What is a Travel Portal?

A travel portal, sometimes referred to as an online travel agency, is a website that finds hotels, flights, cruises, car rentals, and other types of travel. These can either be standalone companies such as Expedia, Bookings.com, and Hotels.com, or they can be affiliated with a bank, such as Citi Travel, Chase Travel, and Amex Travel.

The bank portals will generally partner with a company like Expedia to handle the actual booking, but you will be dealing with the bank’s customer service if you need to resolve any issues.

What Are the Benefits of Using Travel Portals?

• More opportunities to find travel deals when paying cash.
• If you book through a preferred booking platform such as Amex Fine Hotels & Resorts, you will get enhanced benefits such as 4pm late checkout, a $100 property credit, and a room upgrade.
  • The price can be more than booking direct due to the added benefits, so it’s always worth comparing to make sure that you will get enough value to make up the difference. You can read an example of that here.
• Elevated point multipliers on your card when booking through the bank’s travel portal. Here are a few examples:
  • Capital One Venture X and Chase Sapphire Reserve both earn the following:
    • 10x on hotels and car rentals booked through the bank’s travel portal
    • 5x on airline purchases booked through the bank’s travel portal
  • Citi Strata Premier earns 10x on hotels, car rentals, and attractions booked through Citi Travel. This card also gives you $100 towards a hotel stay of $500 or more that is booked through Citi Travel each year.
  • Chase Sapphire Preferred earns 5x on hotels and car rentals booked through Chase Travel, as well as a $50 credit towards hotels booked through Chase Travel every cardmember year.

Downsides of Using Travel Portals

• You are unlikely to receive elite night credit, benefits of hotel status, and points for your stay.
  • Preferred booking programs such as Amex Fine Hotels & Resorts, Hyatt Privé, and Marriott STARS generally count as a direct booking for the purpose of receiving points and elite nights.
    • The Hotel Collection from Amex does give elite nights and points in my experience, but results may vary depending on the property.
  • Most airlines will treat bookings through travel portals as an eligible flight for the purposes of earning miles on the flight and earning towards status.
• Some people have reported issues when they had to cancel or modify a stay or flight booked through a portal, since you have to go through the company that you booked with to resolve issues.
  • This likely depends on which portal you use to book. I typically book through a portal affiliated with a bank such as Chase Travel, or one of the Amex hotel booking platforms. I suspect that the banks have more incentive to resolve your issue as painlessly as possible so they don’t drive away otherwise profitable customers, compared with dedicated portals such as Expedia or Hotels.com that aren’t trying to sell you other products. You can read more about my experience getting issues resolved below.
• If you want to redeem points for your travel, you will almost certainly get lower value for your points by using them through a portal rather than transferring points to an airline or hotel partner and booking directly.

My Experiences Resolving Issues During Stays Booked Through Chase Travel

Issue 1: Hotel Closed with No Notice

The first time I had an issue was when I was visiting England for the first time. The hotel had closed due to not having water and had refunded the charges back to the Expedia VCC that was used to pay, but it hadn’t made it back to me yet, and I didn’t find out about this issue until I arrived at the hotel.

When I called Chase to get the stay refunded, they called the hotel to confirm and the stay was refunded to my card in less than a week. This may be too slow for some, but it was a result that I was happy with, all things considered.

I found an alternative option that was cheaper, only about a mile away, and closer to the downtown area, so it wasn’t a huge deal. The next time I was in the area, I ended up booking the same room again.

Issue 2: Needing to Cancel a Non-Refundable Hotel Stay

My second experience with Chase Travel customer service was when I had booked a non-refundable stay at a hotel near the airport for the night before departure in St. Louis, but I ended up having to cancel due to my stay being extended at the last second.

I called Chase and explained the situation, and they had no issue getting the stay canceled and refunded to me even though I had accepted the risk of losing the money by purchasing a non-refundable rate.

A Fantastic Chase Travel Stacking Opportunity

There are currently 2 promotions for Chase Travel that work well together if you have upcoming travel planned where you will be paying cash. The offers are:

• A targeted offer for 20,000 UR points when you book a hotel stay for $500 or more, or 10,000 points when booking flights, cruises, and car rentals. Be aware that you are only eligible for this offer if you haven’t booked through Chase Travel since August 15, 2022
• A targeted Chase Offer for $100 back on a Chase Travel booking of $500 or more.

This means that you can receive rewards with a face value of at least $300 (60%) if you qualify for both offers. If you value Ultimate Rewards points at 2 cents per point or above you are breaking even, not counting the base rewards of 5x on the card that you use to book. In my opinion, if someone is eligible for both offers and chooses not to take advantage, they are leaving money on the table.

My Thoughts on Portal Bookings

I think that the risks of booking through a portal are overstated, especially when booking through a bank’s portal, but ultimately it’s up to your risk tolerance since adding an additional party can complicate any transaction. I personally use portals for hotels when it’s a better deal or when I have a credit, since finding an alternative hotel at the last minute isn’t terribly difficult. I haven’t booked through a portal for flights since an issue could cause me to be stranded, which is a much trickier situation.

I have a car rental coming up next month, so I’ll be checking rates with portals and booking directly. I may be subject to additional fees due to my age, and I’ll be looking into different ways to get that fee waived. If a portal waives that fee, that could be a savings of 25-40% off the cost of the rental, so that would definitely be worth the additional risk of booking through a portal, otherwise I’ll try to negotiate the fee away with the company and book direct.

Do you book travel through portals? Share your experiences and thoughts below!