After earning 4,000,000+ points and redeeming for more than $130,000 in free travel, we’ve learned a thing or two about optimizing credit card rewards.
When we started with travel rewards in 2021, one of our first decisions was which Chase Sapphire card to get. I went with the premium Chase Sapphire Reserve®, while Sandra (aka Zuzu) opted for the more budget-friendly Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card.
Over the years, we’ve put both cards through their paces, and we’ve got real insights to share.
So which Chase Sapphire card is right for YOU?
That’s what this guide is all about—helping you decide which of these fantastic cards deserves a spot in your wallet.
Sapphire Preferred vs Reserve: TL;DR
Take 5 or more trips per year? Get the Sapphire Reserve. Less than 5? Get the Sapphire Preferred… probably.
Why? The Sapphire Reserve just has a ton more travel benefits than the Sapphire Preferred. If you travel much, the benefits easily outweigh the higher annual fee.
I think frequent travelers can get a ton of value from the Reserve: $300 travel credit, lounge access, best in class travel insurance, 3x travel earnings, better Chase Travel Portal perks, TSA/Global Entry credit…
My simple rule of thumb is this: if you take five trips or more per year, all these extra travel benefits make the Sapphire Reserve a better choice than the Preferred.
Except… there’s a HUGE Welcome Bonus for the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card going on right now. It’s enough of a difference that I’m temporarily changing my “5 trips” rule to more like an “8-10 trips” rule. The increased bonus is that big of a deal.
Even if you take fewer trips, the Reserve still might be the better choice, but it might not be as much of a slam dunk.
Chase Sapphire Preferred:
- Great award travel starter card
- $95 annual fee
- LIMITED TIME: 100k point welcome bonus (spend $5k in 3 months)
- Points worth 1.25 cents each through Chase Travel
- Solid travel protections
- Good for occasional travelers (fewer than 5 trips per year)
- Great if your regular travel partner has the Sapphire Reserve
- Click here to apply
Chase Sapphire Reserve:
- $550 annual fee
- $300 annual travel credit (effectively reducing fee to $250)
- 60k point welcome bonus after spending $5,000 in 3 months
- Points worth 1.5 cents each through Chase Travel
- Airport lounge access and premium travel protections
- Better for frequent travelers (5+ trips per year)
- Click here to apply
Don’t miss out! The 100,000 point welcome bonus for the Chase Sapphire Preferred is the highest offer we’ve ever seen and won’t last forever. If you’ve been considering getting into the points and miles game, now is the perfect time to start!
That’s the short version of how to pick between the Chase Sapphire cards! Keep reading for our detailed comparison and our real travel experiences with these cards.
We’ve Got Both Sapphire Cards
When I decided to dive into credit card rewards a few years ago, I went straight for the Chase Sapphire Reserve even though it has (what seems like) a crazy high annual fee.
I did waaaaay too much research (that’s just how I am) and I realized that the airport lounge access and enhanced travel benefits would be worth the higher annual fee.
Zuzu, who rarely travels without me, chose the Chase Sapphire Preferred as her first rewards card. It had a lower annual fee and some different benefits vs the Sapphire Reserve.
If you’re not an advanced points and miles person, the Preferred can be a fantastic gateway into the world of (almost) free travel.
After holding both cards for several years now, we’re in a unique position to compare them directly based on our real experiences.
Annual Fee Comparison
Let’s start with the most obvious difference. That $455 Annual Fee difference looks massive at first glance.
Chase Sapphire Preferred: $95 annual fee
Chase Sapphire Reserve: $550 annual fee
But here’s where the math get interesting…
Chase Sapphire Reserve Automatic $300 Credit
The Chase Sapphire Reserve includes a $300 annual travel credit that’s automatically applied to the first $300 in travel purchases each year. Since we’re all travelers here, you’ll almost certainly use this credit without even thinking about it.
Our annual travel budget is usually around $4-8k. That’s our budget for ALL of our out of pocket costs and it’s easy to get full use of that $300 travel credit.
That brings the effective annual fee of the Sapphire Reserve down to $250.
Chase Sapphire Preferred $50 Portal Credit
While the Preferred offers a $50 annual credit, it’s not as easy as the Reserve’s $300 credit. You have to book a hotel stay through the Chase Travel Portal to get the $50 Preferred credit. It’s not automatically applied to all travel like the Reserve’s $300 credit.
