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We often recommend the Chase Sapphire Preferred® card for anyone that is new to award travel, and for good reason: it has some of the best benefits, earns one of the most valuable transferable currencies, and comes with an extremely reasonable annual fee of just $95. Similarly, the Sapphire Reserve is a top contender for the best premium card on the market by providing Priority Pass lounge access, a $300 yearly travel credit, and enhanced travel protections. Currently, Chase is offering 60,000 Ultimate Rewards points as a welcome bonus on the Preferred card. Not only that, they have recently added additional benefits to both the Sapphire Preferred and the Sapphire Reserve to make them even more powerful.
Today, we’ll outline the changes made to these two powerhouse credit cards.
Chase Sapphire Preferred®
I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: the Sapphire Preferred is the best first credit card you can get. With a great welcome bonus, excellent benefits, and low annual fee it doesn’t get any better for initial perks. Its earning structure prior to the updates were quite simple: 2 Ultimate Rewards Points per dollar spent on travel purchases, 1 point per dollar on everything else.
The new benefits on this card include, as shown above:
- 3x Dining, Streaming Services, and Online Grocery (excluding Target, Walmart, and wholesale clubs).
- 5x Travel Booked through the Chase Travel Portal. A nice boost to earning in these categories.
- 10% Anniversary point bonus. This is a little confusing – in effect, it adds .1x to all purchases throughout the year. So, if you spent $20,000 on the card throughout the year, you would receive 2,000 bonus points.
- $50 Hotel Credit. This credit is earned on hotel stays booked through the Ultimate Rewards Portal.
While these new benefits aren’t jaw-dropping, it’s nice to have a boost on dining and grocery spend as well as the anniversary points and hotel credit. There are ways to get higher earning potential (such as 5x on rotating categories with the Freedom Flex), but what’s most enticing about the Preferred is its current welcome bonus of 60,000 Ultimate Rewards points after $4,000 spend in 3 months – it’s a fantastic deal, especially if you want to use those points to get to Hawaii or somewhere more exotic.
What’s more, Chase did not increase the annual fee when they rolled out these new benefits which was a surprise. Usually when banks update the benefits of a card they are doing so to justify a higher cost to the consumer, but Chase decided to leave it at $95, making it one of the lowest fees for travel cards with this level of benefits.
Sapphire Reserve
The big brother to the Preferred is the Sapphire Reserve – a great card, but its hefty $550 annual fee may be too much for beginners to swallow right off the bat. However, it offers a wide range of benefits including Priority Pass Lounge access, improved travel protections such as delayed baggage reimbursement, and a $300 credit for travel purchases per year. Below are the new benefits that were added to the Reserve card last month:
Similar to the Sapphire Preferred, the Sapphire Reserve received a bit of a facelift last month as well, adding a couple of notable benefits:
- 10x on Chase Dining and hotel and car rental purchases through the Ultimate Rewards Portal. This benefit seems really nice, until you actually look at Chase Dining and realize there’s not much available. Hotel and car rentals can be lucrative, but always check to ensure they are offering the best price compared to other options.
- 5x on travel booked through the Chase Travel Portal. Same as the Preferred.
The Reserve’s new benefits are less exciting than the Preferred, as is its 50,000 point welcome bonus, though the card still boasts the best-available travel protections, lounge access that includes Priority Pass restaurants (not the case with Amex-offered Priority Pass memberships), and solid base earnings on travel and dining.
Eligibility
it used to be possible to open multiple Chase cards per year and per day, but that is no longer the case. To be eligible for either the Chase Sapphire Preferred® or Sapphire Reserve card and its associated welcome bonus, you must meet the following criteria:
Be within “the 5/24 rule”. If you have opened five or more credit cards with any bank in the last two years, Chase will not approve you for either of these cards (or most others) until you get under that threshold.
Meet the “24/48 month rule”. With Chase cards, you can generally receive the welcome bonus on the same card after a period of 24 months. However, with Sapphire cards (both Preferred and Reserve), you must wait 48 months. You also cannot have the card open at the time you apply for a new one.
Final Thoughts
Chase continues to revamp their travel credit cards in an attempt to secure a spot among the top offerings. Though the new benefits outlined above, which took effect on August 16, 2021, add some additional earning potential for each card they are not game changers in and of themselves.
The major takeaway here is that the Sapphire Preferred is an excellent travel card to have in your wallet, especially with the current 60,000 point welcome bonus currently offered. If you need the additional travel protections and credits that the Reserve offers, that is a solid choice as well. In either case, ensure you are eligible before submitting your application and happy earning!
