Chase Sapphire Preferred Card Review: A Travel Rewards Staple With 60,000 Bonus Points

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Chase Sapphire Preferred®

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• Our Rating 5/5 How our ratings work
• APR21.49% - 28.49% (Variable)
• Annual Fee$95
• 60,000 60,000Chase Ultimate Rewards Points More Info

  Earn 60,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening. Dollar Equivalent: $1,380 (60,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards Points * 0.023 base)

The Chase Sapphire Preferred Card is one of the gold standards for earning travel rewards. It starts you off with a generous sign-up bonus, and then continues to offer strong value by allowing you to earn points on all travel and dining expenses.

One of the Best Travel Rewards Card for Beginners and Experts Alike

The Chase Sapphire Preferred® is one of the gold standards for earning travel rewards through credit card spending. This credit card provides strong value with double points on all travel and dining expenses, generous travel insurance benefits and various purchase protections. The Sapphire Preferred card is a great starter and mid-tier credit card with a built-in upgrade path within Chase’s family of Ultimate Rewards® travel benefits. When taking your travel rewards game to the next level, you won’t have to start from scratch with an entirely different credit card and rewards program.

Sign-Up Bonus

The Chase Sapphire Preferred offers one of the best credit card bonuses on the market.

New cardholders can earn 60,000 bonus points after using their new credit card to spend $4,000 within three months of account opening.

Right off the bat, this bonus is worth $750 when redeeming points to book travel through Chase Ultimate Rewards. However, it's possible to squeeze even more value out of this bonus if you know the best ways to redeem your points. Our points and miles guide estimates that Chase Ultimate Rewards points are worth an average of 2.3 cents per dollar when redeemed for travel. That means this bonus could potentially be worth $1,320 or more if you can find a way to redeem your points for their maximum value.

How to Earn Rewards

Chase broadly defines travel to include not just airfare, hotels and rental cars, but expenses like parking, tolls and public transit too.

The Chase Sapphire Preferred earns Ultimate Rewards points at the following rates:

• 5x points per dollar spent on all travel booked through Chase Ultimate Rewards
• 3x points on dining, including eligible takeout and delivery services
• 3x points on select streaming services
• 3x points on online grocery purchases, excluding Target, Walmart and wholesale clubs
• 2x points per dollar spent on other travel purchases
• 1x point per dollar on all other spending

You’ll also get an annual bonus of Ultimate Rewards points equal to 10% of your total spend from the previous year. For example, if you spend $10,000 on purchases, you'll get 1,000 bonus points.

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How to Redeem Rewards

There are many ways to use the points earned from holding the Chase Sapphire Preferred credit card. These are some of the best uses. 

Transfer to Travel Partners

The flexibility of this card really shines through when you begin redeeming your rewards for travel. According to our points and miles valuation guide, Ultimate Rewards points are worth 2.3 cents each, making them some of the most valuable currencies in the rewards ecosystem. 

This card belongs to Chase’s elite family of Ultimate Rewards-earning credit cards, with points that transfer to around one dozen global airline partners and three worldwide hotel partners. 

Book Travel via the Ultimate Rewards Portal

If you prefer simplicity, you can also book your travel directly through the Chase Ultimate Rewards travel center and earn a 25% value boost. The ability to redeem Chase points at 1.25 cents per point is a benefit specific to Chase Sapphire Preferred customers.

You can combine points from another Ultimate Rewards-earning credit card, such as the Chase Freedom^®, to also increase their value by 25% when redeeming for travel booked through your Sapphire Preferred portal.

Pay Yourself Back

Suppose you purchase travel directly through an eligible merchant using your Sapphire Preferred. In that case, you can also pay that expense directly from your stash of reward points using Chase’s Pay Yourself Back feature. 

Statement Credit

You can apply your Ultimate Rewards points toward your monthly statement balance, which is converted at a rate of one cent per point.

Gift Cards or Purchases on Merchant Sites

You can also use your points in other ways, such as by purchasing gift cards or magazine subscriptions. 

Whenever possible, save your Chase Ultimate Rewards points for high-value travel redemptions instead of using them toward Amazon purchases or similar expenses. As a good rule of thumb, you should use cash when the value of your purchase exceeds the comparable value you could get from the points. 

For instance, a $125 flight would cost you 12,500 Ultimate Rewards if redeemed at a one-cent-per-point value. If you can get the $125 flight for just 10,000 Ultimate Rewards points, that would make the points more valuable. 