And honestly, we’ve never used it. We’ve never booked a hotel via the Chase Travel Portal.
If you do use the Preferred’s $50 credit, your effective annual fee is only $45. But for us, we do our analysis based on the full $95 annual fee.
So the real comparison becomes: Is the Reserve worth an extra $155 per year compared to the Preferred?
For some travelers (like me), that answer is yes. For others (like Zuzu), that answer is no.
Welcome Bonus Comparison
Here’s where the Chase Sapphire Preferred currently has a big advantage:
Chase Sapphire Preferred: 100k points after spending $5k in 3 months
Chase Sapphire Reserve: 60k points after spending $5k in 3 months
The Preferred’s 40,000-point advantage is significant!
Wonder how you can spend $5k on a new credit card in just 3 months? Download our free eBook with 14 pages of our best secrets!
This 100k point welcome bonus is historically high and available for a limited time only. It could go away at any time, so if you’re considering this card, NOW is the time to apply for the Sapphire Preferred. The usual welcome bonus for the Preferred is 60k points, same as the Reserve.
When redeemed through Chase Travel, those 100,000 points are worth $1,250 in travel. The Reserve’s 60,000 points are worth $900 through Chase Travel.
So right off the bat, the Preferred gives you at least an extra $350 in travel value just from the welcome bonus.
Real World Points Value
We transfer nearly all of our Chase points to Hyatt. Based on over 50 redemptions, we have historically gotten a 3.7 cents value per point since we started tracking our use of Hyatt points in 2021.
We’ve visited 13 All Inclusive resorts in Jamaica, Cancun & the Caribbean in just 4 short years. Almost all have given us outsized value from our Chase points and it’s incredible to check out with a $0 balance!
But you don’t have to take 2-3 beach trips every year like we do to get incredible value from Chase points.
We also love to use our Chase points (transferred to Hyatt) for trips to big football games!
Zuzu & I are huge Tennessee Vol football fans. We love going to games, but hotel cash prices get jacked up when there’s an extra 101,915 folks in town to cheer for the Vols.
For instance, last time we played that team from Alabama, cash rates for the Hyatt Place in downtown Knoxville skyrocketed up to $1,699 per night!
We’d never pay that much cash for a hotel, but we used 12,000 Chase/Hyatt points per night for a room there. Each Chase point was worth… holy cow: over 15 cents!
And we got to pregame and celebrate our win with thousands of other VOL fans in the heart of Knoxville.
When you’re getting that kind of value from your points, the difference between the annual fees on these 2 cards is pretty insignificant.
Earning Rates Comparison
Both the Sapphire Preferred and the Sapphire Reserve cards earn valuable Chase Ultimate Rewards points, but with different bonus categories:
Chase Sapphire Preferred:
– 5x points on travel purchased through Chase Travel
– 3x points on dining, select streaming services, and online grocery purchases
– 2x points on all other travel
– 1x points on everything else
– 10% anniversary points bonus on your total annual spend
Chase Sapphire Reserve:
– 10x points on hotels and car rentals through Chase Travel
– 5x points on flights through Chase Travel
– 3x points on all other travel (after the $300 credit) and dining
– 1x points on everything else
Both cards also currently offer 5x bonus points on Lyft rides.
For most everyday spending, the Sapphire Preferred actually offers as good or better earning rates compared to the Sapphire Reserve, especially with the 3x on streaming services and online groceries and the annual 10% points bonus.
Sapphire Preferred is Better for Groceries
Since we almost always travel together, we seldom use the Chase Sapphire Preferred for travel-related expenses. But most people don’t know that the Chase Sapphire Preferred has a bonus category for online grocery shopping, which pays 3 points per $1 spent.
The trick that’s not common knowledge is that most grocery store mobile apps allow you to put your Chase Sapphire Preferred in their wallet as a payment option. So when we use Kroger Pay in-store at checkout, we always get 3x per dollar because it qualifies as online grocery payment, even though we’re physically inside the store at the cashier.
That’s a pretty sweet hack for everyday spending!
