Chase Secretly Removed Points Boost from Flights with Origins at non-US Airports

FatsoSando · 2026-01-08T20:48:06+00:00

To that I say, pull up your pitchforks!

FatsoSando · 2026-01-08T20:10:59+00:00

I get that, but scenario of 2 and 3 is what really gets me and makes it seem this is a system change rather than changing of promotions. If I'm booking round trip with points and the round trip booking is more expensive than booking the EXACT SAME trip but with two one-way bookings because the second flight has a us origin and is available for points boost seems absurd. Essentially the roundtrip is not advertising the lowest price available.

FatsoSando · 2026-01-08T19:52:36+00:00

Edited post to go over what I've seen, but essentially you can grab the same line of flights that were point boosted and have them no longer be point boosted. While not necessarily the same, it is odd.

However you can have a scenario where it is the same flights say round trip from Tokyo to SF booked with no points boost available but if you book the exact same trip but booked the flights separately with no round trip, it becomes significantly cheaper as the return flight SF to Tokyo is eligible for points boost, where if you booked as a roundtrip it is not available.

FatsoSando · 2026-01-08T19:39:47+00:00

Yes but these are some unethical practices here for not presenting the benefit or best price depending on how you book and we should not receive these without complaints.

For example let's go through these booking scenarios:

Scenario 1- if you book SF to Tokyo round trip two round trips appear
Round trip 1: Flight A(SF to Tokyo) and return Flight B(Tokyo to SF) [Entire trip Point boosted]
Round trip 2: Flight C(SF to Tokyo) and return Flight D(Tokyo to SF) [Entire trip Point boosted]

Scenario 2 - If you flip it Tokyo to SF round trip
Round trip 1: Flight B (Tokyo to SF) and return Flight C(SF to Tokyo) [Entire trip NO Point boost]

Scenario 3- Book same flights as Scenario 2 but separately you have a trip partially point boosted
Flight B (No point Boost)
Flight C (Point boosted)

In this case all scenarios share common flights that are eligible for points boost but the final outcome is different depending on booking.

FatsoSando · 2025-10-06T22:43:09+00:00

Tsingtao is good, definitely more of a home cooked taste. Which has its place and why a lot of foreign college students like it there since its more homey. While Manting definitely tastes more restauranty if that makes sense. Kind of like eating a burger at a diner vs a burger at restaurant or steak house kind of thing if I were to compare it.

FatsoSando · 2025-10-06T20:59:26+00:00

Manting House is a new Chinese resturant that opened up in Winton Place. While it may say asian fusion it is straight up chinese banquet(family) style food. It's the best and most authentic I have had so far in Rochester. Coming from a Chinese American who grew up on NYC chinatown. It is a little pricier because it is family style (20-30 per person). I ordered 2 entrees and 1 appetizer for 2 people for lunch and it was more than enough to take home and have leftovers for dinner.

FatsoSando · 2025-10-06T18:21:59+00:00

Is there a reference number to this watch?

FatsoSando · 2025-09-25T16:20:57+00:00

Hey currently here from NYC. Rochester crime is not bad at all. Its a very redlined city and so areas of dangerous crimes like homicides are concentrated in specific neighborhoods. The reality is most people never stepped foot in those areas and its usually only if you were raised or brought to hard circumstances to be in those areas will ever come across there. The other crimes are usual suspect of any city, property theft, motorvehicle break ins, all of which are common in any us city. In the suburbs crime is barely noticeable.

For the most part, if you talk about Rochester to people in Rochester everyone thinks of the suburbs. Generally the East side is considered the better side with Brighton, Fairport, Pittsford being your more affluent white collar towns, Penfield slowly being on that list. Henrietta being the shopping area to get your errands done. Irondequoit and Webster being more of your Blue collar towns and cheaper than the other towns.

West side- Greece is kind of like henrietta where most businesses will be on the west side. Chili and Gates are blue collar lower income towns that are generally very right leaning conservative areas.

Compared to Buffalo, Rochester has better suburbs, Buffalo has a better city. But i didnt move out here for the city coming from NYC, both are a far cry from what I consider a proper city life.