When in doubt, use our Points or Cash calculator to help you decide whether to pay for a purchase in cash or points.

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Transfer Airline Partners

The Chase Ultimate Rewards program gives you access to all three major airline alliances in the United States and several major international carriers. 

Ultimate Rewards airline partners include:

• Aer Lingus
• Aeroplan/Air Canada
• British Airways
• Emirates
• Flying Blue (Air France/KLM)
• Iberia
• JetBlue
• Singapore Airlines (KrisFlyer)
• Southwest
• United Airlines
• Virgin Atlantic
  

Rewards Potential

In 2021, the average American household spent about $33,000 annually on everyday purchases, $10,000 on hotels and flights and $7,000 on dining out, according to data from Personal Capital.

If you put all of these expenses on the Sapphire Preferred, here’s how many Ultimate Rewards points you could earn each year: 

• Up to 50,000 points from travel (2x points per dollar on travel if purchased directly from the airline or hotel, or 5x points per dollar when purchased through Chase Travel)
• 21,000 points from dining (3x points per dollar on dining out)
• 33,000 points (1x per dollar on all other expenses)

This potential grand total of 104,000 Ultimate Rewards points per year is further boosted by the 10% bonus on your $33,000 annual card spend, which would give you an additional 3,300 Ultimate Rewards points. 

Your 107,300 Ultimate Rewards points are worth a minimum of $1,341.25 when redeemed for award travel through Chase’s travel portal.

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Card Benefits and Perks

In addition to great travel rewards per dollar spent, you can access the following benefits by holding the Chase Sapphire Preferred:

• Trip cancellation/interruption insurance
• Rental car collision damage waiver
• Purchase protection
• Extended warranty protection
• Baggage delay insurance
• Trip delay insurance

Hotel Benefits

Every year on your anniversary, you’ll earn a $50 annual credit automatically applying to your statement when you purchase a hotel stay through the Ultimate Rewards portal. 

Hotel Partners

Ultimate Rewards hotel transfer partners include:

• Hyatt
• IHG
• Marriott

Drawbacks

Besides having to pay an annual fee, there really aren’t many drawbacks to this credit card. If you don’t want to pay an annual fee, the Chase Freedom Flex℠ is a no-annual-fee card with similar earning categories in the Ultimate Rewards family but does not come with as many benefits. 

Annual Fee

The Chase Sapphire Preferred has an annual fee of $95. 

This card can easily help the average American household earn more than $1,300 in travel rewards per year, just by charging everyday expenses to this card—and that’s even before factoring in the initial sign-up bonus.

Furthermore, the annual fee covers several soft benefits such as complimentary travel insurance, a top-shelf perk that many premium credit cards don’t even offer. 

Interest APR and Other Fees

Depending on your creditworthiness and several other factors, Chase charges a 21.49% - 28.49% (Variable) APR. As always, we highly recommend paying off your account balance in full monthly to avoid high interest rates from credit card debt.

The Chase Sapphire Preferred does not charge foreign transaction fees, making this a great credit card to keep in your wallet on international trips. 

Recommended Credit Score

The Chase Sapphire Preferred is a mid-tier travel rewards credit card, and Chase is most likely to approve applicants with good to excellent credit. If you want to add this credit card to your wallet, we recommend having a minimum credit score of 670 before applying. 

It’s worth noting that Chase has a unique and unofficial rule for all credit card applicants, informally called the “5/24 rule” by people in the know. If you opened five or more new credit cards from any issuers within the last 24 months, Chase is likely to deny your application no matter what. 

So if you have great credit but have been denied for recently opening too many credit cards, consider waiting a few months—and hold off on applying for other cards—before trying again. 

Comparing the Chase Sapphire Preferred Credit Card

The Sapphire Preferred is one of several mid-tier travel cards with an appealing $95 annual fee plus solid travel and dining-related benefits. This section compares a couple of competitor cards and Sapphire Preferred’s “older brother.”

Sapphire Preferred vs. Sapphire Reserve

If you spend a lot on dining and travel every year, you might consider the Preferred’s big brother instead. The Chase Sapphire Reserve® has a $550 annual fee. Still, it includes several premium perks, including free Global Entry and/or TSA PreCheck, Priority Pass lounge access, earns 3x points per dollar on dining and travel, plus a $300 annual travel credit that helps offset some of the steep annual fee.

