Chase Sapphire Reserve vs Chase Sapphire Preferred
Which one makes sense for you?
Intro
You’re an aspiring bum. You’ve been loading up on Chase Biz cards for a while now, and you’re cruising your way to $10K/Y credit card rewards by sticking to the quarterly plans. You’ve mastered several manufactured spending methods and you eagerly refresh your inbox in anticipation for a new BowTiedBum Substack post.
At some point in our journey, every aspiring bum has to make a decision:
Chase Sapphire Preferred or Chase Sapphire Reserve?
While each person ultimately has to make sure their own decision, I’m going to discuss the pros and cons of each card, and help you make an informed decision.
You’ll definitely want to hold one of these as they allow you to transfer points to hotel and airline partners and allow you to book travel via the Chase Travel portal (although at different rates).
Let’s start with a recap of each card.
Chase Sapphire Reserve
I remember when this card came out like it was yesterday. Back in 2016, it was insane to think that any credit card was offering a 100,000 point signup bonus. This was one of the first credit card offers to go viral, and for good reason. It came with a huge signup bonus, lots of benefits, high earning categories, and a generous $300 travel credit that helped offset the annual fee.
This was the card that really got me seriously interested in this game. I went down a rabbit hole and the rest is history.
Annual Fee: $550
Yes, this is a massive annual fee. Although forget that number for a second. It comes with a $300 annual travel credit that is super simple to use. Any travel charge up to $300 per anniversary year will automatically be credited up to $300. I doubt there’s a single reading this who doesn’t normally spend $300 on travel purchases a year…So I consider the annual fee to be $250.
(See picture from Chase site below, stating what types of travel purchases that they will credit and note that gas is excluded)
Again, when I think of the CSR, I consider the effective fee to be $250.
Spend Categories
3X on dining & travel
This doesn’t really matter. If you’ve been playing this game for a while, you’d know that it doesn’t really ever make sense to put dining or travel spend on this card. Instead, put it on your Citi Premier for 3X ThankYouPoints and earn an additional 5X Chase UR points by paying off the balance with your CIC/Fluz.
5X on Flights purchased through the Chase Travel Portal
Again, we don’t care. Better to book your flight on any website with your Citi Premier for 3X ThankYouPoints and earn an additional 5X Chase UR points by paying off the balance with your CIC/Fluz (that is if it doesn’t make more sense to transfer your points to an airline partner and book that way).
10X on hotels and car rentals purchased through the Chase Travel Portal
If for some strange reason you’ve been reading BowTiedBum for a while and still spending money on hotels, this 10X rate could come in handy. Same with rental cars. For every $1,000 spent on hotels/car rentals in the Travel Portal, you’d earn 10,000 UR points, which would be worth $150 in the Travel Portal.
If you spend a decent amount of money in either category each year, this can help offset the fee and justify holding this card verse the CSP.
10X on Lyft
This one is definitely worth it for me. Once I max out the Amex monthly credits on Uber/UberEats, I exclusively use Lyft, and use my CSR to pay. The CSR also comes with two year complimentary access to Lyft Pink, which is a godsend when it’s raining or you’re at the airport, as you get priority pickup. Just like the hotel/rental car 10X, for every $1,000 spent on Lyft, you’d earn 10,000 UR points, which would be worth $150 in the Travel Portal.
Benefits
$300 Travel Credit
As mentioned above, this is extremely easy to use and you don’t have to signup or do anything extra. It’s automatic. In my eyes, these are purchases I would have made otherwise, so I view the effective CSR annual fee at $250.
Free Priority Pass and Sapphire Lounge Access
This is a huge deal for us, and this benefit alone easily justifies the annual fee for me. I mostly travel internationally (not a flex) and the Priority Passes tend to shine on for international terminals.
For example, last year I visited the Cancun Airport Priority Pass Lounge and brought my wife, father-in-law, and daughter for free with my single Priority Pass membership. The lounge featured a sit-down restaurant and full open bar.
If you get drinks and lunch or dinner for you and your family, lounge access can often save me $100+ each way!
DoorDash DashPass Subscription and $5 monthly credit
Don’t really care about this one. Don’t use DoorDash a lot, but can help offset your annual fee by $60 if you use it.
Global Entry/TSA Precheck $100 credit
Global Entry/TSA Precheck are a must for any aspiring bum, and there’s no excuse to not have it if you have the CSR. That said, you can only get the credit once every 4 years, so doesn’t make a big dent in the annual fee.
One year of free Instacart+ and $15 monthly credit
Don’t use this, but can help offset the annual fee by $180 if you use Instacart.
