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If you hold a Chase Sapphire Reserve card, you already know the frustration of booking hotels through Chase Travel. You search for a room, compare it to what the hotel charges directly, and realize you’re paying significantly more through the portal.Sometimes the markup is $50 a night, sometimes $70, and sometimes it’s enough to send you booking elsewhere. For a card with a $795 annual fee, it can feel at odds with the premium experience you expect from Chase.That routine may finally be changing, and the fix Chase just introduced is simpler than you’d expect. Its beta launch could reshape how millions of Sapphire cardholders think about booking hotels through Chase Travel going forward.Chase’s new price match guarantee targets a longstanding portal pricing problemChase has launched a price match guarantee for prepaid hotel bookings made through its travel portal, as NerdWallet first reported on March 18, 2026. The feature refunds you the difference if you find the same hotel room at a lower publicly available price on another booking site.Right now, the feature is in beta and limited to a select group of Sapphire Reserve for Business cardholders, Chase confirmed directly to NerdWallet. The company said it plans to extend the benefit to the consumer Sapphire Reserve card, though no specific timeline has been announced.Chase’s own terms and conditions also list the J.P. Morgan Reserve as an eligible card for the price match benefit. That detail suggests this could eventually become a standard benefit across Chase’s premium card lineup, rather than a short-lived experiment.How the price match claim process works for you as a cardholderThe mechanics are straightforward, but the rules are specific enough that you need to understand them before submitting any claim. You have to book a prepaid hotel stay through Chase Travel using an eligible card at least 24 hours before your check-in time.After booking, you have a 24-hour window to submit a claim if you spot a lower rate on another publicly accessible booking site for the same room. Your claim requires a screenshot of the lower rate, a direct link to the listing, and a clearly visible competing price.Related: Ford’s new Visa card earns up to 16x points on Ford purchasesYour claim must meet all of these specific requirements.The competing rate must be for the exact same hotel, room type, bed type, dates, and number of guests as your Chase Travel booking.The cancellation policy on the competing rate must match your Chase Travel reservation’s cancellation policy exactly, with no differences in deadlines.The nightly rate difference between the Chase price and the competing price must exceed $5 to qualify for a refund.The competing rate must be listed in U.S. dollars and publicly available to anyone browsing that site without special memberships or login requirements.If Chase approves your claim, it will refund the price difference to your original payment method within one to two billing cycles. Early reports from Reddit’s r/ChaseSapphire community suggest some claims have been approved within roughly 11 hours of submission, according to reporting by Upgraded Points.Several common hotel rate types are excluded from the price match programThe fine print carves out important exceptions you should understand before assuming every cheaper rate you find online will qualify for a Chase refund.The following rate types will not qualify for Chase’s price match guarantee.Loyalty or rewards member rates from programs like Hilton Honors, Marriott Bonvoy, or IHG One Rewards do not count as publicly available rates.Corporate negotiated rates, AAA discounts, government or military rates, senior citizen pricing, and coupon-based deals are all ineligible for price matching.Rates found through other credit card travel portals, such as the American Express travel portal, do not qualify as competing, publicly available prices.Vacation packages bundling hotel stays with flights or car rentals are excluded, along with any promotional or mobile-only special deals.Opaque booking sites where the hotel name is only revealed after payment, such as certain Hotwire or Priceline listings, do not qualify.One practical issue the travel blog Frequent Miler flagged deserves your close attention before you file any claims. Chase Travel sometimes offers a slightly more generous cancellation policy than what the hotel offers directly on its own booking site.Even a one-day difference in cancellation deadlines could technically disqualify your claim because the refund policies would not be an exact match. Check both cancellation policies carefully before assuming your claim will be straightforward enough to get approved quickly.

Understanding the rules behind price matching is key to maximizing savings and avoiding claim rejections on your bookings.PeopleImages/Shutterstock

