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]
Feb 25, 2020, 10:43 am
#347
Moderator
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: Miami, Mpls & London
Programs: AA & Marriott Perpetual Platinum; DL & HH Gold
Posts: 48,958
Feb 25, 2020, 10:45 am
#348
Suspended
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: Canada, USA, Europe
Programs: UA 1K
Posts: 31,452
Feb 25, 2020, 11:21 am
#349
Moderator
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: Miami, Mpls & London
Programs: AA & Marriott Perpetual Platinum; DL & HH Gold
Posts: 48,958
VISA has a merchant locator tool that sounds as if it should be helpful, but in practice it either returns no results -or- the consumer has no way of knowing where a company which operates a website is located for VISA's purposes:
https://www.visa.com/supplierlocator...pplier-locator
https://www.visa.com/supplierlocator...pplier-locator
Jun 23, 2020, 1:44 pm
#351
Original Member
Join Date: May 1998
Location: DCA
Posts: 169
Can anyone confirm whether or not moving companies count as travel with Chase? I would've guessed no, but when I looked up my moving company (Gentle Giant) in AwardWallet's merchant lookup tool, it came up coded as travel. But AwardWallet lists CSR 3x points as "unconfirmed" (i.e., based on the coding, it should get 3x points with the CSR, but they haven't confirmed that).
Jun 23, 2020, 4:42 pm
#352
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Near SEA
Programs: UA MM, AS MVPG75K, Marriott Lifetime Gold
Posts: 7,969
Well, my $14.96 Trader Joe's purchase was just reimbursed as travel... and I still got 5x grocery points for it
OHHHHH I just noticed this!
OHHHHH I just noticed this!
Now through 12/31/20, gas station and grocery store purchases will both earn points and also count toward earning your $300 Annual Travel Credit.Your next year's $300 Annual Travel Credit will begin after your statement closing date in 12/2020.†
Aug 10, 2020, 7:10 am
#353
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Mar 2013
Programs: DL PM, MR Titanium/LTP, Hilton Diamond
Posts: 10,130
Rented a beach house via VRBO. Coded as professional services. Sent a secure message Chase (and included VRBO receipt) and they manually added the extra 2x points for the booking. Appreciate their quick response though find it a pain that VRBO isn't consistent (though doesn't seem like Chase's fault in this case based on the coding):
VRBO XXXXXX categorizes themselves as "Real Estate Agents and Managers - Rentals" with Visa and MasterCard, which isn't in the bonus category. However, we added XXXX points to your account
Feb 13, 2021, 4:46 pm
#356
Join Date: Oct 2015
Location: NJ
Programs: AA Plat Hyatt Diamond Marriot Plat elite Hilton DIamond and IHG Plat
Posts: 59
Checking Chase Ink Bus Pref Categories
If your timeframe is next month bear in mind that Chase is known to approve a “bonus bump” (matching a new increased offer to a recently opened credit card account). In the past 2 months Chase has approved 2 business card bonus bumps for me. I also had a few other Chase and AmEx bonus bumps years ago. (My sweetest was almost 10 years ago, Sapphire Preferred 50,000 plus 50,000 bump WITHOUT increased spend.
)
It’s particularly nice when only the sign-up bonus is bumped and not the minimum spend. My recent bumps have each included significantly increased minimum spend which spoiled my planning and left me scrambling to meet. The deadlines to meet the minimum spends for my 2 recent bumps were both still based on the original application/approval date.
It’s generally accepted that Chase will approve a bonus bump within 90 days of application, one Chase phone rep recently told me Chase would do it within up to 5 billing cycles. Generally a bonus bump is requested via secure message, my 2 recent bumps were both requested and approved by phone, confirmed via secure message for a paper trail, and both required my notifying Chase upon meeting the new spend minimum (instead of automatic as with the original bonus).
Hope this helps. Good luck.
)It’s particularly nice when only the sign-up bonus is bumped and not the minimum spend. My recent bumps have each included significantly increased minimum spend which spoiled my planning and left me scrambling to meet. The deadlines to meet the minimum spends for my 2 recent bumps were both still based on the original application/approval date.
It’s generally accepted that Chase will approve a bonus bump within 90 days of application, one Chase phone rep recently told me Chase would do it within up to 5 billing cycles. Generally a bonus bump is requested via secure message, my 2 recent bumps were both requested and approved by phone, confirmed via secure message for a paper trail, and both required my notifying Chase upon meeting the new spend minimum (instead of automatic as with the original bonus).
Hope this helps. Good luck.
Sweet!!
Feb 17, 2021, 11:16 am
#357
Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: NYC suburbs
Programs: UA LT Gold (BIS), AA LT Plat (CC SUBs & BD), Hilton Dia (CC), Hyatt Glob (BIB), et. al.
Posts: 3,292
May I ask, what is “CUR”?
(It seems that my quoted post has little to do with the post above, not sure why I was quoted.)
(It seems that my quoted post has little to do with the post above, not sure why I was quoted.)
Feb 17, 2021, 11:22 am
#358
Moderator: Hyatt; FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jun 2015
Location: WAS
Programs: :rolleyes:, DL DM, Mlife Plat, Caesars Diam, Marriott Tit, UA Gold, Hyatt Glob, invol FT beta tester
Posts: 18,933
Given the context, my guess would be Chase Ultimate Rewards. It took me a second also, because usually people drop the C and just say UR when abbreviating...
Feb 17, 2021, 8:06 pm
#359
Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: NYC suburbs
Programs: UA LT Gold (BIS), AA LT Plat (CC SUBs & BD), Hilton Dia (CC), Hyatt Glob (BIB), et. al.
Posts: 3,292
Feb 18, 2021, 10:19 am
#360
Join Date: Sep 2015
Location: flyover country
Posts: 2,435