Chase Sapphire Preferred

The Chase Sapphire Preferred is Chase’s mid-level travel opportunity card. Not everyone wants to spend $550 a year on the Reserve to the Sapphire Preferred offers a nice in between of luxury high end travel cards and free no annual fee cards.

Please review the Chase Ultimate Rewards Points overview before applying.

Sign Up Bonus + Annual Fee

The Chase Sapphire Preferred typically offers a signup bonus of 60,000 Chase Ultimate Reward points (UR) after spending $4,000 over the first 3 months. However, the card is currently increasing their offer to 80,000 points for the same minimum spend.

Review

The Chase Sapphire Preferred is my go-to card for redemptions on the Chase Travel Portal, or for using my points on transfer partners. Despite this being a premium card, it is very rare that I would recommend using it for purchases outside of airfare, for insurance, or baggage for insurance purposes. This card earns 2x on travel and food, but the free Freedom cards, both the Freedom Unlimited and Freedom Flex earn 3x on food. If the Preferred is your core Sapphire card in the “Trifecta”, make sure you only use it on things that code as travel.

Who is this card for?

I wouldn’t recommend this card to someone who takes a flight at more than once or twice a year. This is a great card for someone who wants to take a short single annual trip some with lower costs.

The Sapphire Reserve offers a lot of benefits that people who travel often benefit from; however, if you’re only traveling once a year at most it might be hard to value those benefits. That’s where the Sapphire Preferred comes in; you don’t get lounge access or travel credits, but you do gain an elevated valuation of UR points at 1.25 cents per point, and you do get the opportunity to transfer your points to transfer partners. The Preferred is a good alternative for people who can’t justify the higher $550 annual fee of the Sapphire Reserve.

The Chase Sapphire Preferred has several downgrade options. You could downgrade to the no annual fee Chase Sapphire card. Other downgrade options include the Chase Freedom Unlimited or Chase Freedom Flex cards, which also have no annual fee.

Multipliers

• 2x on travel purchases (flights, cruises, hotel stays, etc.)

• 2x on dining (restaurants, bars, delivery services, etc.)

• 1x on everything else

Luxury Hotel & Resort Collection

The Chase Sapphire Preferred has great benefits when it comes to elite hotel offerings. The card comes with benefits of the Luxury Hotel & Resort Collection, which is a grouping of over 1,000 hotels, resorts, lodges, and spas across the world. Benefits of booking a stay at a resort through the Luxury Hotel & Resort Collection is similar to having high status at one of the main hotel groups, such as Hilton, Marriott, Hyatt, or IHG.

Booking at a location at the Luxury Hotel & Resort Collection gives you daily breakfast for two, a unique gift worth up to $100, free wifi, a room upgrade based on availability, and early check-in and late check-out. The unique gift varies based on resort, but is typically one of the following: a resort credit, dinner for two, a spa treatment, golf fee waivers, a welcome gift, or airport transfers. Besides the special gift, these benefits are similar to having high status at Hilton or Marriott, meaning this free benefit is a great way to have “status” without actually staying at a particular hotel brand for multiple weeks a year. As shown below, when searching for a room via the Luxury Hotel & Resort Collection, you can see all of the benefits you will receive when using your Chase Sapphire Preferred at the hotel.

Keep in mind that a resort at the Luxury Hotel & Resort Collection is typically not the least expensive option at your destination, but could be worth it if you are looking to splurge on accommodation for a day or two, it’s a special occasion, or if the above benefits outweigh the additional cost. Considering the special gift worth up to $100 is a per-stay benefit and not a per-day benefit, you can get the most value from the Luxury Hotel & Resort Collection by staying at the resort for shorter stays rather than longer stays.

25% More Redemption Value on Travel

Once you accumulate some Ultimate Rewards points, you’ll likely want to start using them. There are several ways to use them, although one of the best and easiest ways to use them is through Chase’s Travel portal. Using the portal, you can book travel without having to transfer points to a partner airline or hotel first. A benefit to booking directly through Chase’s Travel portal is the fact that you receive 25% additional value on your points. The 25% additional value can be used on Chase’s Travel portal for flights, hotels, vacation rentals, rental cars, cruises, and tickets (including theme parks, tours, specialty dinners, and experiences).