Redemption Value Comparison
If you book travel though the Chase Travel Portal, there’s a key difference between these cards:
Chase Sapphire Preferred: Points worth 1.25 cents each through Chase Travel
Chase Sapphire Reserve: Points worth 1.5 cents each through Chase Travel
This means 10,000 points would be worth:
– $125 in travel with the Preferred
– $150 in travel with the Reserve
That 0.25 cents per point difference adds up quickly when you’re redeeming large amounts of points.
But here’s the thing… we rarely use the Chase Travel Portal.
Both cards allow you to transfer points at a 1:1 ratio to the same 14 airline and hotel partners, including favorites like Hyatt, Southwest Airlines, and United.
In our experience, transferring to partners (especially Hyatt) almost always provides the highest value for your points.
When we transferred Chase points to Hyatt for our stay at the Park Hyatt New York, we got a value of 4.3 cents per point! That’s why we almost always transfer our points rather than using the Chase Travel portal.
While there have been a few times that we used the Chase Travel Portal, I’m pretty sure that 4.3 is better than 1.5, lol.
Premium Travel Benefits
Beyond the annual fee and points, the biggest differences between these cards are in their travel benefits:
Chase Sapphire Preferred:
- $50 annual hotel credit through Chase Travel
- No foreign transaction fees
- Access to The Edit by Chase Travel (special hotel benefits)
- DoorDash benefits: DashPass subscription and monthly credits
- Click here to apply
Chase Sapphire Reserve:
- $300 annual travel credit
- Priority Pass Select membership (airport lounge access)
- Access to Chase Sapphire Lounges
- Up to $120 statement credit for Global Entry/TSA PreCheck every 4 years
- No foreign transaction fees
- Enhanced benefits with The Edit by Chase Travel
- Enhanced DoorDash benefits with additional monthly credits
- 4 free roadside assistance service calls annually
- Click here to apply
Airport Lounge Access with Sapphire Reserve
Airport lounge access is one of the biggest perks that sets the Reserve apart.
On our one week trip to Germany and Switzerland, we had a pretty long layover at LaGuardia airport in NYC. There’s a fantastic new Chase Sapphire lounge at LGA where we ate, drank, and relaxed in comfort during our five-hour wait for our flight home to Nashville.
You don’t get access to any airport lounges with the Sapphire Preferred. But Zuzu gets in lounges for free when she travels with me. The Reserve allows 1 or 2 guests to come in for free with the cardholder.
International Travel: Better with Sapphire Reserve
I really like that I don’t have to worry about foreign transaction fees when I use the Chase Sapphire Reserve card on our international trips. And there are usually airport lounges that we can get into in foreign countries.
At the Punta Cana airport, there are actually two SWIMMING POOL lounges that you can get into with the Sapphire Reserve which overlook the runway! Those are some of the most Instagram-worthy airport pictures that you will ever see.
One Disappointment with the Reserve
Every year, I do the math to decide if we’ll keep the Reserve. Every year, the math says it’s worth keeping. But it’s not perfect.
I don’t think it’s coming back, but there used to be a Priority Pass restaurant benefit with the Chase Sapphire Reserve. At our home airport of Nashville, there was a pretty good restaurant in terminal C where we could get $56 of free food and drink anytime we were in the airport, thanks to my Sapphire Reserve.
The food was really good, and it was super convenient to get a good meal before our flights. Unfortunately, they canceled that benefit last year. It would be great if they brought it back because that was easily worth $500 every year to us.
Chase, are you listening??
Travel & Purchase Protections
Both cards offer valuable travel protections, but the Reserve edges out the Preferred in several categories:
Trip Delay Reimbursement:
– Preferred: Coverage begins after a 12-hour delay
– Reserve: Coverage begins after only a 6-hour delay
Auto Rental Insurance:
– Both offer primary coverage
– Preferred: Doesn’t cover expensive or exotic cars
– Reserve: Covers some expensive and exotic cars with higher coverage limits
Purchase Protection:
– Preferred: Up to $500 per claim
– Reserve: Up to $10,000 per claim
The Chase Sapphire Reserve® also offers these additional protections not available on the Sapphire Preferred:
– Emergency medical and dental coverage (up to $2,500)
– Emergency evacuation coverage (up to $100,000)
Fortunately, we’ve never had to use the CSR’s trip delay or purchase protection. But it sure is nice to know it’s there if we get a significant delay.
COST to ENJOYMENT Ratio
When we finally got to travel, we came up with our own Cost to Enjoyment Ratio. It’s how we measure how much enjoyment we squeeze out of every dollar we spend.
