RNE

Anybody know if it's possible to pay a remaining balance with UR points on a cruise booking for which the deposit was paid with a credit card?

philemer

Nope. Can't image how it would be possible.

RNE

I can imagine how it might be possible: by telephone. But, your point is well taken. I'll have to call and see.*

Also, this cruise booking is fully refundable (up to 75 days prior to sailing). If I am able to use URs to pay the remaining balance and later on cancel the cruise, how does the refund work? I figure the cruise line would send me a check because a payment by URs looks like a check payment to them, as far as the cruise line is concerned. Right?

*
Edit 1: I'm on hold with a travel portal "cruise specialist" right now... Zzzz.
Edit 2: It can be done. Here's how it works. You have to transfer the booking from the cruise line to the travel portal's associated travel agency. That agency can then make payments (full or partial) on the cruise booking. However, there are some constraints to be aware of. A) The booking deposit has to be made directly with the cruise line. If you use a travel agency, you're out of luck. B) The cruise lines limit the window when you can transfer a booking from their control to an agency's. It closes as early as 30 days after initial deposit up to final deposit due date (typically 75-120 prior to sail date) depending on the particular cruise line's rules. And the agent I talked to claims the window can change without prior notice. But that could be spurious.

Happy

Since we are talking about using UR to book a cruise. My experience this morning as a test is an utter disappointment.

First the phone number published on UR site for booking a cruise (must call, no online function and extremely limited listing), landed me to a flight and hotel dept where the rep had to transfer me to the cruise booking dept. He said they had lots of phone issues recently when I asked why I called the listed number but got the wrong dept.

The connection to the cruise dept was VERY BAD with lots and lots of statics. Many times I could not hear what the other party was saying.

I gave the rep a specific cruise to check on - Dec 16 Regal Princess 7 days sailing round trip Ft. Lauderdale, Western Caribbeans. Inside 2 adults for Past Passengers of Princess (Captain's Circle members)
The price came back was $200 higher than what Princess website said.
Reiterated the specifics again. Rep came back with a "non-refundable" price that was still $180 higher than what Princess website said.
The issue is, for sailing on Dec 16, less than 3 weeks out, ANY booking is nonrefundable and must pay within 24 hours of the booking. I pointed this out to the rep the price difference as well as the refundable or nonrefundable part.
He then said, "you can always pay with your UR pts blah blah blah" totally ignored the price differences I pointed out.
I told him to check more carefully, especially the Captain's Circle rate that had more than $200 difference than what he quoted - what is the point to use UR pts for a 30% discount when the price UR quoted is 20% higher?!
He then said he did not see the price in his internal system and refused to check Princess website, but said he would call the cruiseline to find out more.
After being on hold for over 15 min and the static noise kept coming and very loud at times, I hang up.

We never book cruise months ahead. 90% of our cruises (over 25 with Princess and over 15 with other lines) were booked after the final payment has passed, i.e. no 100% refund once this has passed. That is when cruiselines know more realistically how many passengers would be on the particular sailing. Hence the mechanism posted by RNE does not really apply / help our attempt to use UR pts.

I seriously doubt the cruiseline would send you a check should you cancel the cruise after deadline has passed - it would always be to the original form of payment - in this case to the credit card used by UR booking portal whether it is Expedia now or still with Connexions. Then you fight for your UR pts being refunded back to you - no difference than people had to cancel their flights / hotels.

From the initial test, it seems to me the current UR cruise bookings are fairly bogus because they would not see cruiselines specials - be it for the returned customers or special OBCs that often show up associated with specific cruises / available to top cruise only agents.

At the end while one may use UR in lieu of Cash, the saving is far far less than what Chase UR would want you believe, quite similar to the international flights and hotel rooms my previous experiences have been.

Happy

1) Did you find out what Travel Agency the travel portal used for cruise booking?

2) No, the cruiseline will refund the canceled cruise to the ORIGINAL FORM of payment which is from the travel agency, most likely on its own credit card.
You then work thru the system to get your UR pts returned to you. Plenty of such experiences reported by people who had to cancel their flights / hotels that the travel providers have refunded the fares but the customers do not see any adjustments on their UR accounts and have to work thru / jump thru hoops to get their accounts adjusted.

