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Lost in the coverage of the new Chase Sapphire Reserve® and Sapphire Reserve for BusinessSM is that the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card (See rates and fees) has a new increased initial bonus offer – and retains a key benefit that make it interesting to Reserve cardmembers unhappy with the card’s changes.
- Earn 75,000 bonus points after you spend $5,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.
- Both Reserve and Preferred earn 3x on dining. While Reserve is only going to earn 1 point per dollar on travel outside of direct air and hotel bookings that isn’t reserved through Chase’s travel portal, Sapphire Preferred retains 2x on all other travel purchases. That means bonusing things like Airbnb, Vrbo, cruises, Uber, parking and tolls.
- Like Sapphire Reserve, you can transfer points to airline and hotel partners such as United; Hyatt; Southwest; British Airways; Virgin Atlantic; Singapore Airlines; Air France KLM; JetBlue; Aer Lingus; Iberia; Emirates; Marriott.
- And it comes with strong Trip Cancellation/Interruption Insurance, Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver, Lost Luggage Insurance and more. And you can get complimentary DoorDash DashPass for a minimum of one year when you activate by 12/31/27.
With Chase’s new rules it’s possible to hold both a Sapphire Preferred and Reserve at the same time, though you won’t likely be offered the initial bonus if you have an open Sapphire account (or if you have gotten a bonus for the card in the past).
Phew, good news and somewhat of a pleasant surprise. Let’s see how long it stays that way!
If you’re not getting the SUB then just get a bilt card with same bonus structure and no AF
“Sapphire Preferred retains 2x on all other travel purchases.” That’s the ‘news.’
The loss of 3x Travel with the CSR still stings. My current takeaway on comparable cards, Amex Green has 3x Travel, but a $150 AF. Then, there’s BofA Unlimited/Premium/Elite (and other cards with them) also has 2x Travel, and if you have $100K+ (including retirement accounts at Merrill) with the 75% bonus, that can be 3.5x Travel, but it’s cash-out, no transfer partners. Then Capital One (several 2x cards as well, but different transfer partners). Anyone got a better idea?
@L737 & @John — Ya both right! And BILT actually has some of the same transfer partners (Hyatt, United).
It’s always been possible to hold the Reserve and Preferred cards at the same time if you obtained the second one via a product change. The fact that you can now directly apply for the second card and not receive a bonus is a very small change. Only if you were able to apply for the second card and receive a bonus would anything major have changed.
With the Citi DoubleCash and others, 2x return is in many ways the baseline. So 2x on other travel just isn’t that exciting when even with chase you’ll get 1.5x with a freedom unlimited.
I think there are some other categories you could highlight in this article though, including 5x on Lyft, 3x on streaming services, 3x online grocery purchases (instacart…), $50 hotel credit, $120 doordash (even if only $10/mo), 10% points bonus at the end of the year – it’s a pretty compelling card for only a $95 annual fee (which for many may pay for itself). Team a CSP with a Venture X for an additional $95 (assuming you make use of the $300 portal hotel credit) and get your priority pass and CapOne lounge access (soon to be equivalent locations to Chase with LGA TB and JFK T4) and 2x on everything else.
Pretty compelling, although I think a strong case could be made for Amex Green instead of CSP (although pricier at $150), and Strata Premier could be thrown into the mix as well.
Chase should absolutely be confirming what they are doing with the Preferred now, not later, because they’ll want to convince people who are dumping the CSR to stay with Chase through the CSP.
@Peter — For a no-annual-fee, domestic-only (3% foreign), non-category card, sure, Double Cash, 2x, is fine, but it’s cash-out, not transfer partners. And there are others. Fidelity Rewards Visa also earns 2% back, no annual fee, and its foreign transaction fee is 1%. Bank of America Unlimited Cash Rewards is also 2% back, no annual fee, 3% foreign, and if you have +$25-100K at BofA and/or Merrill, you get 25-75% bonus, so 2% becomes upwards of 2.62% back, which may take the cake. US Bank has that 4% card, but you have to have +$100K with them, and it’s in low-to-no-interest, so you’d have to have a lot of spend to make up for that opportunity cost; also, US Bank was pulling back on the card, so who knows if it’ll even be around much longer. Has anyone found anything better?
@1990 – my understanding is that if you have a double cash and strata premier, you can combine the TY points and use the strata premier transfer partners. Similar to chase freedom unlimited with CSP/CSR. Or venture x with savor.
Ummm, Gary you do realize that you were making the “noise” you mention in the headline, right?
@Peter – Yes. That’s what I do. Citi points are actually the toughest for me to accrue so this combination helps. It’s even a little better with the Custom Cash added in.
@Peter
I can confirm that you are correct. And slightly better, if you are in 2 player mode P1 can transfer the Double Cash Points to P2 Strata Premier (up to 100k pts a year) and know that the Double Cash Points will be the ones that will be used. Don’t do it until you’re reeady to transfer those points to a partner, the points will go away in 3 months.
@Peter @Jim Lovejoy — That’s a decent play, then. Still waiting for Citi to bring back the Prestige (or whatever they wanna call it). Wow, only 3 months to use is kinda tight.
Chase squeezed too hard – I spent all of my points and closed all of my accounts with annual fees.
@TProphet — Cold-blooded! Prophet or profit? *wink*
Most of my domestic travel expenses are on Citi Custom Cash for 5%, international travel expenses are on US Bank Altitude Connect for 4%, and both are no AF.
Who would be an idiot to put travel or commute expenses (except air tickets) on CSR?