How I Used Chase Travel To Book One of India’s Most Charming Hotels (And Earned 10x Points)

I have a very simple strategy for hotel bookings: I start on sites like Booking.com or Hotels.com. I enter my desired location and dates, and when I see a place and price I like, I usually go to the hotel’s own site to buy.

That way, I earn the points in the hotel’s loyalty program, which I would not be awarded if booking through a third-party platform. If the hotel isn’t part of a loyalty program I care about, I often book through Booking.com to build status in their loyalty program, which can result in discounts. It also can earn miles in the very useful Flying Blue loyalty program.

Recently, though, I made my first hotel booking via the Chase Travel Portal. The Chase Ultimate Rewards points I earned from it gave me an excellent return on my spending — so much that I’m going to make the portal a regular part of my hotel search routine.

Here’s why and how using the Chase Travel Portal can benefit you, too.

Why I Booked a Hotel via the Chase Travel Portal

At the end of October, I was headed to Bengaluru, India — often known as Bangalore — as part of a trip that would qualify me for Delta Diamond Medallion status for another year.

As is the case in many countries with lower income per capita than Western nations, luxury travel experiences can be much cheaper in India. Hotels that would cost either an arm and a leg, or a hefty amount of points, in the U.S. or Europe, can be booked for reasonable sums in Indian cities.

So when I went on Booking.com and searched for 5-star hotels with a pool in Bengaluru, a few interesting options came up at prices that did not send me running.

One in particular got rave reviews and was part of a chain whose loyalty points I value: Marriott Bonvoy.

The JW Marriott Bengaluru

When I saw a good price on Booking.com for the JW Marriott Bengaluru, I went to the hotel’s own site to check prices and possibly book. That’s because I have Marriott Bonvoy Gold status, and I like earning Marriott Bonvoy points — which I would not have received if buying the room from a third party.

The total for 3 nights was $606 when booking via Marriott directly. With a members-only deal, I would also earn 3,500 extra Bonvoy points, worth $24.50 in our valuations (we value Bonvoy points at 0.7 cents each).

There was a cheaper Stay and Save offer, which would have cost $6 less in total than the member-exclusive deal with bonus points. Obviously, $6 is less than $24.50, so I preferred the $606 deal for extra points.

That deal also included a one-way airport transfer, but I would not have needed that. Uber is cheap and widely available in Bengaluru; the 40-minute ride from the airport into town cost me the equivalent of just $10.

I would have booked either option with the Chase Sapphire Reserve^®, earning 3 Chase Ultimate Rewards points per $1 on all travel purchases.

The JW Marriott was a strong contender, but I had then seen another hotel on Booking.com that tickled my fancy. It was said to be the oldest hotel in India, according to The Telegraph, and the photos I saw online exuded an understated charm.

Taj West End

That charming hotel was the Taj West End, a member of Taj Hotels, a small chain that however includes storied names like The Pierre in New York City and the St James’ Court in London. It’s also part of Tata Group, one of the largest conglomerates in India, which happens to be the parent company of Air India.

For 3 nights at this luxury property, Booking.com wanted $579 after tax. You can earn 2 Flying Blue miles for every €1 spent when using the Booking.com Flying Blue portal. By paying with my Chase Sapphire Reserve card, I would have earned 897 Flying Blue miles and 1,737 Chase points, equivalent to $47 in points value.

Not bad, but I still wanted to check the price directly on the Taj site. It was $546, or $500 if I joined the hotel’s loyalty program, called Neu. That $500 in spend would have yielded $30 in value in the form of 1,500 Chase Ultimate Rewards points, giving me an effective rate of $470 for 3 nights at a luxury hotel that looked fabulous.

I didn’t factor in the value of whatever amount of Neu points, called Neucoins, that I’d earn. They are a loyalty currency that can be earned and spent at Tata-owned businesses but are so far of limited use to people based outside of India. (Unfortunately, they cannot be used to book flights on Air India, which does serve the U.S.)

I would gladly have booked right there and then on the Taj site, but before hitting buy, I checked the Chase Travel portal. In my experience, booking via Chase Travel often turns out to be significantly more expensive than other options, but it has a potential winner. Hotel bookings via Chase Travel using the Chase Sapphire Reserve card earn a whopping 10x total points.