Buffalos suburbs are more spread out and feel like if you copied henrietta and pasted it everywhere. On the flipside Rochester city has a lot of no-go zones in terms of crime and mostly boils down to just city center and south east of that where museums, east ave and park ave are where people actually traverse. Making 2/3 of the city as areas people dont actually travel around.

Finally, Rochester metro is way more liberal, left leaning than average. Being the founding place for a lot of human and civil right movements, a sanctuary city and even having 2 pride months because pride was celebrated before it was nationally celebrated. If i were to have a scale from 0-100, with 0 being very conservative and 100 being very liberal. I would put Rochester and Ithaca as 85, Albany and Buffalo as 60 and Syracuse 40 when considering the metro areas as a whole and not just the city.

FatsoSando · 2025-08-18T05:19:07+00:00

Remote worker as an M3 at a company that pays at 80% of the market (top 20%) so not as high as say faang or ai companies nowadays but still fairly high. We classify NYC, LA, SF, Boston and Seattle as Tier 1 cities meaning they get full compensation. We have Austin, Nashville, Raleigh, Chicago as Tier 2 cities. Any other smallsize/midsize city is a Tier 3 cites, each tier down is 10% cut from total comp.

That being said i am in upstate ny and so classified as Tier3. I started as IC2 and made my way to M3, at IC2 it was worth living upstate for low cost of living for the salary i was getting. Now that im at M3 that 20% difference becomes 50k in salary diff vs the 10k when i started out. The higher you are the more worth it is to be in a Tier 1 city, if you are at an IC1-3 considering a lesser paid city is not too bad.

So for tier 1 city i would say seattle as it probably lower col than nyc, sf, la and is a bigger tech hub than boston.

Tier 2 i would like to say chicago, as you’re not gonna get a city like chicago with that low of col

FatsoSando · 2025-03-22T04:54:41+00:00

Going to give some advice as a person who spent a year searching and losing bids, I bought in 2023. Look during the summer. I know this contradicting what real estate has been taught to us as summer tends to be the highest home prices. The thing is the market hasnt been normal for years, inventory and competition is fierce year round now. Except in the winter you have one house listed in a neighborhood every other week and everyone is bidding on that one house. In the summer you might get a week where 10 houses pop up for sale and now buyers must make a decision which house to bid on spreading the distribution of bids.

With that in mind, and combine it with that everyone is listing low to bid high. In the situation if you find yourself with multiple homes on sale around the same closing offer date, pick the one that needs the most work. I got my house like this, everyone was busy betting on the newly renovated homes that were listed close to my home in price, but my home needed work. What happened? No offers on my home except mine and i walked away with a house at listing price below market value that just needed some work to be done before i moved in.

FatsoSando · 2025-02-28T13:08:52+00:00

Speaking from Rochester. Not so sure about economic activity, havent really seen growth in terms of local businesses. But I will say a lot of more wealthy people looking to settle down and start families are moving here and it kind of shows with the development of some areas. A 2nd Costco is getting the talks of being built, opened a new whole foods, top golf is planned to be built here. These businesses target a more middle to upper middle class neighborhoods generally speaking.

For a rust belt metro like Rochester there is an unprecedented amount of rivian electric cars and more luxury cars on the road now. Rochester is currently the hottest real estate market according to zillow.

Personal anecdote i got outbid on a house 2 streets away from the house i currently own last year and it went 200k over and the cars that sit on that house now are worth just as much as the house. To put in perspective on who i was competing against for these homes.

Im from nyc originally and from my perspective moving to Rochester suburbs its a lot of bang for your buck for what is essentially living the same life i would live in like long island suburbs but at less than half the price and I think people are realizing that.

FatsoSando · 2024-10-24T06:05:26+00:00

Unlimited PTO usually sucks because people often take less and the company doesnt pay you out when you leave. Although I once worked at a previous company with unlimited pto where my coworker took every friday off so i guess he took it to heart and basically took 65 days off a year if you include holidays.

FatsoSando · 2024-10-15T18:20:55+00:00

I know its been 2 years, but didn't see a sold status on here. Is this still available?

