Chase has announced that starting from today with some of their cards, Expedia will be powering their travel portal.
The news came via CNBC, which reported that Chase Freedom cards were upgraded to the new system today, with their other Ultimate Rewards-earning cards being moved over in the coming months.
Seeing as you can only redeem points for 1c with Freedom cards, this isn’t too exciting for now. Once the Sapphire cards have been upgraded – particularly the Sapphire Reserve seeing as points can be redeemed for 1.5c through the travel portal – it could be more interesting.
Per the article:
They’ll also get access to Expedia’s travel deals and can choose among 272,000 hotels and 250 airlines.
Unfortunately the article doesn’t detail how that compares to how many hotels and airlines were/are available via Connexions, the old/current travel portal provider.
It’s been years since I last used Expedia, so I’m not too familiar with what benefits this change will bring. One frustrating aspect when using Ultimate Rewards to pay for Southwest flights (rather than transferring them to Rapid Rewards) has been that it can only be done over the phone rather than online through the portal. It doesn’t look like Expedia displays Southwest flights on their site either, so this is unlikely to change.
Question
For those of you that are more familiar with Expedia, is there anything you’re aware of that should make us be excited about this news?