{"id":121134,"date":"2020-07-30T08:41:31","date_gmt":"2020-07-30T15:41:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/?p=121134"},"modified":"2020-07-30T08:41:34","modified_gmt":"2020-07-30T15:41:34","slug":"travelling-during-covid-and-3rd-party-travel-companies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/travelling-during-covid-and-3rd-party-travel-companies\/","title":{"rendered":"Travelling during COVID and 3rd party travel companies"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We were originally scheduled for a trip to Las Vegas in\nMarch, 2020. We had booked it back in September 2019. The fares were high due\nto March Madness so I decided to use some Chase Ultimate Rewards points for the\none-way fares out and use Southwest for the return fares. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Due to COVID, we cancelled our plans. Southwest was a breeze\nas usual. But the outbound flights on Delta, through Chase UR, was a lot more\ntrouble. It was unclear when you had to cancel by, whether you would get a\nrefund or a flight credit, did you have to call the airline, etc. Well, we\ncancelled and after a bit of back and forth, I got the details on the cancelled\nflight. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chase actually had a Delta travel credit in our names for\nthe price of the flights ($336.20 per person). Even though I paid with points,\nthe travel credit was in dollars from the airline and not points from Chase.\nInitially, it sounded like I had to book the same itinerary but that wasn\u2019t\ntrue. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So now, in July, we decide to try Las Vegas again in August\nand I call Chase to use the travel credit. There are roundtrip flights for\nslightly more than the one fare I originally booked so life is good. Except the\nChase UR rep says I must use the voucher for a one-way flight and that is a\nDelta rule. This caught me by surprise. He suggested calling Delta, which would\nhave been my next step. I call Delta and the Delta rep tells me \u201cSure, I can\nuse that voucher for a round trip ticket\u201d. She didn\u2019t understand why Chase\ncould not do the same thing.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had rented a car through Autoslash, a company I really\nlike.  I got a good rate of $118 for 4\ndays. Unfortunately, our flight times changed and I need to move the pickup\ntime 4 and half hours later and the drop off time 2 hours later. You used to be\nable to email autoslash and they would take care of minor changes like this. No\nmore. I then called Priceline, who autoslash uses to process the rental.\nPriceline said you can go ahead and modify but you will pay the difference in\nprice, which was about $60. I then call Thrifty directly and they said they can\nchange the pickup times and there would be no additional charge. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, third party travel companies are great as long as nothing goes wrong. In both cases above, it was extra work to make a fairly small change. Granted, these are very unusual times but the same principal would be involved if we ever return to normal travel. Booking directly will be more expensive but more flexible. Booking with 3rd<\/sup> party companies will save you money but will also be more trouble if something goes awry. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And when all else fails, a direct call to the airline, hotel, rental car company, etc. might get you the desired results. <\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"youtube\"<\/a>\"instagram\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We were originally scheduled for a trip to Las Vegas in March, 2020. We had booked it back in September 2019. The fares were high due to March Madness so I decided to use some Chase Ultimate Rewards points for the one-way fares out and use Southwest for the return fares. Due to COVID, we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nTravelling during COVID and 3rd party travel companies - Gambling With An Edge<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/travelling-during-covid-and-3rd-party-travel-companies\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Travelling during COVID and 3rd party travel companies - Gambling With An Edge\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"We were originally scheduled for a trip to Las Vegas in March, 2020. We had booked it back in September 2019. The fares were high due to March Madness so I decided to use some Chase Ultimate Rewards points for the one-way fares out and use Southwest for the return fares. 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