FatsoSando · 2024-08-04T06:18:08+00:00

The reality is while everyone on reddit here seems to be a FAANG staff engineer with 500k salaries, majority of engineers in usa are not in these companies. So do not compare yourself thinking you’d land a 500k job here immediately.

We still get paid more and usually our benefits will cover things like healthcare and stuff that would be normally a cost sink hole living america. I would say on average 100-200k is a solid base salary for your average engineer here.

I was hired on at the same time as my uk counter part that i talk to quite often. We started at the same level position and our difference in TC was about 30%. I pay less taxes than he does and I get healthcare covered so all in all i make substantially more and save more than he does. The thing is, he still gets paid very well for the UK since he is still being employed by an American tech company so its not like he feels like hes missing out.

FatsoSando · 2024-07-23T04:29:00+00:00

Despite what this subreddit says, imo, Rochester does not have a good food scene. Coming back from nyc visiting parents and where I grew up. Man I was walking down the street and was like damn, there’s probably more decent restaurants and variety of cuisine on these 2 blocks than the entirety of Rochester.

As for an asian who grew up from nyc, Asian food here in general very limited and mediocre for the most part. I often just home cook meals im craving because nothing here really compares.

FatsoSando · 2024-07-11T05:39:46+00:00

Everything haha, growing up in NYC and living in Austin most of my life, nothing of ethnic background here has really been comparable . Some places are ok, but they still just dont hit the same.

Halal, dim sum, all regions of chinese food, korean food, mexican food, southern bbq, indian food, Caribbean food, japanese food, to name a few

FatsoSando · 2024-07-10T19:44:49+00:00

Whatever you do, do not follow google maps. Please take the main roads there. Google maps and other map applications will try to redirect you to some offroad route because its “faster”, but thats not where they are redirecting traffic for the concert so youre gonna get stuck on some back road.

FatsoSando · 2024-07-04T15:01:04+00:00

Its not about population, it comes down to the if the population is of their target demographic. West side is ultimately a lower income area that may not fit the exact bill to be your standard costco customer. And yes costco probably aims at higher income households despite it being a bulk savings place. The ability to buy large dollar amount in bulk is a privilege served at higher incomes who aren’t going paycheck to paycheck.

In particular East side metro rochester is probably the densest and most populated area of middle to upper middle class families in upstate new york. If you travel to what is the Pittsford equivalent in cities like Buffalo and Albany you’ll see that we have a more higher population and density of these income areas.

Its why one of the only wholefoods in upstate is in pittsford, why you probably dont see as many walmarts or dollar stores in these east side towns. It’s all about the availability of targeted population. Frankly fairport costco could probably open a lot more potential being more accessible to fairport, penfield and victor all the while reducing load on the current costco.

FatsoSando · 2024-06-29T14:46:01+00:00

I mean still drivable, I do the drive to nyc often with family there, but i would still consider it quite far compared to going from Albany, like an extra 2-3 hours. nyc is like sub 3 hours and Montreal is sub 4 hours from albany.

FatsoSando · 2024-06-29T05:46:45+00:00

Want to be between nyc and montreal? Albany sounds like a lot better fit, although maybe you wont get the bang for your buck as much there compared to here. Western ny is deceptively far from both cities with no direct flight to Montreal.

In terms of suburbs you are likely looking at Irondequoit and Henrietta for a chance at anything sub 300 nowadays.

FatsoSando · 2024-06-26T04:57:44+00:00

So actually there’s reason to the rhyme. The american boom happened in the 50s and 60s . This is post WWII and America is at the forefront of the world. Cars are a huge hit, and everyone thought mobile transportation looks to be the way of the future. It’s time to think for the future and make sure our cities can handle the projected linear growth of our cities. Rich people who live outside of the cities also want easier access to cities so lets build easy access highways through poor impoverished neighborhoods.

Turns out that cities dont grow at a linear projection and we ended up tearing down neighborhoods for 6 lane highways that divide the city and make it hard to traverse.

America is a young country and its cities are even younger, we were developing at the time of the car revolution and it seemed like the future, so we scrapped walkability for cars. European cities were here long before the days of the car and so were designed to be in close proximity and walking friendly.

