Chase Freedom 5% on travel? Is this permanent?

[Green456]

I just noticed that my Chase Freedom card gives me 5% on travel. Is this pernament? Can I transfer those points for 50% boost into CSR to get a total of 7.5% on travel?

[NRB525]

Travel purchased through the Chase Travel Portal.

Not generalized hotels, airfare, etc.

[Anonymous]

It would definitely pay to compare prices between Chase's portal and "others" just to make sure you're getting the best deal though.

[Citylights18]

For flights what I used to do is buy a gift card on Raise, earn 1% shopping points and then buy on the airline website.

At the moment I'm seeing a 1% cash back from Rakuten plus flight gift card discounts.

Southwest 6.0%

American 2.9%

Delta 8.7%

Then buy it on a CFU for 1.5% everything. What's the RTR for a Delta purchase then.

Rakuten MR 1% (2.0 ccp)

Delta 8.7%

CFU 1.5% (3.0 ccp)

Its 13.7% to buy the Delta gift card on raise compared to 5x (10%) buying with the CFU through the travel portal. What if the price of the Delta flight though is 10% more than other carriers? Then it might make sense to buy a flight from the lowest priced carrier that you collect miles with using the CFU.

[coreysw12]

It appears to be permanent, yes. At least, as permanent as anything is in the credit card world.

Yes, you can transfer your points to CSR to get 50% value bonus to use in its UR travel portal.

As noted already above, you'll only get the 5x points on travel purchases you buy (with money, not points) in the Freedom UR travel portal. And with any travel you buy with a Freedom card, you will not get any of the travel protections offered by the CSP/CSR (so in many cases, it might be better to buy travel with a CSP/CSR still, even with the reduced points earning)

[addicted_to_credit]

It has to be through the chase travel portal, I checked the hotel prices im at this week in other places prior to booking, the biggest difference in price was 4 dollars and got 28 dollars and change for the stay. It's worth it to me in this instance but I'll continue to check each time before I book anywhere.

[coreysw12]

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@addicted_to_credit wrote:

It has to be through the chase travel portal, I checked the hotel prices im at this week in other places prior to booking, the biggest difference in price was 4 dollars and got 28 dollars and change for the stay. It's worth it to me in this instance but I'll continue to check each time before I book anywhere.

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The UR travel portal is powered by Expedia. So the prices are indeed very competitive. I agree it's always worth checking multiple places, but thus far I've always found Chase travel portal prices to be right on par with the best prices I've found elsewhere.

As a United flier primarily, I'll be booking all my flights on the CFU travel portal from now on. 5x points (worth essentially 7.5% when transferred to my CSR), and I still get the United miles on top of that! I don't need the travel protections offered by the CSR in that case, because 1) as a United 1k member I'm pretty well covered already and 2) it's client-reimbused travel, so any change fees or cancellations aren't paid by me anyways. So it's a no-brainer for me to use the CFU portal - basically earning 22% overall return on my airfare that I don't even pay for In a normal year (but not this year, obviously) it's not uncommon for me to book a $3k flight every month. That works out to like 500k points/miles per year just from airfare bookings alone. Yeehaw! Can't wait for Covid to end.

Do note, however, that you don't usually get hotel or rental car loyalty rewards when booked through an OTA such as the UR travel portal / Expedia. That sort of only applies to airlines AFAIK. I'll continue booking my hotels and rental cars the same as before, straight from the company's website or hotels.com, paying with my CSR.