While our Cost to Enjoyment Ratio doesn’t apply as directly to credit cards as it does to trips and resorts, you’ve got to have one of these 2 Sapphire Cards (or the Business Ink Preferred card) to use Chase Ultimate Rewards points.
You can kind of look at the annual fee as the Cost of Entry into the points and miles game. The Preferred is $95 per year and the Reserve is only $250 once you factor in the automatic $300 annual travel credit.
Since we average over $30,000 of free travel each year from points and miles, those annual fees are pretty easy to swallow. We’re getting much more Enjoyment from the annual fee COST than from most anything we’ve ever done.
Who Should Get the Chase Sapphire Preferred?
The Preferred is likely the better choice if:
- You take fewer than 5 trips per year
- You’re new to travel rewards and want a lower annual fee
- You want the larger welcome bonus (which could end any day now)
- You already have lounge access through another card or airline status
- You value the 3x points on streaming and online groceries
- You don’t care about airport lounge access
- Click here to apply
Who Should Get the Chase Sapphire Reserve?
The Reserve makes more sense if:
- You take 5 or more trips per year
- You value airport lounge access
- You’ll use the Global Entry/TSA PreCheck credit
- You redeem lots of points through the Chase portal (for the 1.5x value)
- You want the strongest travel protections available
- You’ve had trip delays in the 6-12 hour range before
- You spend heavily on travel and dining
- Click here to apply
The Bottom Line: Would We Choose These Cards Again?
Absolutely YES.
The Chase Sapphire cards have been the foundation of our entire points and miles strategy, allowing us to travel more than we ever thought possible.
For most people just starting out with travel rewards, we recommend the Chase Sapphire Preferred. Its lower annual fee makes it an easy choice, and the limited-time 100,000-point welcome bonus is an incredible value.
But if you travel at least 5 times per year, the Chase Sapphire Reserve’s benefits will easily outweigh the difference in annual fees.
Remember, Chase only allows you to hold one Sapphire card at a time, and you can’t earn a welcome bonus on a new Sapphire card if you’ve received a Sapphire welcome bonus in the past 48 months. So choose wisely!
Ready to Get Started with Travel Rewards?
If you’ve been thinking about getting into points and miles to enjoy luxury travel like we do, there’s never been a better time than now. The 100,000 point welcome bonus on the Chase Sapphire Preferred is historically high and likely won’t stick around for long!
Use our links below to apply and we’ll both win!
- Chase Sapphire Preferred – Our top recommendation for most people with the limited-time 100,000 point bonus
- Chase Sapphire Reserve – The best card for frequent travelers who’ll use the premium benefits
Why We’re Sharing This With You
So what’s the catch? Why are we giving you all this info for free?
If you get a new credit card after clicking through one of the links here or on our website, we’ll earn a referral bonus from the bank.
Most of the credit card companies like Chase have a refer-a-friend program. In this case, if you get one of these Chase Sapphire credit cards after you click through our link to apply, Chase will give us 10k points.
If you go to the Chase website directly & don’t go through our link, you’ll still get the same card with the same bonus, but Chase won’t give anyone that referral bonus.
So our help is free to you because (hopefully) you’ll apply through our links and the banks will pay us a referral fee. Thanks for helping us get more free travel!
Important Disclaimer
I know the Internet makes everything look great 100% of the time but credit cards are NOT always for everyone.
There was a time in our lives where we probably would have gotten trouble with credit cards. Here are 4 times when you should NOT get a credit card:
1) If you’ve got a significant amount of consumer debt, pay that off before you get a new credit card.
2) If you can’t (or won’t) pay off your entire credit card balance (not just the minimum) every month, do not get a credit card.
3) If having a credit card will make you spend more than you would have with cash or a debit card, do not get a credit card.
4) If you’re planning to buy a house &/or get a new mortgage in the next few months, don’t get a credit card.
But if you’re at a point in your lives where you can ALWAYS pay off your credit card in-full, on-time every month, you can unlock INCREDIBLE VALUE by learning from what we’ve done in the past few years.
Ready to Travel More for Less?
Have you decided which Sapphire card is right for you? Or do you have questions about how to choose? Email us at wegettotravel@gmail.com and we’ll help you make the best decision for your situation!
Ross & Zuzu
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