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Signed up my dad for this earlier this month, and linked through this site to sign up to thank you and Jeremy for the useful content (especially about tax optimization). Cheers! Tom
And by “this,” I meant the Chase Sapphire Preferred card!
muchas gracias amigo
Thanks, Tom! Hope you and the fam rack up some monster points for free travel!
i signed up for this card when it first came out and got 100,000 points. they sent me a fancy box wrapped in blue saphire with a bow. I thought it was too good to be true, but it wasnt.
my question is, can I upgrade to the reserve and get a bonus? probably not.
Unfortunately, no, you cannot get the bonus on the Reserve if you upgrade from the Preferred – you would need to wait 48 months and re-apply for the Reserve separately in order to get the bonus. Of course, you can upgrade to receive all the other benefits of the Reserve at any time – just no bonus.
I’m trying to love the Sapphire preferred, but no success. 90% of the flights in my hub are Delta, and there’s no transfer, and my favorite vacay spots don’t have Marriott, IHG or other hotels that accept transfers, nor do they have any hotels that can be booked via Chase.
I guess I’ll take the bonus and cancel, but it’s caused some issues getting cards I might actually use (Best Western, mainly).
For people new to travel hacking, I usually ask them to pick a specific vacation as a starting point. Then pick cards that get you that exact vacation, even if the redemptions aren’t the best ever (because, hey, it is still a free vacation.) See my post on going to disneyland as an example (the kids had a great time.) 90% of the time the CSP is a good piece of the solution, but sounds like you are going to a 10% kind of place. Where is it, if you don’t mind sharing?
This is wise advice- I should have applied first for the Best Western credit card, but they denied me (presumably because I had just received the Chase Sapphire, I have no idea).
I fly a lot to NYC out of SLC, which is ALL Delta, and Chase Sapphire does not work with Delta. I also go frequently to Half Moon Bay, and the only (affordable) chain hotel there is a BW Signature, which you can’t book via the Chase travel portal, nor can you xfer points to BW.
I appreciate the $600 bonus, which I will just take in cash because I can’t figure out how else to use it, but I’m annoyed at my BW denial (although I appreciate the humor) and I’m not sure how/when to reapply.
Thanks, BTW.
For Delta, you might want to go with Amex. However, you can xfer UR points to Virgin Atlantic or Air France / KLM and then book Delta flights through them. For flights that don’t cost very much, you can also book through Chase at 1.25cpp (CSP) or 1.5cpp (CSR.)
It is unlikely that you were denied a BW card because of a single credit card application, Sapphire or otherwise. Try this: Award Travel Series: Getting Approved For Cards after a Denial
Dunno, sounds like FNBO is very inquiry sensitive per the (very useful) link you posted.
I have a credit score well north of 800, and a HNW and high income and no credit blemishes. Their application was terrible (no space for a mailing vs street address), no space for retired or self-employed, sounds like FNBO is generally a PITA and not well run like Chase, Amex etc.
As to Chase, I’ll take my bonus and ponder, reapply for BW (by phone in three months) then consider a Marriott card.
Thanks for the advice!
Simply put, I need a hotel in Half Moon Bay and flights from a Delta hub for my upcoming travel. Chase Sapphire doesn’t help with either asfaik.
I also don’t see how Chase points are very valuable- TPG etc value them at $.0175; don’t I come out ahead (bonus aside) with a 2.5-3% cash back card? I’m missing something here (aside from the bonuses) I think.
Bonuses are where you get the main value, but you also get multiple UR points per $1 spend.
For example, we have a Chase Sapphire Reserve which earns 3 points/$ on dining, so that is what we use when eating out. It also earns 10pts/$ on hotels booked directly with the Chase travel portal which can be used to book any hotel (think of it as Expedia or Booking.com or similar.) The Freedom and Freedom flex earn 5 pts/$ on a rotation each quarter. Q422 included Paypal purchases, so we tried to make many purchases through paypal. Then the Freedom Unlimited earns 1.5x on all purchases. Anything greater than a 1.0 – 1.5cpp redemption would come out ahead over a 2-3% cash back card, depending on how much you value your time and effort. That’s at the low end though… if you go for high-end Hyatt hotels or business class travel, you can do several times greater in terms of $/point… I think the best I ever did was business class travel from hong kong to paris with 20cpp level redemption.
Totally makes sense, guess it depends on what kind of travel/where you go and what kind of hotels, and if you like/are able to book through the portal.
Will experiment for this year and see if the Chase triple is worth it for me.
Thanks for the advice and time, as always.