Is the Chase Sapphire Reserve Still Worth It in 2022

 

Is the Chase Sapphire Reserve Still Worth It in 2022?

the chase sapphire reserve is the hottest credit card of 2016 that's the year it came out and still a card loved by many has just increased 

Its welcome bonus from 50 000 points up to 60 000 points so i thought it would be a great time to go through all the benefits of the sapphire reserve ask the question is the chase sapphire reserve still worth it in 2022 

So first let's talk about the welcome bonus which is now 60 000 points now this card was launched back in 2016 with a 100 000 point welcome bonus 

Which was really really high at the time no other cards really were doing 100 000 points bonus at that time 

I doubt though we're gonna see a 100 000 point bonus anytime soon because this card has actually lost money for chase the launch of the card cost between 200 and 300 million dollars although 

It was so successful that ceo jamie dimon did famously say that he wished the launch had cost chase more money but now it's the time for the sapphire reserve to bring in the bucks for chase 

Now that they've done all that customer acquisition and a lot of people have the card for several years it's kind of laid low you haven't really heard that much from it and it's just had a 50 000 point welcome bonus but now it seems that there are some signs of life in the chase sapphire reserve camp 

They have increased the welcome offer finally now 60 000 is a strong offer you might be able to find 70 000 through certain links okay if you kind of dig you could wait for an 80 000 public offer 

But i think you might be waiting a long time personally all right now let's go through how you earn points on the card then we'll look at redeeming points for maximum value and then finally we'll go through all the credits that 

This card gives you and the expected value from the points so you can see how much this card is actually costing you per year 

So the earning categories have changed a little bit since this card was released but not actually that much so first up we have five points per dollar on flights but through chase travel 

Now this is to compete with amex platinum which gives you five points per dollar on flights booked directly through airlines and through the amex travel portal 

Now obviously with chase they made it just through their portal so technically not as good but if you can find tickets that are the exact same price on the chase travel portal 

As they are on the airline's website then technically it's the same there's really no disadvantage of booking through the travel portal you can still enter frequent flyer numbers and get all your airline benefits even 

If you book through the travel portal it's not like hotels where you often lose out on all that then also 

If you use points to pay for some of a flight let's say half and you pay the rest on your chase sapphire reserve card that also counts as travel portal so you get five points per dollar on that half that you paid for with the card 

Next we have 10 points per dollar when booking hotels and car rentals through chase now even though this is a great rate i have to warn you that with hotels most of them will not recognize your hotel status if you have it 

If you book through a third party portal okay and chase shows up as expedia in the hotels system so for example if you have marriott gold and you booked say the w hotel in dc through chase and i'm speaking from personal experience 

Here they will not upgrade you to a nicer room or you won't get any of your other benefits from your gold status now there is a luxury hotel and resort collection though on the chase sapphire reserve similar to the fine hotels resorts collection with amex 

I've never used it but you should get some additional benefits which might make up for the fact that you can't use your hotel status through the portal then 

We have 10x on car rental and i have similar concerns with that however it does seem that with national my favorite car rental company and the one that the sapphire reserve gives you executive status with it doesn't matter 

If you book through the portal your executive number is linked to your driving license all right 

So it actually still realizes that you are executive status and you can pick any car you can get the upgrade from mid size to full size etc apparently with avis and hertz you can't do that 

If you book for a portal that's just what people on the internet say next the card earns three points per dollar on travel in general so air tickets booked directly through airlines ubers trains subways etc 

This was always the biggest selling point for me for the sapphire reserve when i lived back in new york city you buy a subway pass every month that's like 150 or something now with inflation 

You're getting 3x on that and then obviously ubers taxis you do a lot of that when you live in a city then we have 10 points per dollar on chase dining 

This is also kind of limited because it's only going to be so many restaurants in certain cities 

If you live out in the countryside like me you're basically screwed all right there's going to be nothing to book through chase dining but hey perhaps i could use 

It on vacation go to vegas or something book a nice restaurant through chase dining who knows then you have three points per dollar on regular dining now this was great at the time 

When it launched but now that is beaten by the annex gold 4x on dining it's matched by the city premiere and it is beaten by the city custom cash that's 5x on dining 

If it's your biggest spending category of the month however that one is limited to 500 a month then yeah 500 i mean that could be one meal basically a classy restaurant so on the dining side 

There is now a lot of competition but hey it's still a solid rate and then obviously you're going to earn one point per dollar on everything else 

All right in a second we are going to talk about how to redeem sapphire reserve points for free travel but first of all if you're interested in getting the sapphire reserve or any other credit card for that matter 

It is really in your interest to protect your credit score and your identity because if you have your identity stolen or write your social security number etc people can set up credit accounts in your name and that can really tank your credit score and

It can lead to missed payments and all that kind of stuff and it takes a long time to sort out an identity theft is the fastest growing crime in america today with one new victim every 14 seconds 

Now i had my facebook password stolen and a load of my pages stolen with hundreds of thousands of followers that was bad but if someone got hold of my social security number 

It would be even worse they could open credit cards in my name and loans and things like that

so how do you redeem points with the chase sapphire reserve well the easiest way is you can redeem points at 1.5 cents per point in value through the travel portal for air tickets and hotels now the only car that 

I can think of off the top of my head that does this at this great rate is the u.s bank altitude reserve that's also 1.5 cents per point through their travel portal but on that card you can only use the portal 

You don't have any other choices for high value redemptions however on the sapphire reserve you do 

So you can use the pay yourself back feature to pay yourself back for purchases on the card within the past 90 days at 1.5 cents per point the categories you can do this in are currently dining airbnb select charities 

