Experiment: Can You Earn Expedia Rewards With the Chase Travel Portal?

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There’s been big news recently for folks who like to book flights, hotels, and more through the Chase Ultimate Rewards travel portal.  Expedia is now powering the Chase Ultimate Rewards travel portal, which has opened up many more options!

Currently, the Expedia-run portal is only available to Chase Freedom and Chase Freedom Unlimited cardholders, but other cards like the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card will be brought onboard in the next few months.

Some of our readers asked if they could now earn Expedia Rewards points for Chase Ultimate Rewards travel portal bookings, like they would by booking with Expedia directly.

So I did an experiment to see if you can earn Expedia Rewards points booking through the updated Chase Ultimate Rewards travel portal.  Here’s how it went.

Will Chase Ultimate Rewards Travel Portal Bookings Earn Expedia Rewards Points? 

Connexions Loyalty powered the Chase Ultimate Rewards travel portal for years.  But now if you hold a Chase Freedom or Chase Freedom Unlimited card, you have access to the Chase Ultimate Rewards travel portal powered by Expedia.

Other Chase Ultimate Rewards cards, like the Chase Sapphire Preferred, Chase Sapphire Reserve, Chase Ink Business Preferred, Chase Ink Business Cash, and Chase Ink Business Unlimited will be transferred from Connexions Loyalty to Expedia over the coming months.

I wanted to know whether you could earn Expedia Rewards points through the Chase Ultimate Rewards travel portal.

No Way to Add Your Expedia Rewards Number Online

To figure that out, I booked a flight and hotel through the Chase Ultimate Rewards travel portal powered by Expedia.  At no point in the process was I able to add my Expedia Rewards number to the booking.

After booking, I logged into Expedia Rewards and used the My Trips feature.  I tried entering the confirmation number provided by the Chase Ultimate Rewards travel portal, but it gave me an error.

Time to Call Expedia and Chase!

So then I called Expedia directly.  They were able to see the reservations using the Chase confirmation numbers, but noted that it was a booking made through Chase and that they couldn’t do anything to it, including adding my Expedia Rewards number.  They recommended I call Chase.

Following Expedia’s recommendation, I called Chase travel services at 866-406-1217 to add my Expedia Rewards number to the reservations.  The agent put me on hold, and then came back reading a policy that states it’s impossible to add an Expedia Rewards number, because the portal is run by Chase Ultimate Rewards.

So unfortunately, it is NOT possible to earn Expedia Rewards points through the Chase Ultimate Rewards travel portal powered by Expedia.  While Expedia is the back-end provider for hotel and flight reservations for the Chase travel portal, companies can use their own rewards program with the Expedia booking engine, which excludes earning rewards through the Expedia Rewards program.

Other Ways to Double Dip or Save

If you don’t want to use the Chase Ultimate Rewards travel portal, you might consider booking hotels through a different online travel agency instead.  For example, CheapTickets is powered by Expedia, and generally accesses the same prices and inventory as Chase and Expedia.

However, CheapTickets almost always has a substantial promotion code for hotels on their front page (at the time of writing it was 16% off).  Considering Expedia rates generally match the hotel’s best available rate, this can equate to substantial savings beyond the value of earning points directly through Chase or Expedia.  You even earn “CheapCash” when booking hotels!

Note:   Hotel bookings through 3rd-party sites, including the Chase Ultimate Rewards travel portal, won’t earn hotel points or elite credit.  And there’s no guarantee your elite status will be recognized.

When booking hotels or flights, it’s also worth seeing if you can double, triple, or even quadruple dip!

For example, you can use the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card and earn 2 Chase Ultimate Rewards points per $1 spent at Expedia on flights and hotels (because 3rd-party sites like Expedia code as travel).  You’d also earn Expedia Rewards for your bookings, and if you use a shopping portal like Ebates, you’ll earn cash back!  Plus you may even be able to use an Expedia discount code to save even more!

And if you book a flight, remember you’ll still earn airline miles for your trip!

So for an Expedia flight booking with the Chase Sapphire Preferred card, you’d potentially earn:

• 2X Chase Ultimate Rewards points
• Expedia Rewards
• Cash back or bonus points from a shopping portal
• Airline miles

That’s a nice quadruple dip!

Bottom Line

I ran an experiment to see if it was possible to earn Expedia Rewards points for a paid Chase Ultimate Rewards travel portal booking.  Currently, Chase Freedom and Chase Freedom Unlimited cardholders have access to the new portal powered by Expedia, but other cards like the Chase Sapphire Preferred are coming soon.

Unfortunately, it’s not possible.  So you may be better off checking out other online travel agencies and shopping portals to stack rewards and promotional discounts.

That said, the Chase Ultimate Rewards travel portal can offer fantastic value when you redeem Chase Ultimate Rewards points for flights and hotels.

Do you have other angles for double (or triple, or quadruple) dipping rewards on travel?  Please share in the comments!