Sapphire Reserve cardholders paying $795 a year deserve portal pricingThe Chase Sapphire Reserve now carries a $795 annual fee after Chase raised it from $550 in June 2025, representing a 45% increase. That price hike came with a bundle of new benefits, including a $500 annual credit for stays at The Edit hotel collection.But the $500 Edit credit has a catch that made many cardholders rightfully skeptical about its real-world value. NerdWallet reported that hotel rooms booked through The Edit on Chase Travel were sometimes hundreds of dollars more expensive than the same room booked directly.If you’re overpaying $200 on a two-night stay just to use a $250 credit, the math barely works in your favor. The price match guarantee directly addresses this concern by giving you recourse when Chase Travel’s pricing exceeds what the broader market offers.Related: Robinhood enters premium credit card fray with new Platinum CardSapphire Reserve cardholders also earn 8x Ultimate Rewards points per dollar on purchases through Chase Travel, including stays at Edit properties, according to Chase. That elevated earning rate is a major incentive to book through the portal rather than directly with the hotel.With the price match guarantee in place, you can now capture those 8x points on your hotel spending and still have a safety net. If the portal overcharges you, you have a defined process to get that money back instead of simply absorbing the premium.How Chase’s price match compares to Capital One’s price protection programChase is not the first major card issuer to offer price protection on bookings made through a travel portal. Capital One Travel has provided both a price-match guarantee and automatic price-drop protection to eligible cardholders for several years now.Capital One’s system lets you submit a claim within 24 hours if you find a lower price on another platform for a flight, hotel, or rental car. More Airlines:American Air launching 15 new summer routes between U.S. citiesLow-cost airline will launch new flight to South Korea from USAmerican Airlines joins the Spirit Airlines bankruptcy caseFor flights specifically, Capital One also monitors your fare automatically for 10 days after booking, Capital One’s help center confirms. If the price drops, you receive a travel credit of up to $50 without having to do anything yourself.Key differences between the Chase and Capital One price protection programs.Chase’s price match currently covers only prepaid hotel bookings, while Capital One’s program extends to flights, hotels, and rental cars.Chase refunds the price difference to your original payment method in cash or points, while Capital One issues refunds as travel credits instead.Capital One’s automatic flight price-drop monitoring has no equivalent in Chase’s program, which requires you to find lower rates manually.Chase’s program is currently limited to Sapphire Reserve cardholders only, while Capital One’s portal is accessible to all Capital One rewards cardholders.For hotel bookings specifically, Chase’s refund structure is more useful because you get the exact price difference credited to your statement. Capital One’s travel credit refund means you have to book more travel to use what you’re owed.How to position yourself to use the price match guarantee Even though the feature is still in limited beta, you can start preparing now so you’re ready to act the moment Chase expands access. These steps will help you maximize your chances of a successful price match claim.Steps to maximize your chances of getting a successful price match claim approvedBefore booking through Chase Travel, check rates on Expedia, Booking.com, Priceline, and the hotel’s direct website so you have clear comparison data ready before committing to the portal rate.Screenshot the lowest publicly available rate immediately, including the room type, dates, number of guests, and full cancellation policy details.Book your room through Chase Travel within 24 hours of gathering those comparison rates so your evidence stays fresh and clearly time-stamped.Submit your price match claim as soon as possible after booking, since the 24-hour window starts the moment you complete your Chase Travel reservation.Double-check that cancellation policies match exactly, because even small differences in refund deadlines could disqualify your claim from being approved.If you currently hold the Sapphire Reserve for Business card and see the price match option in your portal, test it now on your next booking. Doctor of Credit reports that the feature also works on The Edit hotel collection bookings, which makes it especially useful for maximizing the $500 annual credit.Travel portal competition is heating up, and your booking experience should improveFor years, the biggest criticism of credit card travel portals was straightforward and hard to argue with. You earned bonus points for booking through them, but you regularly paid more for the same room or flight than you would have booking directly.Chase’s entry into hotel price matching signals that issuers are recognizing this problem and competing more seriously on pricing. Thrifty Traveler notes that this new feature removes one of the biggest hurdles travelers face when deciding whether to book hotels through Chase Travel or go direct.Whether you hold a Sapphire Reserve, a Sapphire Preferred, or a competitor’s travel card, this kind of competition among portals benefits you directly. More price protections, more transparent pricing, and more accountability put real money back in your pocket over the long term.Related: Delta Air Lines made $8.2 billion from your credit card last year

Most tech executives have a practiced answer when AI and jobs come up. They talk about new roles. They mention productivity. They invoke history. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi is not doing any of that.In a recent interview on The Diary of a CEO with Steven Bartlett, Khosrowshahi said he has heard executives privately admit the true scale of AI disruption. Then he watched those same people go on television and tell audiences everything will work out fine.”I understand the incentive,” he said. Being honest about job displacement spooks investors and dries up fundraising. So most leaders stay quiet. He decided not to. The result was one of the most candid conversations a major tech CEO has had about AI in public.His own numbers are stark. Khosrowshahi estimates AI will eventually replace the work that 70% to 80% of humans do. Knowledge and intellectual jobs within a decade. Physical roles like driving and logistics within 15 to 20 years. “Ten years is not a lot of time for society to adjust,” he said.What Khosrowshahi said his company facesHe did not exempt Uber from the disruption he described. The platform has 9.5 million drivers and couriers globally. He said the majority of Uber trips will eventually be fulfilled by autonomous vehicles. His timeline was 15 to 20 years. But the admission was still striking from the man running the world’s largest ride-hailing company. These are not abstract workers. They are people who depend on the platform for their income today, many of them full-time.More AI Stocks:Morgan Stanley sets jaw-dropping Micron price target after eventBank of America updates Palantir stock forecast after private meetingMorgan Stanley drops eye-popping Broadcom price targetWhen Bartlett asked what those 9.5 million people do next, Khosrowshahi gave a three-word answer. “I don’t know.” He acknowledged that retraining is a question leaders will have to answer in the coming years.He also expressed doubt about universal basic income as a solution. Jobs provide not just income but purpose and a sense of value that UBI has not proven it can replace. That tension, between the efficiency AI delivers and the human cost it creates, sat at the center of the conversation.How Uber is already living this realityThe shift is not theoretical inside Uber. Several things have already changed:90% of Uber’s engineers now use AI tools daily. About 30% are power users rewriting entire systems from scratch using AI agents.Customer service has been rebuilt around agentic AI. Rigid rule-based policies have been replaced with systems that make personalized decisions in real time.Employees built an AI clone of Khosrowshahi himself. They call it “Dara AI.” They use it to rehearse presentations before bringing them to the actual CEO.That last detail prompted a telling exchange on the podcast. Bartlett asked if Khosrowshahi was worried the team might show Dara AI to the board instead. He laughed. Then he said that when AI models can learn in real time, “that is the point at which I’m going to think that, yeah, we are all replaceable.”

