Chase refreshed Sapphire Reserve and introduced ‘Points Boost’ in June. They’ve already devalued it.
When Points Boost launched, you could expect to get up to 2 cents per point redeeming for flights through their travel portal with airline partners and a guaranteed two cents per point for hotels in their ‘The Edit’ collection booked through their portal.
They’ve now transitioned to ‘up to’ 2 cents with The Edit hotels. And this is reflected in the terms. They used to say,
If you have a Chase Sapphire Reserve card and you use Points Boost, your points are worth 2x when you book a hotel that’s part of The Edit℠, and up to 2x when redeemed for both thousands of other top-booked hotels and flights with select airlines through Chase Travel.
And now that’s been changed to say,
If you have a Chase Sapphire Reserve card and you use Points Boost, your points are worth up to 2x when you book a hotel that’s part of The Edit℠, and up to 2x when redeemed for other top-booked hotels and flights with select airlines through Chase Travel.
This is a no-notice devaluation, something that card issuers used to be reluctant to do under previous administrations.
According to a Chase spokesperson,
Points Boost is a dynamic points redemption program designed to give cardmembers more ways to get more value out of their points. With Points Boost offers, Sapphire Reserve cardmembers’ points are worth up to 2x on thousands of both top booked hotels and flights. The inventory that is part of Points Boost will continue to change on an ongoing basis based on both trends and cardmember feedback. We recently expanded Points Boost to cover a wider range of travel options based off cardmember feedback, including new carriers and different airfare classes, including expanded economy fare options. We will continue to invest in the Points Boost program.
I pressed on why the change to Points Boost for The Edit hotels, and was told:
At launch, we shared that Points Boost would be available at up to 2x on select hotels and flights. While all of The Edit properties have been boosted to 2x since launch, it was always intended that the program would include a range of rotating offers across flights classes and hotel properties.
Many properties that are part of The Edit are boosted at 2x, with others now at varying redemptions. This is the rotating nature of Points Boost offers, which now comes with the addition of new airlines and different airfare classes. We’re very excited for the demand we’ve seen for Points Boost and will continue to invest in the program to provide cardmembers with more value across more options.
When Chase first announced Points Boost as a replacement for fixed 1.5 cent redemptions against any travel expense, I was skeptical, but I learned to love it.
- I didn’t redeem points at 1.5 cents anyway, I always transferred to loyalty programs to get better value than that. So the loss of the 1.5 cent option didn’t actually take anything away from me.
- But 2 cent redemptions made sense. They weren’t always going to be available on flights (though sometimes would be), but they were promised as always offered on The Edit hotel redemptions.
- That meant getting 2 cent redemptions for Hyatt, which is often better than what I might get for Hyatt points redemptions plus includes value add credits for the stay and would still earn points and elite night credit. That was a win. (Plus redemptions for Marriott, IHG and GHA stays were possible.)
Points Boost made sense for Chase because they’re getting commissions or negotiated discounts on all of the redemptions, versus the 1.5 cent redemptions where those commissions (any flight, any airline!) were often de minimis at best. It should have been more sustainable for them.
I didn’t like the ‘sometimes available, sometimes not’ approach, but the promise was 2 cent redemptions were fixed with The Edit properties. And that’s how I wanted to redeem my points, or for 2 cent redemptions on premium cabin long haul flights – because often you weren’t doing much better with points redemption where there are fuel surcharges, and these redemptions would earn miles and elite status credits and wouldn’t require worrying about specific flight availability – just finding a decent price on the ticket.
Backing off the certainty here, and scaling back available properties at 2 cents, is a big blow to how I think about the value of these points. I’m back to transfers, which are still great, but Chase hasn’t added partners in years. Roughly speaking, I prefer Amex and especially Bilt points over Chase points.
lol, I was just saying a week ago that this was too good to be true. And it was.
Chase’s roll out of the CSR revamp has been an absolute joke. A masterclass in failed marketing. As I’ve said many times, heads should and will be rolling at Chase over this.
As a practical matter, many properties on the Edit had prices that were quite inflated as compared to FHR. So even though you might be offered a “PointsBoost” at 2x, in reality compared to FHR and other programs, you were really only getting around ~1.5cpp. Sometimes higher and you’d do better than the old 1.5cpp guarantee, but sometimes lower. It was a transparent shell game which made me and many actively not trust Chase and Chase Travel.
Perhaps others took notice of that as well. Something had to be fixed. So now we get “up to 2.0cpp”. Fine – as long as that comes with competitive pricing! I need honesty in pricing first before I’ll even consider engaging with Chase Travel and The Edit.
I know that this blog values the status and credits achieved at $75k on the CSR, but for most, it’s not valuable at all. Heck, if you want IHG Diamond, you can go buy it for $800-1000 or whatever per the offer IHG released the other day versus spending $75k on the CSR. Southwest credits and status? Not premium and no thanks!
Other than Chase’s very good lounges and ability to transfer points to Hyatt, there’s no reason for most to spend much time with the CSR anymore. And, for most, they should trade the CSR lounges for C1 lounges and a KISS (keep it simple stupid) $395 card (with a $300 travel credit) and move on with their lives. And come February 2026, with Bilt’s new card offerings, there will likely be even less reason to engage with Chase – as Bilt is a Hyatt transfer partner.
Chase may have “quietly” reduced the benefit but the credit card blogosphere has been loud and united in condemning this change. Chase thought it would slide through unnoticed but thankfully social media isn’t letting that happen.
I’m looking forward to @Peter’s ‘hot take’ on this (and anything, honestly.)
@Omar — I’ll add to your cynicism. ‘Too good to be true’ should be the byline of this entire era of human history.
Hard to tell if this is incompetence or strategy, but Chase seems determined to torch its own credit card program.
CSR is going from hero to zero very quickly. The $250 Edit credit is useless as no one wants to spends $2,000 to save $200. Way overinflated annual fee with a massive reduction in earnings and redemption value.
Good bye CSR upon next renewal. At least one less coupon book to keep track of.
@Common Sense — You meant to say that *most* normies won’t want to overpay for two nights at expensive hotels to use those credits; however, many of us freaks are fine to use it than lose it. The 3x to 4x on directly with hotels and airlines is fine, especially for non-branded hotels, but not so much for airlines when Platinum is 5x and Citi Strata Elite is 8x through their portal. Yet, the loss of rental cars, cruises, other travel 3x down to 1x is no-bueno.