3) The final payment cut off deadline varies by the length of the cruise, though 75 days are common but for shorter Caribbean cruises, they are much closer. Last X'mas I booked a 10 days cruise thru our usual cruise agent on 11/06 for a 12/20 sailing, payment was due within 24 hours of the booking of course. But the cancellation penalty schedule was listed as this 50% if canceled on 11/06, 75% if canceled on 11/22, and 100% on 12/06.
I asked when would be the 0% penalty for this cruise. Our agent looked back and said it would be before 10/22.

All in all, my view remains, the 1.5 touted by Chase is just in theory as there are limited cases one can achieve such value in reality, and even so, it is often full of gotchas in the process / and in subsequent events.

Happy

No. UR would not reimburse you.
There are often times the fares only available on airlines own websites and not on any OTA sites (Expedia for example). In this case, it just means airlines do not release the same fares to OTAs, so no travel booking portal has access to it.
If the fare is available on OTA sites but not on UR site, you need to call UR to ask the supervisor to find it in the GDS system and book that for you.

inmanlanier

First off, I'm trying to continue the documented issues with the Expedia bookings since transition from Connexions to Expedia. To clarify not just online/portal issues but phone booking issues (I've had two bad back to back experiences trying to book flights via the phone). Starting the end of October, the issues started being logged in a different thread (see next paragraph). I saw 5 pertinent postings to the issues since switch over to Expedia, then the thread was shut down on November 21 by the moderator. NOTE - I had to edit the URL links on this thread since I'm a newbee and it won't let me imbed URLs - sorry.

FOLKS - Let's continue to capture issues here, please since I'm trying to see how many others have issues.

To continue documenting issues, I've had 3 so far starting the middle of this month:
1) I too tried to book flight online (when out of town) - ALL MY PROFILE data was gone (as others complained). I don't keep personal/private data on my cell phone or tablet so I called UR directly to book my flights.
2) I then called UR - it took 45 minutes for the Expedia employee to blunder through the website and book our flights. When done, I asked to speak to a rep to lodge my concerns. 30 minutes later (still on hold) I gave up and hung up.
3) 1 week later I tried again to book. I Called since I didn't want to go to the website - 30 minutes later the woman finally completed booked our flights. What I didn't realize was the fact that my profiles were all hosed up (I had spent some time trying to fix them the week before), I kept referring the booking agent to the profiles. I assumed (stupid me) that she was pulling up from the profiles I had fixed the prior week) - nope. As I have learned I logged into American after booking to check the flights - it turns out the Expedia woman had spelled my wife's name incorrectly. I had to call back and the games started all over again. They started suggesting I would need to pay money to make a change. Finally got a supervisor - flights cancelled then re-booked. We're now approaching 1 hour; I asked to speak to a rep for feedback. 20 minutes later I spoke to an Expedia rep who's sole job is to log complaints on this transition from Connexions to Expedia. He said countless people have issues just like mine, many are ready to cancel and go to Amex. He's not noted any improvements yet. My profiles continue to be hosed up.

I'm a Chase Private Client as another point of interest (supposed to mean something - at this point I don't think so). I've since bubbled this up through a complaint to the Chase Executive office - I am asking to speak with someone in Senior management find out what's being done to fix the mess. It's in the works, but just last night I chastised the gent who called and tried to blow me off. He was NOT senior management as I've requested (just one of the reps who try and assuage your angst). I told him to read my request and enable - in other words let me vent to someone in the senior food chain. We'll see what happens there.

SO PLEASE - DOCUMENT YOUR ISSUES WITH EXPEDIA SINCE THE TRANSITION. Change to another outfit is my last desire; I hope if we properly register our problems we may give Chase/Expedia just cause and sufficient data to fix the mess. Thank you in advance.

mia

In 2018 Chase changed the outsourced booking portal operator from Connexions to Expedia. The thread has been split to reflect this change.

Posts from January to mid-October have been archived to a separate thread. Those posts discussed the portal as operated by Connexions, -and- the transition process to Expedia.

Booking Flights, Rooms, Cars, Cruises, Activities with UR (Jan-Oct 2018)


The thread you are reading now covers the strengths and shortcomings of the new Expedia-operated portal. This thread will be most useful if we focus on devising solutions to the shortcomings, rather than simply whinging about Expedia.

