(Replying to both you and the parent poster)

Airlines are far from perfect. They overbook flights and sometimes have to ask people leave and pay them for the inconvenience. My wife and I once got $1000 a piece and a hotel and food voucher to volunteer to take a flight the next day on a layover in Atlanta.

As far as your particular situation, the number one rule of using a third party portal to book flights or hotels is - don’t.

I understand that Iceland Air is not a transfer partner of Chase. But even in that case, I would just wait to use my points until I could use a transfer partner.

On the earning side if paying cash, the difference between 2x/3x points when booking directly and 5x when going through the portal just isn’t worth the risk.