A few days ago, Chase started a promotion on some of their cards that will let you save 10% on hotel and car rental reservations made through their portal. This 10% is in the form of cash back on these cards but you can convert that cash back to the valuable Ultimate Reward points by following the instructions in this post. Does this offer make sense for your travels?
Save 10% On Hotel & Car Rentals with These Cards
Link: Save 10% on Hotels & Car Rentals with the Chase Freedom cards
The offer for this is on 3 different Chase cards – the Chase Freedom, the Chase Freedom Unlimited, and the Chase Ink Cash. Here are the terms for these offers:
- Travel must be booked through the Chase portal
- Travel must be booked (but can take place after) between March 1 – 31
- Travel must be paid for with the Chase card (Freedom, Freedom Unlimited, Ink Cash)
- Earn a total of 10% Cash Back on up to $2,500 in combined hotel and car rental purchases made through the Chase Ultimate Rewards portal on each card
That sounds pretty good, especially if you convert that cash back into Ultimate Reward points. With the ability to redeem them for many aspects of travel between 1.5 and 2 cents per point, it is like getting about a 15-20% return on your hotels and car rental reservations!
But, Is It Right for You?
Here are the problems with the offer that you may want to consider before booking.
Hotel
Hotel reservations made through third-party providers (like the Ultimate Rewards portal) do not allow elite benefits or credit to be earned on most chain hotels. That means you could miss out on things like late check-out, breakfast, elite credit, ability to get a room upgrade, and more. If that is important to you, you may not want to book through this promotion.
Another thing to consider is that there are times that better prices can be obtained through the hotel website itself or from another online travel agent site. But, if you are booking a non-chain hotel, this promo could definitely be beneficial! Since most of my hotel reservations are chain stays, I will likely not use this promotion for that.
Car Rentals
If you make your car rental reservation using your Chase Freedom or Chase Freedom Unlimited card, you will miss out on the primary collision damage waiver coverage provided by cards like the Chase Sapphire Preferred or the Chase Sapphire Reserve. So, be careful with that.
But, on business reservations, you will have that coverage if you use the Chase Ink Cash card. So, it could be smarter to use that card, if it can qualify as a business reservation.
Takeaway
This Chase card offer is a fine promotion and could be quite lucrative if you use it properly. Just be aware as you make your reservations of the issues above. If you have a bunch of non-chain hotel stays or you do not care about hotel elite status/benefits, then it would make perfect sense to go ahead and book your reservations with this promo.
At the end of the day, being able to earn 10% cash back/10X Ultimate Reward points on travel like this can be a big help and help bridge your point gaps for that next big trip as well.
Will you be using this Chase promo to save 10% on hotels and car rentals?
HT: Doctor of Credit (1 & 2)
Do you earn points when booked through the chase portal?
Same as you would in other categories. They did away with the extra point for bookings made through the portal last year.
I’m on the road and booking hotels daily and I appear to have received nothing from Chase about this, with trial bookings at the bank’s travel portal mentioning nothing when connecting through either the Freedom or Chase Ink cards. Did I miss an invitation or something?
Try the link in the post and then login from there. It is definitely open to the public but I believe the Ink cash one may be a link cardholders receive via e-mail. I don’t have that card so I’m not sure on that.