Booking Tauck with Chase Sapphire Reserve
I booked a Tauck tour through Chase Travel with Chase Sapphire Reserve for the first time. Under the recently modified card rewards I get 8X points (worth 8% cash back, or 16% if used for certain airlines). When the card benefits changed there was some concern about booking through Chase Travel discussed in this forum, so I thought I'd share my experience.
- Tours can't be booked online, you have to call the Chase Travel 800 number.
- The travel agent that helped me was clearly American, no foreign call centers to deal with. They are open 8am to 8pm weekdays and 4am to 4pm weekends. After one call that got dropped before I reached an agent, I got right through to an agent.
- The agent had to call Tauck to make the booking. I'm not sure if this was because it was limited availability, because it involved choosing a cruise cabin. or all Tauck tours have to be booked this way. In any case, there was a lot of back and forth and time on hold. I'm not sure of how long it took, but it was over an hour. Plan accordingly.
- I was able to get the Gift of Time.
- While I was still on the phone, I got two emails from Chase: one with the standard Chase Travel receipt, and one with more details including the GOT day.
- The trip also showed up on Upcoming Trips page in my Tauck account while I was still on the phone.
- I will need to call Chase Travel again before the final deadline to make my final payment.
All in all, I had no real problems booking through Chase Travel, other than it taking longer than booking directly. The reward points certainly make the effort worth the time. The Sapphire Reserve card is expensive ($795 annual fee), but if you take at least one tour a year, the rewards make it worth the fee. There are many other benefits including $10.000 per year per traveler travel insurance.
Just a note: I have no association with Chase other than being a customer.
Comments
I have the Chase Reserve card but I also have a travel agent that I've worked with for a lot of years and I'm not going to leave her - so the new Chase "benefits" don't do much for me.
Me neither. I’ve had the same travel agent for 20+ years. She and her staff are true blue. I can email her with a question at 10:00 pm and she get back to me as soon as she can. I’ve had an emergency once and had to get back to the states, and she orchestrated everything in a flash. I did not have to be concerned.
Sounds like they are just a glorified order taker that does not give much advice or value added. As an example, I much prefer working with an agent/agency that reaches out to me before final payment to remind me, confirm the payment source and then make the payment on the chosen day. Back to packing for Northern India and Nepal. Happy holidays to all my fellow online Tauckers and thanks for your help advice this past year.
The booking agent gets a commission, and it looks like Chase is after that, in addition to the big yearly charge for the card. They give you a lot of points for using them but if you don't use them, it doesn't seem like it's worth having the card.
On another note, and not to sound snarky, but if one can afford these trips trips (often more than once a year), one can afford the perks of these cards when used wisely.
I subscribe to ‘The Points Guy’ so I do know something about the credit card game. That being said, I only use my Aadvantage card. It is the top tier card, and includes the Admirals Club, and we also get access to the Flagship Lounges. I don’t have the personality for chasing the card benefits. When I call Tauck or American using my. special number, they answer the phone, and they take care of business fairly quickly. I actually have a number of benefits at AA that I don’t use because of the way I book tickets. Cards with insurance are not a factor cuz I book Tauck insurance, or other private insurance when I am traveling with another company.
The problem is that if you use your own travel agent, there aren't many perks that you can take advantage of. You get 8x points for travel booked through them, 4x points for hotels booked through them, and other credits I don't used, such as Lyft and DoorDash.
Other than that, you get 1x points. We used to get 3x points on travel charged to the card. That's travel charged through any channel, directly with Tauck (for example) or through a travel agent.
The new plan for the card isn't very valuable unless you book directly through them.
So, with all the points you are all getting, how do you use your points?
We have two main cards and have to have a third one just for shopping at Costco which gets us Marriott points. We certainly get quite a few free nights at Marriott hotels, often in New York and we stay in Philly with them when we perform our show there every year.
We use Amex platinum points for part paying for flights or hotel stays and use most of the Amex perks,
We accrue quite a lot of American Airlines points these days, so have had an increasing number of free flights, our upcoming Tauck New Zealand is all points on business class.
The Points Guy and other ‘experts’ always stress not to keep lots of points for too long, they could be stopped any time, reduced in value or maybe even taxed, who knows.
You can’t use points to book your flights through Tauck.
Back in the day, you could exchange Amex points for either $500 or $1000 vouchers to use to pay for Tauck tours. Doesn’t sound much now, but back in the day when tours were say $3000 , that kind of range, it was a big saving.