Chase credit travel portal transitions to Expedia [Transition Complete]
 

Just saw this and looks like a phased rollout.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/12/jpmo...o-expedia.html

i dont get it, 2 years ago, i booked a room with chase portal. the hotel receipt said it was booked via expedia...

That's because Connexions used Expedia to fulfill many of their hotel bookings. The large online travel agencies, Expedia and Priceline, own blocks of prepaid nights purchased at a substantial discount. Placing your reservation through Expedia saved Connexions money.

However, this change makes Expedia (or one of their many other brands) the operator of the portal, which will affect airfare, car rentals, etc as well as hotels.

Will I get Expedia points for bookings made through UR portal?

Maybe for the 'cash' portion of the redemption. Guessing if you use 100% UR pts for booking you won't get Expedia points. Kind of like booking a UA award flight using UA miles and expecting to earn UA miles for the flight.

Not exactly the same comparison. The UA comparison would only be if I was booking on Expedia using Expedia points. When I book UA flight using UR points, I do indeed earn UA miles.

Searching multiple destinations on Freedom travel portal is working again, thanks to Expedia, also hotel search for Hong Kong return 675 properties vs <300 for connexions amazing!!!!!!

No, it just means the booking engine is powered by expedia (like Orbitz, Hotwire, etc etc). It's not the same as booking through expedia itself.

They do have some discounted sale prices on some hotels compared to the main expedia pricing, so still worth checking out for hotels. E.g. a hyatt I'm looking at is $175 via the Chase portal but $199 on Expedia (and $194 member rate through hyatt.com). Will be interested to see if the sales are also present when the engine extends to UR redemptions as the CSR portal still has the higher price.

Anyone know what happens with Cruise & Tours? expedia now?

Playing around with the new portal on the Freedom UR site, I noticed several quirks that are a little offputting (for booking flights anyway)

• Inability to book domestic round trips with each flight from a different airline (ex DL outbound and AA inbound) as you can on the full expedia site.
  • These have to be booked as separate one way tickets
• No ability to compare the booking classes for each flight side by side on the search page, you have to click through to the flight
• Both are general expedia quirks with multicity bookings:
  • When booking a multicity trip, you must select from a bundle of flights, rather than individual trips
  • The option to upgrade from basic economy to regular economy is not there when the multicity trip is with more than one airlin

I don’t understand the value proposition here except for the better UI perhaps. Unless we get deals or discounts, it’s all the same to me

Value does not always take the form of lower prices. A site that works reliably adds value. Just TODAY we have a report that Connexions is missing many hotels from their Hong Kong listing.

Not everything has to have a better value proposition to you. Perhaps it even saves Chase on costs, helping to keep their rewards programs profitable. The good thing is, there doesn't appear to be any negative. At least not yet.

I'm sure we will find out. I hope I can start to book cruises on the website. I can't stand having to book it by phone.

The "Vacation Rental" search looks to be new vs. what appears for my CSR. Unfortunately, it seems to only show hotels based on a brief look (at least for Rome during April 2019). Still some bugs to work out?