For example, on the flight shown below, the cash price is $38.41. Typically, the amount of points you would need to use to buy the flight would be 3,481 or a 1:1 value. However, with the Chase Sapphire Preferred’s 25% additional redemption value on travel, you only need 3,072 Ultimate Rewards points, a savings of 409 points as compared to purchasing the flight without Chase’s Travel portal.

Booking with Chase’s Travel portal to receive 25% bonus is not always the best method in terms of value, but considering the ease of use and extra value, is the go-to method for many people. Another popular method for redeeming Ultimate Rewards points is through transferring to airline or hotel partners, and is described in the below section.

1:1 Transfer Partners

Besides using Chase Travel portal’s 25% additional redemption value for travel, the other popular method for redeeming your Ultimate Rewards points is to transfer directly to an airline or hotel partner. This does require some extra work on your end in order to make sure you are receiving the best value for your points. When you see the words “1:1 transfer partner”, you might initially think that this is a worse deal than the Chase Travel portal, but you will need to do some basic math to make that determination for yourself. Check out the Ultimate Rewards points guide for an example of using transfer partners.

Chase will allow you to transfer your Ultimate Rewards points directly to one of the above airlines or hotels at a 1:1 rate, meaning transferring 60,000 points to Emirates will give you 60,000 Emirates Skywards miles. Transfers to one of the partners typically happens instantaneously, although it is good to double check this if you are looking to book a flight or hotel really quickly.

In order for transferring to a Chase travel partner to be worth it compared to booking through the Chase Travel portal, you need to get at least 1.25 cents per point when comparing a particular flight or hotel from its cash price to points price. You can find this out by doing two searches for a flight on a the airline’s website: one using cash, and one using miles/points. Typically the cash price will be one amount, which includes the base price of the flight/hotel and any additional fees or taxes. Meanwhile, the miles/points price will typically show a miles/points amount in addition to a separate cash amount for fees or taxes. Using the below formula will separate the cash amount and miles/points amount, which makes it easy to calculate the Cents per Point. If the Cents per Point value is about 1.5, then it is worth it to transfer to the airline or hotel to book your flight or stay. Otherwise, using the Chase Travel portal is the better deal.

In the below example, the United flight would cost either $346.80 using cash, or 33,000 miles + $11.20 using United miles. The cents per Point value is calculated by subtracting the cash portion of the miles flight ($11.20) from the cash flight ($346.80), which comes out to $335.60, and dividing this value by the mileage portion of the miles flight (33,000). This comes out to $0.0102/point, or 1.02 cents per point. Since this is less than 1.25 cents per point, it is preferable to use the Chase Travel portal to book this flight, which would only cost 27,744 Ultimate Rewards points.

This does take more time than simply using the Chase Travel portal, but can save you lots of money if you put the effort in. Typically, the Cents per Point value is highest on business/first class airfare and higher-end hotels, but this isn’t always the case. Because of this, it is worth it to double check each time before booking.

DoorDash DashPass Membership

Lyft

Peloton Credits

Car Rental Insurance

Sapphire Preferred cardholders receive free auto rental collision protection. At the time of renting the car, simply decline the rental company’s collision insurance (even if they strongly suggest you don’t do this), and have the entire purchase charged to your Chase Sapphire Preferred. Doing this will give you primary coverage and provide theft and collision damage insurance for rental cars worldwide.

Travel Insurance

If something happens while you are on a trip, it is good to have travel insurance. If it falls under the category of covered instances, you would be covered by simply using your Chase Sapphire Preferred for your purchase.

Before you go on a spending spree for lost luggage or one of the items that appears to be listed here or on the benefits page, please call Chase customer service to be sure that your situation will be covered.

Shopping Insurance

The Chase Sapphire Preferred might not have good multipliers for purchase for things on eBay or websites that you might not trust, but sometimes, it is worth it, due to the card’s extended warranty and purchase protection. These benefits allow you to extend the warranty on certain purchases, and also covers stolen or damaged purchases. Every case may have varying results, and it is important to pay attention to Chase’s terms and conditions.

Summary

The Chase Sapphire Preferred is Chase’s mid-tier personal travel credit card, and offers a great variety of benefits. These include the Luxury Hotel & Resort Collection access, DoorDash DashPass membership, various insurance, transfer partners, access to the Chase Travel portal, and great multipliers on travel. With a small annual fee of $95 and a huge signup bonus, this is a great card!

If you think this card would be a good fit for you please consider using our referral link below.