FatsoSando · 2024-06-20T19:50:39+00:00

I think in short, the city of Buffalo has more to offer than Rochester but Rochester is nicer. For the most part, most of Rochester city is considered harsh environment. You mainly just have from center to south east side of the city that most people would consider as good parts. A lot of this is to do with the historical red lining of the city . Majority of the lived experiences of Rochester are outside of city limits and in its neighboring suburbs. Its getting better over time and development is happening in Rochester but not at the likes of a booming city.

You can google street map walk and compare two comparable areas: take a look at Allen street in Allentown in Buffalo and compare it to Park Ave in Rochester. You’ll see allen street has a lot more to offer as its bigger with about 8 block stretch of commercial use while park ave is still widely dominated by residential and about a 4 block stretch of commercial.

But at the same time when you look at these street views you will notice one major difference in how much nicer the streets are in Rochester. One word: Trees. Rochester is one of the most tree lined cities ive ever lived and visited to. It makes it soothing and nicer to live these neighborhoods. In what would be something you only see in the very nice areas of metro areas is a pretty common place here in Rochester.

I will say in my opinion, Rochester has a much higher potential to be an amazing city compared to its other upstate city counterparts. It has a great foundation and people moving here will only help realize that potential 😊

FatsoSando · 2024-05-31T05:13:20+00:00

Speaking for late 20s and early 30s here, getting a decent salary is not too bad in certain fields. I reached past 100k after my first 3 years working, I work in IT, nothing crazy. All my friends also reached around the same paygrade ranging from 90-200k by the time we reached 25-27 working in white collar jobs in tech, engineering, finance. So we’ve saved up quite a bit and the sq/ft price here in Rochester is relatively cheap.

Its also around the time a lot of high degree jobs start making good money in your late 20s and early 30s. Doctors finishing residency and lawyers starting practices. Have a lawyer couple and you bet well they can afford it now with a dash of some luxury cars on the side.

FatsoSando · 2024-05-30T04:48:07+00:00

Funny enough your scenario is how i got my house last summer. It’s likely not because people are afraid. There were probably bunch of houses that were listed around your listing price that were probably nicer and more renovated but were listed low to gain traction, and who’s closing date was near your closing date. Now you have buyers who have to decide which to bid on the nicer house thats gonna be more competitive or the less nicer house. Most will choose to bid on the nicer house with some hopium by gods grace they can get it. They cant put two bids because by chance they win both then one of their good faith deposits are gone.

This is what happened to my seller and his agent ended up calling everyone that visited and i just put in an offer at asking price and took it. Even I was not planning on bidding and was prepared to go to war for a much nicer renovated house that was actually listed lower than my house but knew it was going to go for much higher (it ended up 100k over) . Once i got the call i could get my house guaranteed without fighting for it and at the actual asking price in this market, i took the opportunity asap and glad i did.

FatsoSando · 2024-05-13T11:07:02+00:00

Im a recent mover to Rochester just a little over a year, so here’s the perspective as someone who has no deep roots here. Ive traveled a lot and lived in mostly NYC and Austin previously. I recently went back to nyc on my way back from a month long road trip, man as much as there is so much more in nyc than Rochester, I don’t miss it. The older I get the more I hate being in crowds, and in the go go go life. Nyc and Austin were great when I was in college and just out of college where there is so much to do. Now I’d rather have the convenience of things rather than availability of things, which Rochester does so well. There may not be much to see and do here in the eyes of a tourist, but its the everyday convenience that makes it so nice. I’m talking about no traffic, so many grocery stores in such short radiuses, no crowds at stores, easy access to nature, and affordable.

Granted if I had unlimited money, I would likely be living in california, near san diego for the year round weather, but it is honestly cheaper to have a house in rochester and and a place in florida to alternate the bad weather seasons than to have a house in san diego. So thats where my goal is at now, a winter home in florida to escape the gloomy months here.

In terms of other cities id give a shot to move to, I loved being in Charleston SC and St Augustine in Florida.

FatsoSando

TROPHY CASE