count it as travel.

https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/cred...define-travel/

<<<Real estate agents (MCC 6513). Mastercards rules define this as fees charged by merchants engaged in the rental and management of residential and commercial properties, such as real estate agents, brokers, and managers, and apartment rental services. This includes fees to rent rooms through Vacation Rental By Owner and its parent company, HomeAway. Airbnb, however, generally counts as a hotel or motel.>>>

I called Citi to clarify and she said it would not count as travel, but I might test this in a few weeks if I can.
mrscaptain is offline  
Old Aug 21, 2019, 11:02 am
  #334  
 
Join Date: Aug 2015
Posts: 9
Does Cheapoair flight booking code as travel for 3x on CSR?
southofburgh is offline  
Old Aug 22, 2019, 6:42 am
  #335  
 
Join Date: May 2009
Location: Full time Nomad
Posts: 838
I use this site to check. It's been pretty accurate.

https://www.visa.com/supplierlocator...pplier-locator
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Old Aug 22, 2019, 8:46 am
  #336  
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Join Date: Sep 2015
Location: flyover country
Posts: 2,409
Originally Posted by stan1162
I use this site to check. It's been pretty accurate.

https://www.visa.com/supplierlocator...pplier-locator
I find that site to be significantly user-unfriendly. The returned list is often incomplete in the area specified and occasionally includes businesses outside the area specified (even when failing to list businesses in the area specified). I've even given it the name or address or both of a business and the site fails to find it. And it requires completing the reCAPTCHA for every single search. However, it is far better than nothing; I just wish there was a better tool available.
serpens is offline  
Old Aug 22, 2019, 9:45 am
  #337  
 
Join Date: Aug 2015
Posts: 9
Thanks for the links. Not sure how to search OTAs in that search engine.
southofburgh is offline  
Old Aug 23, 2019, 12:06 pm
  #338  
 
Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: Austin, Tx
Posts: 25
Travelguard merchant code as travel?

Would TravelGuard post as 3x travel or insurance with the CSR? It's an AIG company

Last edited by lilihmartin; Aug 23, 2019 at 12:07 pm Reason: typo
lilihmartin is offline  
Old Aug 23, 2019, 9:39 pm
  #339  
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Originally Posted by lilihmartin
Would TravelGuard post as 3x travel or insurance with the CSR? It's an AIG company
Since AIG is an insurance & finance corp I would doubt it. But that is just a guess.
philemer is offline  
Old Sep 29, 2019, 4:26 pm
  #340  
 
Join Date: Sep 2018
Posts: 12
Are Delta gift cards still coding as travel?
ChrisArnold is offline  
Old Oct 5, 2019, 10:22 am
  #341  
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The Cape May-Lewes Ferry coded as "shopping" when I used it in August.
Mary2e is offline  
Old Oct 5, 2019, 9:11 pm
  #342  
 
Join Date: Apr 2015
Posts: 157
Any data points of Disney Park tickets purchased through Undercover Tourist working for the credit?
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Old Oct 6, 2019, 4:27 am
  #343  
mia
A FlyerTalk Posting Legend; Moderator: American Express, Capital One, Citi, Chase, Credit Card Programs, Diners Club, Signatures
 
Join Date: Jun 2003
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Originally Posted by mulliganman30
.... Undercover Tourist ....
Mentioned in the Wikipost at the top of this thread.
mia is online now  
Old Oct 10, 2019, 1:09 am
  #344  
 
Join Date: Jan 2019
Location: Seattle
Programs: Delta PM, Alaska MVP, AMEX Plat (MR), AMEX Delta Platinum
Posts: 56
You can dispute the transactions that are not tagged as travel to get 3x on CSR. I booked a charter sailboat and my Clear annual fee hit on the last statement, both of which were not tagged as travel. I called CS and indicated these were travel and at first the agent said it depended on what the merchant coded their business as. I asked her if that was my only recourse and I would just need to accept, she indicated I could file a case for the marketing department to review the transactions and they would inform me of the result in 7-10 business days.

Fast forward a few days and I see an adjustment on my UR account - when I do the calculation it is 2x the transactions I disputed so it seems they gave me 3x on those transactions.

You should always ask for the points if you feel they are wrong - good to see JPMC is customer focused.

I think I saw in this thread that some indicted Clear annual fees were considered personal fees and no 3x eligible. I was able to get 3x on that annual fee by calling into CS and telling them it was travel related (which is true...)

Last edited by entel; Oct 10, 2019 at 1:15 am
entel is offline  
Old Feb 25, 2020, 10:40 am
  #345  
 
Join Date: Jul 2005
Posts: 90
Does universalorlandovacations.com count as travel

Sorry if this has been answered already, Does anyone have any experience with booking a vacation bundle from universalorlandovacations.com? Does it count as 3X travel points on the Chase Sapphire Reserve?


Thanks.

Jason
jep8821 is offline  

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