philemer

If you read the last couple pages of this thread you'll see a plethora of problems with the UR-Expedia marriage.

xooz

Well, can't find this 100% stated anywhere, but I think I know the answer. If a hotel is purchased through the UR portal, either totally with points or with cash/points mix, does ANY major hotel chain give you a qualifying stay, even if they do not give points? I am assuming not, but looking for confirmation since the bloggers don't say definitively. By major chains, I mean Marriott, Hilton, IHG, and Hyatt.

lax01

SPG/Marriott - that's a no - because its actually booked via a travel agent

xooz

Thanks. That will be the case for all, so assumed no joy... but thought if there were exceptions for some reason they would be known to this gathering of travelers.

Happy

No. All hotel chains have made only book direct to be eligible stays. You know the properties PAY for a hefty fee to OTA to get them listed in the available list, dont you? They DONT want you to book thru OTA if you are "loyal" to the program. In return you receive the benefits of night and stay credit, elite benefits etc.

Marriott once to let you enjoy elite benefits even booked thru OTA. However with the current state of BonVoy even booked direct often have trouble getting elite benefits honored at some properties, good luck for any recognition when booked thru OTA. Chase UR pts redemption is OTA (by Expedia).

Airlines and Cruise lines, continue to give credits and elite benefits regardless booking channel. Rental cars dont.

Happy

Alright - ONCE AGAIN there is airfare price difference on UR site which of course, is HIGHER than what it should be!

Looking at an ITM-OKA economy flight - google flights gives $91 on a JL flight. JL site gives 10080 JPY. The same fare is available on several OTA sites as well.

XE shows 111.86 JPY to 1 USD therefore it is approx $90.xx.

This is what the UR site shows

mia

More likely they are pricing a different fare code.

II appreciate that you take the time time document these discrepancies, but I am curious if you find it really worth your time and emotional energy to shop for a $100 ticket?

If you can document a range of examples where expedia.com displays lower fares than Chase travel the embarrassment factor might motivate Chase to press Expedia to change the pricing algorithm, but the trick would be to bring the issue to Chase rather than to Chase Travel which can bury it.

Happy

I posted what I found that demonstrated how UR is not what it is advertised to be, so others can be aware that they need to compare the prices between the prices the airlines charge, versus the UR/Expedia charges - whether it is a $100 fare or a $1000 fare, there are issues with the UR portal that we all know that have been there and Chase does not seem to care to fix it.

Interesting that you think reporting glitches only worthwhile when the $ involved is large enough... While people should be warned that they need to be watchful when they use UR portal to book their travels. Again, the price should not be jacked up, whether it is a $100 ticket or a $1000 ticket. I would think most sensible people would agree on this principle,

As for the ticket, I actually booked it with Avios but I am curious to find out how UR would show it, after there was a poster who found the UR price was much higher than what Google Flights / Airlines / other OTAs shown, so he came to the conclusion that UR is not good to use for airfares that are not domestic.

The poster MisterMechE has done exactly you claimed should be done. He spent hours with Chase only to be told that he could redeem UR as cash so to buy the cheaper ticket!

In case you forgot the post I referred to, here is the link to post 236 on Feb 15, more than 2 weeks ago when he reported what he encountered.

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/chas...l#post30781646

Worth to bring out is, his ticket is $150, and he has talked to 2 levels up reps at Chase, multiple calls and to supervisor who checked with "her supervisors".

We have not heard back from MisterMechE if his issue has been resolved. Yet here I am, encountering another example on how UR/Experdia has jacked up the prices.

So just how you suggest we should do to make Chase change its practice? Chase does NOT care.

But at least I, and others, can play defensive - as to at least know to pay attention on the prices quoted, so we would not be duped into the false claim that Chase wanted us to believe that UR Travel is great.

I have long held the believe that the UR 1.5x is just a "should be" but often :"would not be" if you look back my posts on this subj. I used it when the prices matched with the provider, like the cruise I just booked. But I also reported the time that UR rep, ah, Expedia rep, could not see the prices shown on the cruiseline's site, as well as on the major cruise agents such as vacationtogo site, but a much higher price.

My posts are in the category of "Buyer Beware". Getting Chase to change is NOT my goal because it is an impossible task. My goal is to warn fellow cardholders that it is up to ourselves to prevent falling into the "saving" trap unknowingly.

g289t

The example you posted shows a 1.25x redemption rate rather than the official 1.5x. I have gotten similar results in my usage. I do not have a huge amount of points and do not have enough to pay for all my travel. What I've been doing is compare prices for ALL travel, and use UR points to purchase the tickets closest to the same prices on the Chase portal and whichever OTA or airline website I choose to use. If the discrepancy is larger, I buy the ticket outright because I must buy some of them anyway. This works for me.

