mia

The hotel business is structured differently than air travel. Consolidators (e.g. Expedia, Priceline) buy room nights in bulk. Smaller players, such as Connexions, shop your reservation around to find the lowest cost. The lowest cost for them, this does not affect your price. They may not decide how to place the reservation until shortly before the stay begins, and the hotel may see your booking as an Expedia or Priceline transaction.

Chase explains this in the terms:

https://ultimaterewardstravel.chase....er#TravelTerms

Happy

Absolutely a NO.

You need to call and ask for the REAL confirmation number. The front line rep would then transfer you to their "provider desk" rep who then can look up the reservation and give you the real reference number.
quite often though, it is just a reference number of an Expedia booking, no different from how you book directly thru Expedia, and not the hotel's own reservation number. Though if it is a chain hotel property, the "provider desk" rep can dig deeper to provide further information. My one and the only successful hotel booking thru the UR portal was a Radisson Blu property at Cape Town. By way of "successful" I mean the booking was received by the hotel and had a Club Carlson reservation number attached, given to me by the "provider desk" rep. He even gave me the Expedia promotion rate reference. I was able to pull up the reservation on Club Carlson site which showed as an Expedia promotion rate et al. Same thing would work for any chain hotel property. I strongly recommend anyone who uses the Chase UR portal to book hotels, CONFIRM with the property way ahead of your arrival to ensure everything was as expected and you would arrive with a room! This applies to both chain or independent properties. It cannot be emphasized enough that to make sure the property has your reservation is probably the only mechanism to guarantee you have a room when you walk in.

Happy

I can attest to that on how Connexions work even though the experience was from Citi's TYP program which also uses Connexions to handle the travel booking. One year I did not realize our arrival date to Seville was right in the middle of Samanta Santa It was too late to change due to we already bought the very hard to get tickets to Alhambra in Granada, and the flight between Barcelona to Granada, Train tickets Granada to Seville.. The whole Seville town was sold out and the only room (a 2 bedroom thing) I could find was at a hotel far from the city center, next to a hospital - it was available on TYP site only. Booked that and communicated with the hotel in Spanish using google translate because I was very afraid we would have no place to stay given the festival - the most important one in Seville the whole year with religious processions etc. Hotel did not see my name at all but did find a reservation fit the description of the room type, "booked by a travel agency". They finally received my name for the reservation a few days before our arrival, when we were already in Granada.

So as mia pointed out, if you are adventurous enough to use UR portal for your hotel needs, try to stick to Chain hotel as much as possible as that is easier to verify the booking. Else, be prepared you would not be able to confirm your reservation with the hotel until 24 hours before arrival, because many such rooms are sold thru Consolidator.

curl

This is exactly my concern - I want to be sure we have this reservation before I book the rest of my travel! It is Hyatt property so obviously a legit hotel, but when I can't see my reservation on Hyatt.com, it makes me nervous! The confirmation numbers in the email were worthless. I will call Chase to see what other info I can get.

Happy

Call UR customer service, NOT Chase. The UR portal is NOT run by Chase even though it is accessible from Chase online. You should see the customer service number either on UR site or on your confirmation.

Ask the rep to transfer you because you need to know the ACTUAL reservation number shown in Hotel's own system. They can find it for you. You then can use the real reservation number to check with the property, or even be able to pull it up on Hyatt website. But you need that real number, not the bogus Connexions / UR number which as you found out, is worthless.

pallhedge

With Hyatt, I almost always see better value for UR by transferring to World of Hyatt as opposed to using the Chase portal. And it takes away the headache you're experiencing. I'm assuming you've done this comparison?

curl

Yes, and it was MUCH cheaper on the UR portal.

Happy

That means the cash rate for your date is very low while the category itself either is overpriced or it only works when it is at high season demand..

Happy

Trying to book a FCO-CTA on Alitalia. Once again UR portal only offers the cheapest fares that only a hand carry of 5kg is allowed. It is the identical experience as last April trying to book a Scandinavia flight. Some people said one could call to have it booked. I dont want to spend the time on this. Ryan Air it will be (and would still be cheaper even if UR could book the AZ flight and at 1.5x, because AZ flight is twice as much as the Ryan with checked bag and standard seat selection.)

ucdtim17

Anyone have any experience same day changing a UR booking on AS? Reservation says no online changes now but I hope/assume it’ll be treated normally as far as SDC is concerned.

Edit: It appears it will be treated like any other cash reservation. Online changes are possible now.

sea_flyer_17

I was trying to book a last minute flight on Chase site for later that night. The website won’t let me book same day. Is there a way around that?

And phone agent said they could but only if at least 4 hours away. I was actually hoping for closer (this was an emergency flight purchase).

I ended up paying cash instead on airline site, but are there tricks for Chase in future?

Diplomatico

You didn't state which airline but I suspect this is an airline rule and not a Chase rule. From experience, for example, I can tell you that THAI airways will not allow you to book a flight online if the flight is within six hours of when you are trying to book. I suspect other airlines have similar - if not more stringent - restrictions.

sea_flyer_17

Interesting.

sea_flyer_17

as an example, it is 6 AM eastern and the full day is blocked in mobile app; that is before any airline is searched, so it looks global.

krazykanuck

I think this is just one of the many quirky restrictions of using the Chase travel portal, similar to like how until a couple months ago, you couldn't make one way car reservations either. There was no good reason for it other than you just couldn't.

Finally: Chase Ultimate Rewards Travel Center Now Allows You to Book One-Way Rental Cars - Miles To The Max