Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card is amongst the most recognized travel credit cards in the market. It offers a wide range of benefits and has a fair number of takers in the market. It suits any individual with good or great credit and has a fair amount of travel expenses.
This credit card has an extensive rewards program, and the points don’t expire as long as the account stays open and in healthy condition. This credit card offers 5X points on purchases made through Chase TravelSM, 3X points on select dining and streaming services, 2X points on general travel purchases and 1X points on all other purchases. Each 100 points translate to $1 in cash value and $1.25 in Chase TravelSM purchase value. For example, let’s say you spend an average of $1,000 per month towards Chase TravelSM, $1,500 per month towards streaming, dining and groceries, $1,000 per month towards general travel expenses and $3,000 per month for all other purchases. This would total to around $6,500 per month of expenses and would earn you a total of 174,000 points annually. This equates to a cash value of $1,740 and a Chase TravelSM purchase value of $2,175. However, Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card also offers a 10% annual bonus on the points earned, so you would have an extra 17,400 points bonus at the end of the year. Therefore, the cash value would be $1,914 and Chase TravelSM purchase value would be around $2,393. So, this credit card definitely would give you value in terms of the points you can earn.
You also get a welcome bonus of $60,000 points after you spend $4,000 in purchases within the first 3 months of account opening. This again equates to $750 worth of rewards when redeemed through Chase TravelSM or $600 cash value. You will also get certain partnerships benefits like 5X points on lyft ride purchases or Peloton Purchases through March 31, 2025, which are nice add-on perks.
It is important to note that this card comes with an annual fee of $95 (Rates and Fees) and no promotional APR benefits. The APR can range from 20.49% - 27.49% (Rates and Fees). This is an important detail especially for individuals who may have to carry a balance on the card month to month. This is because the rewards one can earn would only be valuable if it exceeds the yearly interest and annual fee costs. For example, if one carries an average balance of $4,500 month to month, then the yearly interest plus annual fee cost could be approximately $1,040 at the low end of the APR range and around $1,355 at the high end of the APR range. The rewards earned would need to be higher than that to justify having this credit card.
So, who is it good for?
If you are a frequent traveller with a very good credit profile, then you have a lot of potential to make the best out of this credit card, as you can rack up 5 times or 2 times the points on your purchases, making your reward value much better compared to the fees you pay.
If you are an existing Chase customer with either a Chase bank account, a credit card like Chase Freedom Unlimited® or both, then Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card would be a good addition to the wallet as you can combine the points of the 2 cards to create an elevated value.
Who is it not good for?
If you are an existing Chase customer with a different Chase Sapphire card like Chase Sapphire Reserve® . This is because one cannot avail the benefits of this card if they already have a Sapphire product as per Chase policies.
If you expect to collect the points majorly from purchases on dining or groceries and want the card for some rare travel expenses, then this card may not be the best option as you have other cards who offer bigger cashbacks and rewards on such category expenses.
If you expect to carry a significant balance on the card month to month, then the interest expenses may offset the earned rewards.
All information about Chase Sapphire Preferred® credit card has been collected independently by Credit Ready. This credit card is no longer available through Credit Ready.