Ultimate Guide to the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
The Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card is a top recommended beginner travel reward credit card and my personal favorite credit card! I think this card is a long term keeper in every household! I love Chase Ultimate Rewards points and that you can book almost any kind of travel through Chase Travel℠ or by transferring your points to other travel partners like Hyatt, Southwest, United and more!
The Chase Sapphire Preferred is the card that I started with and if I had to only have one credit card for the rest of my life, this would be the one!
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Things to know about the Chase Sapphire Preferred®:
Welcome Offer
Earn 60,000 points when you spend $4,000 in 3 months. This offer is worth AT LEAST $750 in travel but with a few tricks (like transferring your points to Hyatt) you can easily stretch those points to 2x-3x more than that!
Travel Benefits
$50 Annual hotel credit on hotel stays purchased through Chase Travel℠
No foreign transaction fees
Primary rental car insurance
Baggage delay insurance
Trip delay/interruption insurance
Redeeming Your Points & Redemption “Sweet Spots”
You get 25% more value when you redeem your points for travel though Chase Travel℠. For example 60,000 points are worth $750 toward travel when redeemed through Chase Travel℠.
HOWEVER, I usually recommend TRANSFERRING YOUR POINTS to transfer partners to get a lot more than 25% more. (You can often get 200-300% more value when you transfer to partners like Hyatt!)
Transfer Partners
I’ll say it again and i’ll say it again. TRANSFERRING YOUR POINTS is the KEY to unlocking SO MUCH MORE VALUE out of your points. There is a reason why people are OBSESSED about their travel reward credit cards and not their cash back credit cards.
You can transfer your Chase Ultimate Rewards points to 11 airline partners and 3 hotel partners at a 1:1 ratio. For example, if I transfer 20,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points to Hyatt, my points will turn into 20,000 Hyatt points. Then I can book a Hyatt stay with Hyatt points on Hyatt’s website.
Not all transfer partners are a good value and sometimes it’s a better deal to book through Chase Travel℠ than to transfer your points. However, transferring to certain transfer partners like Hyatt and Southwest are very beginner friendly “sweet spots” where you can get a lot more value out of your points.
Airline Transfer Partners:
Aer Lingus, AerClub
Air Canada Aeroplan
British Airways Executive Club
Emirates Skywards®
Flying Blue AIR FRANCE KLM
Iberia Plus
JetBlue TrueBlue
Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer
Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards®
United MileagePlus®
Virgin Atlantic Flying Club
Hotel Transfer Partners:
IHG® Rewards Club
Marriott Bonvoy®
World of Hyatt®
Ideas for Redeeming Chase Ultimate Reward Points
See this blog post for some ideas on how to redeem Chase Ultimate Reward points for maximum value! (I like to use most of my Chase Ultimate Reward points for Hyatt stays!)
Category Spending
Earn 5x points for travel booked through Chase Travel℠
Earn 3x points on dining
Earn 3x points on select streaming services
Earn 3x points on online grocery purchases (excluding Target, Walmart, and wholesale clubs)
Earn 2x points on travel booked outside of Chase Travel℠.
Earn 1x points on all other purchases
Anniversary Bonus
Each account anniversary you'll earn bonus points equal to 10% of your total purchases made the previous year. For example, if you spend $15,000 on purchases, you'll get 1,500 bonus points.
Referral Bonus
You earn 10,000 bonus points for each friend who gets the Chase Sapphire Preferred and you can earn up to 75,000 referral points per year. If you have a spouse or travel partner, I recommend REFERRING them to their own card instead of adding them as an authorized user. That way, you can both earn the welcome offer plus you will earn referral points as well!
Combining Points in Your Household
You can combine your Chase Ultimate Rewards points with one other member in your household. Sometimes you first have to call Chase to move points over and to link your accounts.
Combining Points From Other Cards
You can combine points with ANY other Chase card that earn Chase Ultimate Rewards! There are no-annual fee Chase credit cards like the Chase Freedom Flex®, the Chase Freedom Unlimited®, the Chase Ink Business Cash® Credit Card or the Chase Ink Business Unlimited® Credit Card that are advertised as cash back credit cards. However they actually earn points that can be redeemed for travel if you move your points to the Chase Sapphire Preferred! This is how you can unlock SO MUCH MORE VALUE out of your no-annual-fee Chase credit cards!
Downgrade/Upgrade Option
If you no longer want to pay the $95 after the first year, you can downgrade to one of the no-annual-fee Freedom cards and still keep the line of credit open (which will not hurt your credit score). If you downgrade your card, you will keep your Chase Ultimate Reward points but lose the ability to transfer your points to transfer partners or redeem your points through Chase Travel℠ for 25% more value. For this reason, I suggest keeping at least one Chase Sapphire Preferred open in your household!
You can also upgrade your card to a Chase Sapphire Reserve®, which has a higher annual fee but more benefits.
Sapphire Family Rules
You can only hold one Sapphire card at a time. (The Chase Sapphire Preferred or the Chase Sapphire Reserve.)
You are eligible to receive a welcome offer again on a Chase Sapphire card 48 months after receiving your last Sapphire welcome offer, as long as you are no longer holder a Sapphire card. So one option is to eventually downgrade your Sapphire card to a Freedom card and then reapply for a Sapphire card and get the welcome offer after 48 months.
Chase 5/24 Rule
I recommend opening a Chase Sapphire Preferred as one of your first cards because of the 5/24 rule. Chase will not approve you for any of their cards if you have opened 5 or more cards from ANY bank within 24 months. Read more about it here.
Bottom Line
I can’t recommend the Chase Sapphire Preferred enough! It is an amazing all around travel credit card and very beginner friendly!
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FREE Beginner’s Guide to Points and Miles
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