The annual membership fee and this is great because if you just redeem the points as cashback you'd only get one cent per point now these categories run until june 30th 

When they will change to something else or maybe they'll be extended who knows and then there's another big way that you can use points and that is with transfer partners chase has 14 transfer partners 11 airlines and three hotels 

Now it may not be as much in quantity as other card issuers but there are some really good quality ones in there for airlines i like to use british airways to book ba club suite business class to the uk or american airlines for domestic flights 

Here in the us then there's united which is very useful here in the us they also have jet blue which a lot of people like and then there's singapore airlines which is a partner you can get a lot of value out of with 

Their singapore suites for hotels hyatt is a partner of chase where you can get really great value per point i've booked many hyatt properties and got two cents per point or more in value 

So there are some really great transfer partners that you can use right next let's move on to other benefits namely the credits that you can use to offset the card's 550 dollar annual fee 

Now this annual fee used to be 450 it was then raised to 550 in january 2020 but then because of the coronavirus pandemic they backtracked until i think it was the end of 2020 maybe it's the end of 2021 I don't remember 

But anyway it is now 550 again now first of all we have a 300 travel credit which refunds you for any travel it doesn't have to be booked through the chase portal so even travel 

You know subways and stuff would count the only travel credit i can think of that is easier to use would be the altitude reserve from u.s bank because their travel credit is valued for travel that's also valid for dining 

So it's kind of like an everything credit so that travel credit takes the annual fee from 550 down to 250 okay 550 minus 300 and then we have a 10 per month or 120 per year go puff credit go puff is a service that delivers grocery items as well as alcohol 

Then we have a five dollar per month or 60 dollar per year door dash credit so if we add these two in as well uh that then takes us down to 70 

But there is more let's look at first year value because in the first year or actually any year but it's only once every four years so most people use it in the first year you get a 100 credit for global entry slash tsa pre-check or nexus 

Nexus is a card that lets you enter uh between canada and the us and so yeah most people use that in the first year so we'll subtract that too and you also get a welcome bonus which is currently 60 000 points 

Which would be 900 in value through the portal we'll use the portal figure because if you use it through airlines we really don't know what value you're getting out of it okay your mileage may vary 

It's up to each person um so if we subtract both of those you actually have a first year value positive 930 dollars you're basically getting paid 930 to get 

This card and then each year after that you would have a annual fee of basically 70 effectively but just remember that the go puff credit and the door dash credit they are temporary 

They might last i think it's still the end of 2024 um but they'll probably replace them with something anyway so i think you can probably count on there being some kind of credit right because the trend with credit cards seem to be going towards 

You know having some kind of ridiculous number of credits to offset the annual fee that you might not use but if you do it's a really good deal so we've shown you that the first year 

Is basically three or actually 930 in profit and then you actually pay 70 a year after that what do you get for that though in terms of benefits well the really big benefit apart from the point earning is that you get unlimited priority pass lounge access through the sapphire reserve and in addition to that 

You get some car rental statuses uh the main one that i use i think it's just one i don't i'll put it on screen anyway but the one 

I really like is the national car rental which is a visa infinite benefit um you can get basically executive status with national car rental means you can pick any car in the executive area 

I've had really nice ones i've had a jeep grand cherokee i've had an audi i've had a chrysler a lot of really nice cars 

So the chase sapphire reserve is definitely competitive however it is not as competitive as it once was i would say on price it is beaten by the new capital one venture x which gives you a lot of the same benefits 

More okay lounge access you get unlimited priority pass and they just added plaza premium lounge to it and the annual fee on the capital one venture x is it's actually effectively zero okay it's a 395 

But then it's got a 300 travel credit through capital one okay admittedly not quite as easy to use as the chase travel credit and then also in the first year you get global entry etc 100 credits 

So you're up five dollars and then after that every year you get a ten thousand mile anniversary bonus which is worth at least a hundred dollars depending how you use it 

So technically you're up five dollars after that every year as well so it's going to be free every year and you're getting priority pass and plaza premium lounge caveat of that card though is that the point earning categories aren't as good and you can't redeem points for 1.5 cents per point through a portal 

You can however transfer to airlines then the amex platinum will beat the sapphire reserve on the extensive lounge access it provides i'm not going to reel off every single lounge

It provides it gives you hilton gold and mario gold but the sapphire reserve beats both of those cards on its point earning rates and the fact that it's easily combined with the no annual fee chase freedom flex card for 5 on certain categories each quarter 

Then you also have the 1.5 cents in value per point through the portal which neither of those two cards have so it is a great card for redeeming points a good card for earning points and on benefits it still holds its own 

But it's not amazing the only two major benefits that i use are the national car rental and the priority pass lounge access now you may wonder whether 

I still have the card or not obviously i do have the physical card right here but i actually downgraded this to a chase freedom now don't think that means that 

It is bad i did consider keeping it i even went as far as got a retention offer for 150 thought about it and then decided to cancel in the end and that was really just because i'd already opened up the amex platinum 

Now i really wanted the mx platinum because i wanted marriott gold status i wanted centurion lounges etc and i just couldn't justify having two cards with annual fees that high 550 and 695 open at the same time 

In general I say just one tier four that's what i call these high level credit cards tier four um high level credit card per person is enough because otherwise you're just doubling up right you end up doubling up on lounge lounge access car rental statuses etc 

So there's actually kind of no point in having more than one but if you do like the benefits of the reserve okay maybe certain transfer partners that you like the 1.5 cents per point through the portal is really great it's still a great card to have.

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