1.5X Redemptions via Chase Travel Portal
We can book flights/hotels in the Chase Travel Portal at a rate of 1.5 cents per point. For example, if a hotel costs $300, we can use 20,000 points to book it.
Chase Sapphire Preferred
This card is like the CSR’s little brother. A watered down version, suitable for those newer to the game. Better for those that want a simpler, lower annual fee card…And for those that don’t want to stress about maxing out the benefits to justify the fee.
Let’s have a look:
Annual Fee: $95
This annual fee should be pretty easy for all bums to offset.
Spend Categories
3X on dining, online grocery purchases, and select streaming purchases
Again, we don’t care about any of this. We’ll simply use our Citi Premier for 3X ThankYouPoints on dining and Citi Double Cash for 2X ThankYouPoints and earn an additional 5X Chase UR points by paying off the balance with your CIC/Fluz.
2X on Travel
See above. We don’t care.
5X on Lyft
See above. We don’t care.
5X on Travel purchased through the Chase Travel Portal
Doesn’t matter. We’ll simply use our Citi Premier for 3X ThankYouPoints on travel and earn an additional 5X Chase UR points by paying off the balance with your CIC/Fluz.
Benefits
$50 Ultimate Rewards Hotel Credit
Very straight forward and easy to use. You get $50 in hotel credits for hotels purchased through the Chase Travel Portal each anniversary year.
10% Annual Points Boost
Not terribly exciting. This essentially adds 0.1% to your points earning each anniversary year, so you’d earn 3.1% on dining, 2.1% on travel, etc. This ultimately does not make a big difference.
DoorDash DashPass Subscription
Don’t really care about this one. Don’t use DoorDash a lot, but can help offset your annual fee if you use it.
Six Months of free Instacart+ and $15 monthly credit
Don’t use this, but can help offset the annual fee by $180 if you use Instacart.
1.25X Redemptions via Chase Travel Portal
We can book flights/hotels in the Chase Travel Portal at a rate of 1.25 cents per point. For example, if a hotel costs $125, we can use 10,000 points to book it.
Who CSR is For
The CSR is for any bums that plan on hitting this game hard and are willing to max out the benefits. Since we’re all earning a ton of Chase UR points with our CIC’s, the CSR allows us to cash them out at 1.25X with Pay Yourself Back or book travel at 1.5X in the Chase Travel Portal.
Are you well versed in MS? (You all should be after a few months). If so, you’ll be able to take serious advantage of the PYB feature and easily justify the cost of the annual fee.
Personally, I’m going to keep the Chase Sapphire Reserve open forever, as I really love the ability to cash out at 1.25X and get better redemptions in the travel portal. Also, since I travel mostly international (not a flex) the lounge access pays for itself.
For me the CSR is a forever hold and I don’t plan on ever closing it or downgrading.
Who the CSP is For
The CSP probably makes more sense for the more casual bums or newbies. The annual fee should be able to easily be offset for any bums their first year. If you want to take things slow and take some time to figure out this game before committing to the CSR, the CSP is a great option.
Making the Math
At the end of the day, this all comes down to a math equation for each of us, so let’s nerd out for a minute.
The CSP AF is $95.
The CSR effective AF is $250 (after $300 travel credit).
This means that the effective CSR AF is $155 higher than the CSP AF.
In order to justify getting the CSR over the CSP, we need to get an additional $155+ of value from it.
Again, for me, I easily get much more than $155 a year in value from the lounge access alone. But let’s look at ways other members would get over $155+ in additional value per year:
If you spend $3,100 or more each year in Lyft rides, hotel/car rentals booked through Chase Travel Portal (or a combination of the two) you’ll save $155 right there (difference between earning 5X with CSP and 10X with CSR)
If you spend $6,200 or more each year on flights in the Chase Travel Portal, you’ll save $155 there (difference between redeeming at 1.25X with CSP and 1.5 with CSR).
The biggest factor in determining whether to get CSP or CSR will be how well you can make PYB work.
If you can put $6,200 of MS on grocery or gas stations each year, the CSR is worth it. This is extremely doable and should be a goal for anyone that wants to get a ton of value from this game.
Conclusion
There’s no one-size-fits all approach here. You simply need to do what works best for you. Note that although you can only get a SUB for either card once every four years, you can always product change the card after a year. For example, if you get the CSP and then get really good at MS and think you can get more value out of the CSR, you can simply send Chase a secure message after holding the card for a year and switch.
Long term, every bum should have one of these cards and will want to hold onto it forever.
Good luck, and feel free to ask questions in the Slack Group.
Disclaimer: None of this is to be deemed legal or financial advice of any kind.