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]
Aug 16, 2023, 12:08 am
#451
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Florida
Posts: 29,762
On top of that you dont earn anything when you booked with points. You only save some out of pocket cash.
Do you know if you book your cruise with United Cruises, the portal by UA, you will get 4x UA miles back and more when you have an UA card? And if you book better cabin better line, the earning could be up to 10x UA miles plus additional bonus of 10 to 15K UA miles? You also can deal with a particular agent versus dealing with anyone each time you call Chase travel portal about your booking.
United Cruises portal is SO EASY to search and you could book online but dealing with an agent that you could establish a relationship going forward, is so much better than using Chase portal.
Last edited by Happy; Aug 16, 2023 at 12:16 am
Aug 16, 2023, 4:49 am
#452
Join Date: May 2022
Posts: 2,263
I used it once to book a cruise then it came Covid. The refund process was so so so bad going thru Chase travel portal, that the 1.5x was not worth it at all, let alone it is only a 0.25 difference comparing to the CSP.
On top of that you dont earn anything when you booked with points. You only save some out of pocket cash.
Do you know if you book your cruise with United Cruises, the portal by UA, you will get 4x UA miles back and more when you have an UA card? And if you book better cabin better line, the earning could be up to 10x UA miles plus additional bonus of 10 to 15K UA miles? You also can deal with a particular agent versus dealing with anyone each time you call Chase travel portal about your booking.
United Cruises portal is SO EASY to search and you could book online but dealing with an agent that you could establish a relationship going forward, is so much better than using Chase portal.
On top of that you dont earn anything when you booked with points. You only save some out of pocket cash.
Do you know if you book your cruise with United Cruises, the portal by UA, you will get 4x UA miles back and more when you have an UA card? And if you book better cabin better line, the earning could be up to 10x UA miles plus additional bonus of 10 to 15K UA miles? You also can deal with a particular agent versus dealing with anyone each time you call Chase travel portal about your booking.
United Cruises portal is SO EASY to search and you could book online but dealing with an agent that you could establish a relationship going forward, is so much better than using Chase portal.
Nov 30, 2023, 1:16 pm
#454
Join Date: Jun 2009
Posts: 2,135
Buying gift cards with CSR
Guys - can somebody verify my calculations below? Buying discounted gift cards for travel like airbnb vs booking an actual reservation with airbnb. I'm assuming Chase cards would tag gift cards for 1x point per $1 spent right?
Airbnb $500 gift card for $450 - 450 UR earned
Airbnb actual reservation for $500 - 1500 UR earned
Net difference in UR is 1050 and if you value them at 1.5 points, it's $16 so you gain 50-16 or $34 which isn't a big saving and if you don't use it right away, inflation is going to eat that up too
Another reason not to buy gift cards - you lose all travel protection/cancelation features you gain with CSR
Thanks
Airbnb $500 gift card for $450 - 450 UR earned
Airbnb actual reservation for $500 - 1500 UR earned
Net difference in UR is 1050 and if you value them at 1.5 points, it's $16 so you gain 50-16 or $34 which isn't a big saving and if you don't use it right away, inflation is going to eat that up too
Another reason not to buy gift cards - you lose all travel protection/cancelation features you gain with CSR
Thanks
Dec 1, 2023, 5:55 pm
#458
Moderator: Chase Ultimate Rewards
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: SFO
Programs: UA 2P, MR LT Plat, IHG Plat, BW Dia, HH Au, Avis PC
Posts: 5,456
I've found very few, if any, travel vendor electronic gift cards count as travel. Quite a few food chain in-app gift card purchases will count as restaurants (Starbucks, Panera, etc.) so that can be something useful.
Jan 22, 2024, 12:06 pm
#460
Join Date: Jul 2014
Posts: 17
I booked two reward flights through Avios.com for Aer Lingus and did not receive the CSR travel credit for the cash portion of my fare. Was kind of surprised by this, though it doesn't really matter because I'll get the $300. eventually.