Good morning everyone, happy Sunday!  First off, I wanted to thank everyone who showed up at my OC Travel Hackers meetup yesterday afternoon, it was great to see so many familiar faces and meet some new travel hackers in the area.  I will be back in Orange County in late August, so I will plan another meetup then.

If you have a Chase Freedom Credit Card (maybe the Chase Freedom Unlimited Credit Card is included too, I’m not sure), you might have received the below email from Chase about a hotel and rental car offer where you can earn 10% cash back on all hotel and rental car bookings made in July.  This offer might be targeted, so if you did not receive this email, I am not sure if you will earn the bonus.  Normally I would ignore this email since I can find great rental car deals on my own, but in this case, Chase actually had the best rental car prices I could find.

Terms and Conditions:

During the promotional period of July 1 to July 31, 2016, earn an extra 9% cash back on up to $2,500 in combined hotel and car rental purchases made through Chase Ultimate Rewards® using your Chase Freedom card. The bonus cash back earned is in addition to the 1% cash back you earn on all purchases for a total of 10% cash back, which means you can earn up to $250 total cash back ($25 cash back plus your $225 bonus cash back). Transaction must post during the promotional period. Bonus cash back will post to your account within a week of the transaction posting, and will appear on your monthly credit card billing statement and be available for use within 1-2 billing cycles. To qualify for this promotional offer, account must be open and not in default at the time of fulfillment. This promotional offer is non-transferable. For more information about your rewards program, see your Rewards Program Agreement.

I just booked a weekend trip to Portland at the end of the July with my brother and we need a rental car for 2 days.  I started my search on Kayak, but the rates were crazy expensive for 2 days.  According to Kayak, there is unusually high demand in Portland for the weekend I need a rental car.

Since I am a USAA member, I usually book all my rental cars through USAA since they have really good negotiated rates.  Unfortunately, the prices for Avis, Hertz, and Enterprise were all over $140 for a 2 day rental.

Since I wasn’t happy with any of the above prices, I decided to check out Chase and see what offers were available from the Chase Ultimate Rewards Mall.  I plugged in the same search data from above and clicked the Search button.

Amazingly, the car rental results were much cheaper than I expected and much lower than the prices I was quoted through USAA.  Since I just need a basic car, I went with the Kia Rio / Similar from Enterprise for $38.10/day.  I don’t recommend using your Chase Ultimate Reward Points to pay for the rental since you only get 1 cent per point (CPP).

If you have rental car elite status with a certain rental car company, you can filter results for that specific company, or you can filter by cars of certain sizes and options (like air conditioning and automatic transmission).

I booked the Kia Rio / Similar through the Chase Ultimate Rewards Mall and paid for the full charge with my Chase Freedom Credit Card.  The charge went through immediately and I was able to add my Enterprise Plus membership number to the reservation.

I typed in the confirmation number into my Enterprise rental car account and everything looks great.  I should receive the bonus a few days after my statement closes.  I will keep you posted if anything weird happens.  If you have any questions, please leave a comment below.  Have a great Fourth of July weekend everyone!