New Chase Sapphire Reserve

Redesigned Sapphire Reserve

There have been a lot of changes around the Chase Sapphire Reserve. The most significant change is the increased cost of $795 a year. We will break down the changes here so you can decide if this card is right for you.

This card was my favorite travel card for a long time because the credits and earnings were extremely flexible and reliable. The annual $300 travel credit is amazing and has not changed It is applied automatically and credits your account for travel purchases. My lifestyle is setup so that this card is the linked card for EZPass, ParkMobile, and is my go to card for all parking garages.

They have made a massive overhaul to the way points are accrued with this new system. The changes are detailed here:

New	Old
8x Points on Hotels through Chase Travel	10x Points on Hotels through Chase Travel
8x Points on Rental Cars through Chase Travel	10x Points on Rental Cars through Chase Travel
8x Points on Flights books through Chase travel	5x Points on Flights books through Chase travel
4x Points on Flights booked directly through airlines	3x Points on Flights booked directly through airlines
4x Points on Hotels booked directly through provider	3x Points on Hotels booked directly through provider
1x All other travel	3x All other travel

This card doesn't have the coupon book feel of other premium travel cards but some of these credits are more difficult to use than they should be. With that being said you will likely want to devalue some of the credits when calculating your own effective cost.

The Sapphire Reserve is offering a ($500) $250 semi annual statement credit for bookings made with The Edit. You will also enjoy complimentary benefits such as a $100 property credit, daily breakfast for 2, and the ever elusive room upgrade. There is a 2 night minimum to use this credit and in doing a quick search across a couple of different cities, the hotels are regularly expensive enough that if you were looking at them to start with, the $250 credit is a nice afterthought rather than a driving factor. Don't get me wrong, there are some deals to be had, but they are few and far between. Another small caveat is the booking will not earn points and with the price of these rooms and the negligible effect of the $250 credit you may be better off doing something different.

While the credits for booking hotels isn't the easiest to use, the $300 dining credit should be very simple. This credit breaks down into one $150 credit semi annually. Assuming you live in a reasonably large city, you should have plenty of options across a wide variety of food genres to chose from. Most of these restaurants aren't fast casual but they are certainly in the realm of a normal date night.

There is a $120 Dash Pass Membership that I will call useful but give it even value. I don't personally use DoorDash that frequently, but this pays for it in its entirety so, I am getting value for it whenever I use it. Would I have DashPass if it wasn't for this credit? No, but again its essentially free.

For DoorDash there is another $300 dollar credit that breaks down to $25 a month. There is a large caveat here though. Only $5 of that $25 can be used for food only purchases. The other $20 is broken down into two separate $10 credits each month to be used on groceries, retail orders and other non restaurant purchase.

A great carry over from the original card is the Lyft credit which provides a $10 per month credit up to 120$ per year. These credits unfortunately do not roll over month to month so if you don't use it, they will be forfeit.

A new credit for this Sapphire Reserve refresh is the $250 Apple TV+ credit which also includes apple music. If you are a person who already pays for Apple TV+ and/or Apple music this is no brainer.

$120 yearly Peloton credit is one that I just don't get any value from. Not only does this does not cover the current cost of the lowest membership $12.99 a month, that membership doesn't include full access for the bike, rower, or treadmill functionality. You may have a use case for this but personally I do not include this in my effective cost calculations at all.

New for the refresh is a $300 StubHub credit ($150 statement credit semi annually). I haven't used Stub hub very frequently, but this one has a good deal of potential if you frequent events and at the very least could help reduce those ridiculous fees that get assessed for tickets.

A great benefit of the Chase Sapphire Reserve is the lounge access. You get a Priority Pass membership, which on its own can be a great value if you factor in the cost of paying for food and beverages in an airport. But Chase has also been rolling out Sapphire Lounges that should rival AMEX Centurion lounges, though to day there aren't as many.

My final thoughts on this card are mixed. The $795 is a lot of money, but you only need to find $495 worth of value since the $300 travel credit is so easy to use. The $250 Apple TV+ credit and the $300 dining credit should be reasonably easy to get value from. With those credits alone this card pays for itself with my use case. Will it work as well for you? See our article on credit card effective costs.