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The autonomous vehicle race is acceleratingThe road-level disruption Khosrowshahi described is already beginning. Waymo, the Alphabet-backed robotaxi company, now handles 400,000 rides per week across six U.S. cities. It is targeting one million weekly rides by the end of 2026. It quadrupled trip volume in 2025 alone. Uber has partnerships with more than 20 autonomous vehicle companies. It is positioning its platform as the network AV fleets will use to reach passengers.The economics are hard to ignore. Removing the driver eliminates the biggest variable cost in a ride. For Uber, which pays a portion of every fare to human drivers, a driverless fleet would structurally transform its margins.It would also change what the company actually is. Right now Uber is a marketplace connecting riders to drivers. In a driverless future, it becomes the platform through which autonomous fleets reach passengers. Khosrowshahi has been open about that calculus. He is just also being unusually honest about what it means for the people currently doing the driving.What Uber investors should knowUBER shares closed at $73.89 on March 20. The stock has pulled back sharply from a 52-week high of $101.99 in September 2025. Analyst sentiment is still broadly positive. According to Benzinga, 29 of 36 tracked analysts rate it a Buy or Outperform. The consensus target is $106.76.The broader picture is harder to dismiss. Tech companies have announced more than 45,000 job cuts globally in Q1 2026. AI is cited as a primary driver in a growing share of those decisions. Goldman Sachs has estimated AI could displace 6% to 7% of the entire U.S. workforce if widely adopted. Khosrowshahi is not describing a distant scenario. He is describing something already in motion. And he is saying openly that the people running it do not yet have a plan for what comes after.Related: Uber targets 50,000 robotaxis in major Rivian, Nvidia deals

TheStreet aims to feature only the best products and services. If you buy something via one of our links, we may earn a commission.Why we love this dealIt can be difficult to set up an area for entertaining guests while also keeping a tidy home or living in a smaller place, so it’s no wonder that space-saving furniture has been trending lately. They offer easier ways to store items and create a comfortable space without sacrificing style or convenience. If you like to have people over, enjoy having family movie nights, or just sometimes want some extra space to spread out study materials or hobby items while working, the Saygoer 2-Tier Extendable Folding Coffee Table offers extra space when needed, while also saving space when not in use. It’s 21% off at Amazon, offering shoppers a sale price of $60.Saygoer 2-Tier Extendable Folding Coffee Table, $60 (was $76) at Amazon

