The Silver Lining to the New Zealand Mistake Fare

photo: pixabay

Hint: I Paid for the JFK-AKL Ticket With My Chase Sapphire Reserve Card

As they say, every cloud has a silver lining, and here’s the ironic ending for me (or at least I think it’s the ending) to the NZ Mistake fare (see, [Mistake Fare] Bye Bye New Zealand – It Was Nice While it Lasted).

I paid for the now-canceled airline ticket with my Chase Sapphire Reserve Card. One of the many great perks of the Chase Sapphire Reserve Card is the annual $300 travel statement credit. My experience is that Chase is much more generous in applying the $300 travel credit than Amex is in applying the $200 Air credit.

For the JFK-AKL ticket, I paid $334.51 to NZ Air plus a $5 fee to CheapOAir. As you know, NZAir canceled all of these tickets claiming they were the result of some human error. CheapOAir did not refund the $5 fee (because they are CheapO!).

I happened to look at my Chase bill, and I saw this:

Jan 25, 2018  AIR NZ [ticket number]            Return−$334.51

Jan 24, 2018 COA*CHEAPOAIR.COM AIR               Sale  $5.00

Jan 24, 2018 TRAVEL CREDIT  $300/YEAR Adjustment−  $5.00

Jan 23, 2018 AIR NZ [ticket number]                     Sale  $334.51

Jan 23, 2 018 TRAVEL CREDIT $300/YEAR Adjustment− $295.00

Here’s the silver lining: Chase applied my $300 Travel Credit to the now-canceled tickets. I would have preferred to actually travel to New Zealand, but I guess this is a little consolation prize. It’s not a gold lining however – the 1000 or so Ultimate Reward points that I earned for the airfare purchase were clawed back upon the cancellation of the ticket.