If you preferred Connexions, note that they are also the operator of Citi's ThankYou Rewards booking portal. (American Express uses Orbitz, which is owned by Expedia.)

dink23

I'm attempting to book a flight from PHX to the UK for next August. Unfortunately, the UR (Expedia) portal only shows me Basic Economy tickets and will not give me the option to upgrade my ticket to Economy. I've tried this on numerous flight options and it never gives me the upgrade option like it does on a domestic US flight. I called into CS and they told me it only shows the tickets they have available and that they must not have Economy tickets (which makes no sense since all it adds is a carry-on). I then decided to check the same flights on Expedia and they did allow to upgrade to Economy. I also noticed domestic flights contain verbiage that there might be an option to upgrade before checkout, while that same verbiage is not on International flights. I attempted to call CS again, but they informed me their systems were down so that is why I came here. Has anyone successfully booked an Economy International flight through the UR Portal or do you have any advice as to how I can accomplish this?

Happy

The cruise dept rep told me he was NOT looking at Expedia system to find the cruise I told him to quote a price. He told me he is looking at the "internal system". He was short at telling me, he did not work for Expedia.

No idea which company is handling Chase UR cruise booking based on what I was told.

BThumme

I've sent out this thread and some supporting information to some bloggers. As most of them have a financial interest in supporting chase, I don't think we're going to see any pieces on how it's broken.

It's clear the portal does not function the same as normal Expedia. I also think it's a really big issue, but maybe it's just me and it's not a big deal for most people.

StartinSanDiego

This has a huge impact on the value of UR points. If they can't be used on the portal for travel bookings with reasonable ease, they lose a tremendous amount of appeal. This would go in spades to the average Joe or Jessica who may only do one redemption a year. Then, surprise! It takes hours to book a (possibly) second rate flight/cabin/room for more money and more hassle than it would cost on the open market. That's going to be frustrating for people new to the miles and points game that are shelling out big bucks for the CSR cards. As @Happy said, UR bookings appear full of "gotchas."

inmanlanier

More issues:

Point of interest - in case you didn't know, Connexions will maintain flights you booked with them (i.e. prior to your card's transition). I now know this due to more issues.

A flight was changed; I received notification that there was a schedule change. Yesterday I logged into UR and could not see any changes. I called the number left on my voice mail (Connexions as it turned out). They wanted my approval of the changes and told me of the new flight times. They said after I concurred they would email me the new itinerary. They did issue me a 'new' itinerary via email, however the flight times listed were still the original times. I logged into UR again (just now) - the original flight times are still listed. I logged into the carrier's website (JetBlue) and the flight times listed on JetBlue's website were the revised times.

One thing I did like about Connexions is that they would send me notifications of changes from the carriers (whereas it's hit or miss if the carriers even notify us - really ticks me off!).

It appears we can't trust the UR (Expedia) website data now - if there was a change, it does not reflect current data (in my one instance).

I guess I'll go into my mode of putting reminders every few weeks or so to check to see what my pending flights really are (arghh!!) I have a new acronym I throw about with my buds - WAD (We are doomed).

jbm13

Hi all,
I booked a one-way return for my honeymoon in July, 2019 from ZNZ-NBO-AMS-SFO using UR pts. It's a KLM ticket but with Kenya Airways operating the initial flight from ZNZ-NBO. I just received an alert that the ZNZ-NBO flight had a schedule change and now leaves at 3:40a the next day vs originally scheduled at 9:45p. This will cause me to miss my next flight out of NBO-AMS on KLM. I called Chase and KLM and neither said they could help without fully canceling my whole itinerary and re-booking which will cost me a lot more UR pts or a totally different itinerary back. I have 2 questions:

1. Is this a glitch that should get fixed, has this ever happened with someone else involving Kenya Airways? My flight is 6 months away so I can wait but am worried if I do so that the cost will only go up if I have to re-book
2. Can Chase remove the initial flight from ZNZ-NBO but keep the rest of the itinerary so I can just book a separate flight from ZNZ-NBO on Kenya Airways (but operated by Precision Air)? That will cost approx $200/person but seems preferred to rebooking the whole itinerary

Thanks!

Any help is much appreciated as I looked for a long time for the best flights using my UR pts and I would like to not have to re-book and pay a significant additional cost in UR pts.

tearex

Edit: misread

Might also be worth asking in KLM forum, but I would think they should allow you to change your second leg without issue at least.