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Shop at AmazonWhy do shoppers love it?This coffee table not only provides room for everyday use without taking up a ton of space, but it also folds out into a large coffee table that’s double the size, making it ideal for family nights, friend get-togethers, and more. The folding bracket mechanism is easy to use and takes seconds to transform your coffee table; just press the bracket to fold the side panels. The compact square design measures 23.6 inches long and 17.72 inches tall, while the folding leaves extend the table to 47.2 inches long — you can also fold just one leaf up for a little bit of extra room. Related: Wayfair is selling a ‘very sturdy’ freestanding adjustable cabinet for $65Weighing just 25 pounds, this table is easy to maneuver when folding the panels in or out, allowing you to simply lift or slide it away from the sofa to create extra room. This coffee table would be great paired with plush floor cushions. It also provides extra storage with the lower open shelf, providing room for TV accessories, extra blankets, and coasters. The main table can hold up to 100 pounds, and each leaf can hold up to 27 pounds, making it great for board games, morning coffee with the family, or snacks during a movie. It’s available in multiple colors, with the white option offering the best deal.  What are the pros and cons of an extendable coffee table for $60?ProsVersatility: This coffee table offers an easy way to create more room for guests when needed, without taking up ample space otherwise. It’s easy to use: The foldable leaves are very easy to use, taking only a few seconds to extend the length of the table.It has extra storage underneath: The bottom shelf is perfect for a storage basket, to hold coasters for extra guests, and more.Weight capacity: This table can hold 100 pounds on the main surface and 27 pounds on each extendable leaf.Cons Color options: The woodgrain colors are more expensive.No hidden storage: This coffee table does not include hidden storage for smaller or messier items, like TV accessories.One reviewer said, “I have had this table for approximately a year now, and I find it perfect for my needs. I wanted something that was relatively small for my area, but something that could be extended when my family is here hanging out. It has held up very well, and it’s very easy to clean.””Well-made, easy to assemble, great instructions, and very sturdy,” said another shopper.  “It also looks great. I am happy.” Shop more dealsOrrd Round Lift Coffee Table, $144 (was $160) at AmazonOtterease Nesting Tables 2-Set, $54 (was $60) at AmazonXburmo 3-Tier Round Side Table, $20 (was $24) at AmazonThe Saygoer 2-Tier Extendable Folding Coffee Table offers convenience, utility, and versatility in an easy-to-use package. Offering three table sizes, this coffee table can be extended for friends and family, or folded down in smaller spaces. Shoppers can save 21% on this coffee table, paying just $60 for this multifunctional piece.

A potential bank merger in the EU reveals a lot about consumer banking behaviors.Italian bank Unicredit made a takeover bid on March 16 for Germany’s Commerzbank, as consumer trends have led to a consolidation of the banking sector.Timeline of the Commerzbank and Unicredit dealSeptember 2024: Unicredit invests in Commerzbank and approaches the bank about merger talks, according to Reuters.March 14, 2025: The European Central Bank authorizes Unicredit to increase its stake in Commerzbank to 29.9%. Unicredit begins to increase its shares in the coming months, Bloomberg reports.March 15, 2026: Unicredit makes a takeover bid of $40.5 billion for Commezbank, as the company increased its stake in the firm to over 30%. Under German law, this triggers a mandatory takeover offer.March 16, 2026: Commerzbank rejects the takeover bid, as it does not include a formal proposal and is a low-ball offer.March 22, 2026: Reuters reports that Unicredit is open to sweetening the deal, as talks between the two continue.These bank mergers aren’t only happening across the pond. Since the start of 2026, there have been 25 bank deals in the U.S., according to S&P Global.Many of those are regional banks, of which there are thousands in the U.S. Community banks have long been a core part of the American economy, with small businesses looking for loansBut the way the world banks has changed significantly in the last twenty years.Changing consumer habitsNearly all Americans have a cellphone, with nine-in-ten owning a smartphone, compared to 35% in 2011, according to the Pew Research Center. And more clients are conducting their banking through apps or online, a survey from the American Bankers Association found.Phone use could be one reason banks are merging and closing down branches. Just 9% of customers prefer to visit a brick-and-mortar branch, compared to 54% of customers who would rather use an app to do their banking.A change in technology and how consumers conduct business has made it more expensive and complex for banks to stay in business, David Becker, chairman and CEO at First Internet Bank told TheStreet.The rise of digital banks and fintechs has also increased competition for traditional banks, he said.”For many community banks, that combination can create significant challenges. You either need enough scale to spread those costs efficiently, or you need a very focused niche that supports them,” Becker said. “That’s why consolidation is happening.”

Increased smartphone use might be one reason bank branches are closing.Shutterstock

Smaller banks might consider combining to save on the costs of implementing new technology, allowing them to complete with larger firms, Jonathan Lazarow, co-founding partner Ambrose Lazarow law firm, told TheStreet.“Bankers are not known for their adoption of new technology and the costs for implementing technology can be quite high,” he said.What an increase in bank mergers means for consumersSo do more bank mergers mean more branch closures? It depends, said David Danielson, managing director at accounting and advisory firm Wolf & Company.Closures are more likely to be felt in rural areas where a merger involves banks serving the same community, he told TheStreet.There’s also a generational difference, with older customers more likely to be affected by branch closures.The number of bank branches has fallen substantially in recent years, with hundreds closed in 2025.More economy newsMiddle East chaos continues to drain your pocketbookMoody’s shares blunt opinion on the economyAmerican confidence in U.S. labor market takes unexpected turnBut Raul Chandrana, EY Parthenon’s banking and capital markets leader, doesn’t see branches completely disappearing. Instead, they are likely to be reimagined as holistic financial centres, a place where clients can get more information about wealth growth and asset management, he told TheStreet.“Branches have been and will always be a very important aspect of consumer banking,” he said.Related: JP Morgan CEO has blunt inflation message