Chase Sapphire Reserve

Frequent readers will have noticed that almost all the US credit card reviews that I give compare the card to the Chase Sapphire Preferred at some point. In this article, I want to check out the card’s big brother, the Chase Sapphire Reserve.  This card was launched as a competitor to the Amex Platinum and has proved extremely popular over the years.  When it first came out, it was so popular that they ran out of the metal for the cards and had to use temporary plastic cards.  However, nearly 6 years later, the premium card landscape has changed. So, does the CSR still stack up?

Welcome Offer

The CSR currently has a welcome offer of 50 000 bonus points after spending $4 000 in 3 months. This is a moderate welcome bonus, and it seems to me that Chase wants people to get the Sapphire Preferred instead because the Reserve seems to consistently have a lower welcome offer recently.  50 000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points are worth a minimum of $500 when redeemed as a statement credit for general expenses, or $750 toward travel when using Chase Ultimate Rewards’ travel portal. 

Earnings

In broad terms, the Reserve earns 3x points/$ on dining and 3x points/$ on travel.  The card also earns 10x points/$ on hotels and 5x points/$ on flights booked through the Chase Ultimate Rewards portal (which functions like an online travel agency).  In Fall 2021, Chase updated the earning rates on its credit cards, but the only additions to the Reserve were the bonus points for booking through the Chase portal. 

While 3x points/$ is a decent earn rate on two very broad categories, triple points on dining is actually pretty standard for Chase cards at this point.  The Chase Freedom Unlimited (no annual fee) and the Sapphire Preferred ($95 annual fee) both also earn triple points despite their substantially lower annual fees.  In addition, the Reserve doesn’t have any other triple point categories, unlike the Preferred.

Benefits

The three main benefits of this card are: (1) a $300/year travel credit, (2) the ability to redeem points at 1.5 ¢/point towards travel through the Chase Ultimate Rewards Portal, and (3) a Priority Pass membership. Unlike the Amex Platinum card, this Priority Pass membership includes restaurants (like on The Ritz-Carlton Card).  The travel credit applies to anything that would also earn 3x points/$, which means it’s extremely simple to use, unlike the Amex Platinum’s airline incidentals credit.  Given how simple using the credit is, I’d consider the Reserve to really only have a $250 annual fee.

Authorized users can be added for an additional $75 per year and each one gets their own Priority Pass card as well.

How to use the points

The simplest way to use Ultimate Rewards Points is to redeem them for a statement credit at a rate of 1 pt = 1¢ for any purchase.  However, the major benefit of this card is that these points can be redeemed at a rate of 1 pt = 1.5¢ towards travel through the Chase Portal.  Realistically, this is the minimum value points from this card should be redeemed for.  Redeeming the points this way has the big plus of the tickets counting as revenue tickets for the purpose of earning redeemable and tier qualifying points on the airline. Just under 17,000 points/year are needed to offset the $550 – $300 annual free, when redeemed for travel at 1.5¢/point, which means the 50 000-point bonus offsets around 3 years of the annual fee, assuming the travel credit is used each year.

A more advanced technique is to transfer the Chase points to one of the transfer partners (e.g. British Airways or United), which can unlock more value out of the points.

Examples of using the card

These examples exclude any credits that come with the card.  For example, the travel budget excludes the $300 travel credit offered by the card to help offset the annual fee.

Spend per month

	Example A		Example B		Example C		Example D
Groceries (1x)	$300	300	$200	200	$600	600	$400	400
Gas (1x)	$0	0	$100	100	$200	200	$100	100
Airfare (3x)	$700	2 100	$200	600	$0	0	$400	1 200
Hotels (3x)	$1 000	3 000	$200	600	$0	0	$300	900
Gen Travel (3x)	$400	1 200	$0	0	$300	900	$100	300
Dining (3x)	$600	1 800	$300	900	$300	900	$0	0
General (1x)	$1 000	1 000	$500	500	$500	500	$400	400
Total	$4 000	9 400	$1 500	2 900	$1 700	3 100	$1 700	3 300
Average points/$		2.35		1.93		1.82		1.94

The Reserve’s broad bonus categories and solid earnings means that the average points earned is around 1.8 – 2.4 points/$, which is worth 2.7 – 3.6 ¢/$, with the valuation of 1.5¢/point for Chase Ultimate Rewards points.

Specific examples

Card	World Traveller ($750)  (% return)	Marriott Hotel night ($230/night)	Points values (WT/Hotel)
No rewards card	2 728 (4.9%)	2 200 MP (7.3%)	$37.10 / $17.60
General 1% cashback card	2 728 + $7.50 (5.9%)	2 200 MP + $2.30 (8.3%)	$44.60 / $19.90
Chase Sapphire Preferred	2 728 Avios + 1 500 UR (7.9%)	2 200 MP + 460 UR (10.3%)	$59.60 / $24.50
Chase Sapphire Reserve	2 728 Avios + 2 250 UR (9.4%)	2 200 MP + 690 UR (11.8%)	$70.85 / $27.95

Is this credit card right for you?

This card is great if you want a Priority Pass (which includes restaurants) and value the 1.5 ¢/point redemption option through Chase Ultimate Rewards. Its bonus categories are broad, which is great, but they are potentially a bit overshadowed by the recent improvements made to other Chase cards.  That being said, if you’re happy to use the Chase travel portal, this card offers big bonus point potential.  I’ve gone back and forth a bit on this card personally.  I’m not sure if it necessarily offers $155 of extra value over the Sapphire Preferred card because I already have a comparable Priority Pass through The Ritz-Carlton Card.  It’s definitely the case that the most premium travel credit cards compete directly with each other and so have largely overlapping benefits because most people don’t hold several cards with high annual fees.