While I know that quibbling over a few $$$ isn't good use of time, I do agree with you that it demonstrates the flaw in the system. Even the regular Expedia is better than Chase's Expedia. I wish that Chase would at least allow us to use Expedia, and pay for travel there with our UR points.

mia

I only asked whether you find it worthwhile to comparison shop for a ~$100 fare. Reporting what you find is always appreciated.

moe8555

I have had success calling up and getting a better price when the portal price didn't align with public rates. But that was in the Connexion days, not sure now.

Happy

This! The exist Expedia definitely works better than Chase Expedia.

I have not thought about the 1.25 discrepancy. However in this incident, the BASE FARE itself is already different - JL's is all inclusive at $91, UR/Expedia's is $98.xx before tax and then $9.xx tax, to come up a BASE inclusive fare of $109.xx.

That is BEFORE any credit card discount.

I find that irritating with such discrepancy, not the 1.25 versus 1.5, as the discrepancy starts at the before discount price. Also in MisterMechE's example that his $150 fare available everywhere would jump to $800 in Chase/Expedia's system.

There is another quirk I did not post here but in the JL forum - UR also offer the NH shuttle flights but NH prices are higher than JL, by a few bucks. Yet UR shows NH has the same prices as JL - that simply should not be the case.

On top of that, JL forum folks told me, the Japanese airlines do NOT price their fares with a tax breakdown. Yet as the info I posted, UR has a tax component when it does not even shown on JL and BA only charges $3.34 the true taxes charged, versus UR charges $9+.

Does that mean UR charges the YQ? While BA does not charge the YQ?

Worst thing is, in the past you can call and ask to talk to a specialist (at Connexions) then the specialist or supervisor can look into the GDS system and understand what you are calling about. The Connexions specialist can go into GDS to book the fare you see, and not as what the situation is now as MisterMechE's experiences that he has talked to 3 levels of reps, and the supervisors of the supervisors, wasted HOURS of his time to no avail.

Chase simply does not care. Therefore it is laughable to tell people to waste their time to call Chase to make them aware of issues with UR/Expedia. Just look at the myriad of issues people posted on bookings small to large - how difficult a resolution to come by (involving Exec Office and Twitter team) and how the system continues denying people's cards when theirs have been replaced due to fraudulent charges

The issue I posted is not new. It has been affecting multiple airfares I checked since 2017. After the marriage to Expedia, there are just more and more issues to come up.
I personally dont want to spend hours to deal with Chase when I have other alternatives but I do want others know the issues continue to exist.

Does anyone still naively thinks Chase would really spend resource to address the issues? If so, more power to them.

It is NOT cardholder's responsibility to make sure the software / interface or whathave you is working as it should be. Unfortunately it is cardholder who suffers the consequences from poorly designed / implemented system. We need to be aware of the myriad of the glitches and learn how to protect our hard-earned reward points.

For me I just play defensive and not to use UR when it is blatantly shortchanging the "value" as we are fortunate to have other "currencies" to use.

My math is simple, the UR has a guarantee value of 1c. I would compare it with my acquisition cost on other currencies. I dont use the bogus "value" the bloggers assigned to the various currencies and many readers tend to follow like sheep.

I use the actual out of pocket acquisition cost I incurred. Because this is Real Money. I also take the view that the funny currencies do not generate anything if they just sit in the accounts while pts like UR can turn into Real Cash by the guaranteed 1c. Therefore the cost of using UR is ALWAYS a minimum 1c a pt.

In this example my acquisition cost on the BA Avios is less than 0.3c - for a 7500 $3.34 tax ticket, the real cost to me is only $25.84.

The UR even when it works correctly, still would be $91/1.5 = $60.

Therefore unless we MUST travel on that particular date, Avios booking costs me less than half of what the UR costs me.

Another thing to make Avios booking more desirable is, to cancel or change, the cost to me is the cash portion of $3.34. Dirt cheap an insurance you can have. That is the beauty on Avios on low cash payment bookings.

I hope the above help to make it clearer to the readers who care to read and learn how to play self-defense when using the credit card benefits.

wanderlust99

I have looked through this thread as best I could be did not see this question (although I'm sure it's somewhere):

I tried to book multiple American Airlines tickets through UR a few minutes ago. I have enough points to cover one ticket but would need to pay cash for the others. I didn't see that option, only the "pay all cash or points" options. Am I missing something? Can this be done?

g289t

I always have the option to use my available points and pay the balance. For example, if the tickets costs $700 and I have 30,000 points, I'll have the option to use the points (30,000 UR points = $450) and pay the remaining $250 with my credit card.

wanderlust99

ok, I see my error now. I didn't go far enough (to the booking screen). When I go forward to there, it then shows the point redemption.

Thank you for your help.