That earning rate can be a game changer, and it’s exactly what happened here.

Chase Travel Comes in With a Surprise

The price on Chase Travel for 3 nights at the Taj West End was a surprisingly low $531. With a 10x rate, I would earn 5,310 Chase points, or a very nice $106 in value. That would result in a price equivalent to $425, or $45 cheaper than booking on the Taj site.

Chase Travel was the clear winner, so I proceeded to book. With the Chase Sapphire Reserve card, Chase Ultimate Rewards points are worth 50% more when booking through Chase Travel. However, I know that I can redeem my points for greater value than just 1.5 cents per point, so paying with cash offered better value for me.

After my stay was completed, the Chase Travel site showed that I had indeed earned 5,313 points from the reservation. Of those, 1,594 were the standard 3x points earned on travel purchases made with the Chase Sapphire Reserve card, and 3,719 were the extra 7x bonus earned from booking via the Chase Travel Portal.

Potential Drawbacks of Using a Third-Party Travel Portal

The problem with booking hotel (or any travel) through third-party portals like Chase Travel is that if something goes wrong, you typically can’t resolve the issue directly with the hotel.

Let’s say you show up at the front desk and an unexpected event means your room isn’t available, or the beautiful swimming pool you saw online that was the reason you booked that hotel is closed for renovations.

You ask for a solution, and the front desk tells you nothing can be done. That would be within their rights. You really could not protest if the hotel told you to take your problem to the people who actually sold you the room.

It’s certainly possible that the third-party portal’s customer service would help resolve your issue, though it would likely not be as straightforward as dealing directly with the hotel. In the case of the Chase Travel Portal, though, I am confident that Chase would come through for a trip bought with the bank’s top travel card, the Chase Sapphire Reserve card.

Staying at The Taj West End: Old-School Luxury 

Fortunately, nothing of the sort happened on my trip. There was a minor glitch when I arrived and the front desk could not my find my booking in their system, but the issue was easily fixed when I said I had booked through Chase and showed the reservation on my phone. From that point on, the Taj delivered a flawless experience.

My serendipitous hotel find turned out, in fact, to be nothing short of gorgeous: a vast, quiet garden in the midst of a hectic city. No one would call Bengaluru, with 14 million inhabitants and constant heavy traffic, a relaxing place. But the Taj West End, isolated behind tall trees and acres of lush vegetation, was exactly that.

From my room’s balcony, I enjoyed a quiet broken only by the calls of tropical birds I had never heard before.

The room itself made no concessions to the often bland international style of high-end chain hotels. Without the modern appliances, I could have been looking at a scene from the days of the British Raj, 100 years ago.

Roaming the grounds of the Taj led to encounters I certainly would not have had at a more ordinary place, like when I bumped into some of the hotel’s resident wild turkeys and geese. They seemed to be, like me, on a leisurely stroll after breakfast.

The contrast between the Taj’s old-school feeling and its location in the heart of India’s high-tech metropolis was a big part of the attraction. You could come back from a day of meetings at one of the tech giants based in Bengaluru and find yourself in the middle of a very British garden-party vibe. Seemingly to confirm that impression, none other than King Charles III appeared in one of the many photographs the hotel displays of notables who’d stayed or passed through the Taj.

The Taj West End, after all, where director David Lean filmed “A Passage to India,” the 1984 movie whose story, set in the 1920s, unfolds as the struggle for Indian independence gains steam. It was easy to imagine oneself immersed in that atmosphere.

I could not have asked for a better base to explore one of the most interesting cities in a nation that defies stereotypes. If you are after an experience of India that goes beyond the headlines and the obvious attractions, the Taj West End would be a great place to begin.

Final Thoughts

The Chase Travel Portal doesn’t always have better hotel prices than directly through the hotel’s website, but sometimes it can offer very attractive options thanks to the possibility of elevated points earnings.    

For example, with the Chase Sapphire Reserve card, you earn 10 points per $1 spent on hotel bookings made through the Chase Travel Portal using the card. On a recent trip to India, this generous points rate was enough to sway me towards using the Chase Travel Portal — which led to the discovery of the Taj West End, a gorgeous hotel I may not have considered otherwise. From now on, I will make sure to check the Chase Travel portal before finalizing my hotel reservations.