If that still sounds too much to spend for a credit card, don’t worry—the Sapphire Preferred is a perfectly adequate travel card for most travelers, especially if you already have other cards in your wallet offering complementary benefits. 

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Sapphire Preferred vs. Citi Premier

The Citi Premier® Card, from our partner Citi, is Citi’s competition for the Chase Sapphire Preferred, with the same $95 annual fee and similar perks for spending. The Premier slightly outperforms the Preferred on everyday spending categories, with 3x Citi ThankYou Points per dollar at supermarkets, gas stations and restaurants, and hotels and airlines. 

The ability to earn on gas and groceries, coupled with the $100 annual hotel credit, make the Premier a great card to consider if you’re an infrequent traveler who would like to earn rewards on everyday expenses to offset costs for an annual trip or two. It all comes down to personal preference and whether you’d use ThankYou Points more consistently than Ultimate Rewards. 

Sapphire Preferred vs. Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card

Thanks to numerous TV commercials (“What’s in your wallet?”), Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card may be one of the best-known travel cards in the market. The reward scheme on this card is incredibly simple: You earn 2 miles per dollar on every purchase regardless of the category and 5 miles per dollar on hotels and rental cars booked through the Capital One travel portal.

This card is great for travelers who don’t want to consider earning categories and prefer to keep a single card in their wallets for any situation. You can transfer Capital One miles to several airline and hotel partners or use them to “erase” travel purchases on your credit card statements.

Who Should Get the Chase Sapphire Preferred?

The Chase Sapphire Preferred is a fantastic card for just about any traveler who wants a solid everyday card in their wallet that earns Chase Ultimate Rewards. However, you might want to consider another Chase card if you want to avoid an annual fee. And you should skip this card in favor of the Sapphire Reserve if you want a premium travel credit card since you can’t hold both the Preferred and the Reserve simultaneously. 

Editor's Top Pick

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Frequently Asked Questions

• What credit score do you need for the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card?

  While there isn’t an official credit score requirement for the card, most online affiliates estimate that you’ll need “good” to “excellent” credit scores. As a rule of thumb, higher credit scores are more likely to be approved.

• How many Chase Ultimate Rewards Points do you need for a flight?

  You’ll likely need between 10,000 and 40,000 points for a free one-way economy flight booked through Ultimate Rewards Travel. You’ll need even more points if you want to fly mixed class, premium economy, or business class for free.

  Bear in mind that the amount of points you’ll actually need for a free ticket will depend on an airline’s variable pricing factors, such as the destination, time of day, date of travel, and demand, to name a few. Also, you can redeem points for outsized value by transferring your Ultimate Rewards to a Chase travel partner, but the average number of points you’ll need varies widely depending on the transfer rate and a specific airline’s rewards schedule.

• How do I avoid the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card’s annual fee?

  You can avoid the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card’s annual fee by being an active duty service member or by simply asking the issuer to waive the fee. For eligible service members, Chase will need to confirm your military status, which is typically done during the initial application process. Otherwise, if you choose to call Chase customer service, your agent may offer a one-time waiver for the annual fee. In some cases, they may offer you a statement credit equal to the amount of the annual fee. Keep in mind that Chase is under no obligation to grant you an annual fee waiver.

• What is the minimum credit limit for Chase Sapphire Preferred Card?

  Chase will evaluate your credit report and, if approved, will assign you a limit based on your creditworthiness. The minimum credit limit for the Chase Sapphire Preferred is $5,000, according to Chase’s terms and conditions. The issuer does not publish the maximum credit limit an applicant will receive after approval. However, anecdotal accounts from cardholders online report access to limits between $10,000 to as much as $20,000.

• Is the Chase Sapphire Preferred worth it?

  The Chase Sapphire Preferred is a great fit for travelers who want well-rounded benefits, perks and travel protection without spending a high annual fee. This credit card ushers you into the Chase Ultimate Rewards loyalty program, allowing you to earn points that can be shared and pooled with rewards from various other rewards cards in the Chase family.

• Is the Chase Sapphire Preferred hard to get?

  Chase is most likely to approve applicants who have good to excellent credit. If you’re applying for the Chase Sapphire Preferred, we recommend having a minimum credit score of 670.

• Why is the Chase Sapphire Preferred so popular?

  The Chase Sapphire Preferred provides travel insurance, generous rewards with bonus categories for earning, flexible rewards and easy redemption opportunities, all for a low annual fee.