Question
Emptied my CO account for reward travel for my three kids and grandpa and grandma on the following routing:
3-Jul CO664 CLE - IAD
3-Jul CO49 IAD - OGG
12-Jul CO72 HNL - IAD
12-Jul CO1544 IAD - CLE
We are paying cash for;
10-Jul HA544 OGG - HNL
Because CO would not let us book that segment using miles.
I have over 50k in miles with Chase and was watching fare prices to book my wife and me on the same flights using 25k in miles each to receive the $500 credit for each ticket.
This way we will all be on the same flights, and I have best of both worlds. Five tickets using CO miles and my wife and me on the Chase miles.
Called Chase tonight to pull the trigger, and they tell me you cannot use the miles it is open jaw, the reward is for round trip only! Well my jaw hit the floor.
My question is - why would they care?
The cost of the CLE-IAD-OGG, HNL-IAD-CLE open jaw ticket today is ~$700.
If we route CLE-IAD-HNL RT, with an inter-island to catch up with the kids, it is ~$675.
Either way Chase is out the first $500 per ticket and we pick up the rest…
Can anyone lend some advice on who we can call to help us out?
We can route through HNL and catch up a couple hours later and pay for the extra inter-island, but we would much rather all be on the same flight…
Steve
Answer
My question is - why would they care?
The reason they care is that they're trying to keep the average cost of the awards down. It's the same reason these programs often require a Saturday-night stay and 21 days advanced booking. With these requirements, they will often be able to find tickets for much less than $500 and save themselves some money.
In your situation, it doesn't make a difference, but consider how they'd have to word it otherwise: "21 day advance, Saturday night stay, no open jaw, up to $500, unless the cheapest ticket with these restrictions is more than $500, in which case the restrictions dont' apply." This would be terribly confusing, and make it much more obvious that the purpose of the restrictions is to save them money.