Back in early May, we evaluated the new ShopDiscover relationship with CheapTickets.com. At first I was really excited to see the possibility of savings for not only our family, but yours. However, as I started to dive closer into the workings of the offer, we discovered with CheapTickets was increasing the price of their tickets when going through the Discover card portal.

While I knew this practice existed, I was surprised at such a tactic with Discover, who tends to live up to a higher customer standard.

The really interesting piece, though, is that despite paying a higher price by going through the ShopDiscover portal, with the example we tested, the consumer still came out ahead. So basically, CheapTickets was trying to cover some of the cost of paying Discover a commission by slightly increasing prices, yet the consumer still won in the end.

A little over a week ago, we received an email from one of our contacts at Discover with some interesting news.

Just saw your recent post about CheapTickets
on ShopDiscover and wanted to make sure you were the first to know
we’ve decided to remove it from the website. We realized around the
same time you did that there was a slight discrepancy between prices
on CheapTickets when visiting from the ShopDiscover portal versus
visiting from outside the portal.

We’re removing CheapTickets for a couple of reasons. First, we
promise our cardmembers at least 5% in true rewards value through
ShopDiscover and we want to hold true to that promise. We also take
pride in having some of the highest reward payouts in the industry.
Finally, we don’t support any instances of a price increase
triggered by a visit through ShopDiscover and want cardmembers to earn
the true Cashback Bonus that’s advertised.

Now that the relationship between Discover and CheapTickets is finally terminated, I was given permission to discuss this issue.

I felt quite proud knowing that our little article maybe made a difference in looking out for the rights of the consumer. I was also very proud to know that Discover is looking out for our best interest when it comes to getting what is advertised in terms are real value out of the cashback bonus program.

Have you experienced any price increases when going through a shopping portal?

Save Money, Travel More!

Source: InACents