Ok guys, called Chase Travel and Cruise tonight to book my Disney vacation (which turned out to be only a room... lol). Just want to share my data point on how this went. I've been checking the Disney website and decided to book a Boardwalk Villa Studio for one night for Nov. 8-9. I also wanted to purchase one day tickets to HS for DH and I. The room was showing a rack rate of $481 for the night on Disney's website.
I called and dialed the extension for Melissa at Chase but I didn't get her (perhaps she wasn't working, it was 7:15 pm EST when I called). I spoke with Sydney, who was very nice. She noted that I did not have any UR points on my card but said that was fine and I could pay in cash. I had initially provided the number for our new CIP card that we are working on the MSR on, so no UR points on that yet, which is fine because I wanted to pay cash. She quickly found the room I was interested in and secured that. I then told her that I wanted to book one day tickets. I was interested to see if she could do this for me since it's not possible to book one day tickets as part of a package on the Disney website. Sure enough, she was not able to and said she would have to book me two day tickets or I would have to purchase them separately. She did not advise me that there was any option to book one day tickets through Chase Travel and Cruise, and it doesn't look like you can through the online travel portal, so I suppose I will just buy them later through Disney and link them to my MDE.
I did ask her if I would be able to call back to Chase and have them apply a discount to the room rate if one came out later this summer. She said that Chase could modify or cancel Disney reservations just like Disney itself could, and that she would be able to apply any discounts for me when they came out. Looks like the room only discounts usually come out in early July, so I'll be reporting back then with more info. I specifically booked dates during our trip where it looked like I would be eligible for the discount. If not, I'll be rebooking on different dates or at a different hotel.
Since she couldn't book my tickets but I wanted to go ahead and lock down a Boardwalk Villa room for us, I went ahead and told her to charge my CIP for the full amount of the room. One thing I did not ask is if I HAD to use a Chase credit card to book, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say you need to. When it was time to take my credit card number she said "I'm ready to take your Chase-branded credit card number whenever you're ready."
Before we got off the phone, I asked her a couple questions about booking packages for next year once the dates were available since I'm planning to book either two or three rooms to be split between six adults for a week. She said that Chase can accept Disney gift cards to pay down the balance of your package throughout the payment period that Disney gives you. I asked her if I could put a deposit on a package with either points or cash and then pay down the balance with points periodically before my trip. She informed me that Chase allows a one-time use of UR points on travel packages and that ALL UR POINTS YOU WANT TO USE FOR YOUR TRIP MUST BE USED UPFRONT WHEN PAYING. The remainder must be paid in cash/with a Disney gift card. Her statement indicated to me that this was not just a Disney rule, but applied to any travel package booked with Travel and Cruise.
I will say that while I don't think Sydney was any particular Disney expert, she did sound knowledgeable and confident about Chase's policies regarding use of UR and payments on packages. She was able to answer right off the bat about Disney gift cards and paying with UR points. She specifically encouraged me to use up my total balance of UR points on my package next year if I was hoping to get the most value out of them.
So, I hope this is helpful to some of you! I know it's not the most thorough since I didn't book with URs or with a CSR, but it helped me make some decisions for how I'm going forward with churning this year. Since a WDW trip for 6 people with multiple rooms will obviously be expensive, I will need all the UR points I can get. I was thinking about going for the SPG Biz, but I would now rather double dip DH on CSR/CSP as soon as we finish MSR on his CIP, and then have him refer me to CIP myself. Getting a CIP during this summer will make me 4/12 (if Marriott Biz counts), but I think I might just roll the dice. I don't MS, and I consistently charge a decent amount on each of my Chase cards and don't sock drawer them so I think I could effectively plead my case if Chase came after me.
Anyways, there you go. Hope this helps someone!
ETA: Just linked my reservation on MDE. No issues with that and everything is correct. I do see where MDE says that if I need to make any changes to my reservation that I need to contact my original
travel agent.