Should You Use a Credit Card Travel Portal?

Credit card travel portals are vying for your business. Should you turn over your travel planning and booking to your card issuer? While booking travel through a credit card portal can help you maximize benefits, it's important to compare options and prices before you book your next vacation.

Credit card travel portals overview

Earning points and miles using a rewards credit card is as simple as a swipe. But your credit card company wants to play travel agent, too. American Express, Bank of America, Capital One and Chase, for example, all have travel portals where cardholders can book flights, hotels, rental cars and more using either their credit card or the points and miles they have earned.  And the issuers are providing incentives for cardmembers to do so.

Several cards offer annual travel credits for bookings made through the card's travel portal. Capital One Venture X Rewards cardholders, for example, receive a $300 annual travel credit to use on the Capital One Travel portal.

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Using these portals is similar to booking hotel rooms and flights on travel websites like Expedia, Kayak or any other third-party booking site. But there are some caveats to consider.

American Express Travel portal: 

If you have an American Express credit card that earns Membership Rewards (MR) points, you'll be able to access the Amex travel portal. MR points are worth 1 cent each for flights in the travel portal but are 2 cents apiece when you maximize Amex's transfer partners, according to The Points Guy (TPG), a consumer travel website.

Capital One Travel portal:

NerdWallet ranked the Capital One travel portal as the most user-friendly, compared to Citi, Chase and American Express. The company points out one notable feature: the flight calendar, powered by Hopper, that shows the cheapest days to travel. TPG values Capital One points at 1.85 cents.

Chase Ultimate Rewards portal: 

You can access the Chase travel portal if you own a card that earns Chase Ultimate Rewards. Points are valued at 2.05 cents, higher than most other travel portals. 

Citi Travel portal: 

If you own a Citi card that earns ThankYou points, you'll be able to access the Citi Travel portal, where you can rent flights, hotels, rental cars and attractions. Like other travel portals, several Citi cards earn bonus points on bookings made through the portal. The biggest downfall, however, is that flights aren't included in these bonuses. Citi ThankYou rewards are valued at 1.8 cents.

What to consider when using a credit card travel portal

Maximizing rewards

Most credit cards require you to book on their travel portal in order to earn maximum rewards. For example, holders of the Chase Sapphire Preferred card can earn up to 5x points per $1 spent on travel purchases made using the Chase Ultimate Rewards portal. Meanwhile, if you booked directly with the airline or hotel, you’d earn only two points on travel. 

Similarly, if you have the Chase Sapphire Reserve card and book travel through the card's portal, you'll earn 10x points on hotels and car rentals — much better than the 3x points you'd earn if you booked travel directly.

Additionally, points can be worth more when redeemed through a travel portal. If you have a Sapphire Reserve card, for example, points are worth 1.5 cents per point when used to book travel on the Chase Ultimate Rewards portal, instead of 1 cent per point. 

While most portals are easy to use, if you don't want to deal with the additional step, try opening a cash-back card that earns 2% on all purchases.

Flight changes/cancellation

Another concern among travelers is that if anything goes wrong during your trip — let’s say your airline cancels your flight or the hotel loses your confirmation — you would have to call your credit card company for help instead of dealing directly with the airline, hotel or rental car company.

Also, if you need to change your flight plans and you redeemed points or miles for a flight, there’s no guarantee you’ll have those points or miles reissued; you’ll more than likely receive a voucher for future travel. However, if the airline cancels on you, you’re entitled to a refund to whatever account you used for payment, whether you booked with a credit card or with rewards.

Loyalty programs

Booking via the card portal means you may lose some privileges associated with your hotel or rental car loyalty programs. You may also lose your upgrade privileges. (With airline loyalty programs, you can input your loyalty number when you book via a third party.)

Prices

Though there’s no pattern, the price of tickets on travel portals may be higher than what’s offered on the website of the airline or hotel, Nick Ewen, travel rewards expert at The Points Guy, told Kiplinger. He mentioned as an example a flight he booked for $300 directly through a major airline's site, after seeing the same flight listed for $329 on a credit card travel portal.

To avoid this — along with any other hiccups associated with third-party bookings — look into transferring your points to your credit card’s loyalty partner program or booking directly with the travel provider, Ewen said.

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