7 Reasons Chase Sapphire Preferred is Better than Chase Sapphire Reserve

For many years now the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card has been probably the most popular rewards credit card out there in the market and for good reason – until now the card is still very relevant. It earns 2x points per dollar on dining and travel; if you’re someone who travels a bit and dines out with any kind of frequency, you can actually earn a lot of points in those two categories year after year.

However, the Chase Sapphire Reserve® sort of stole the spotlight from the Chase Sapphire Preferred a couple of years ago when it introduced 3x points earning on dining and travel, $300 travel credit, priority pass membership and other benefits. But, the Chase Sapphire Reserve comes with an annual fee of $550. So even though the Sapphire Reserve might be very popular now; let me give you 7 reasons why the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card might be better for you than the Chase Sapphire Reserve®.

1- Higher Welcome Bonus

Both cards used to offer the same exact welcome bonus of 50,000 points after spending $4,000 in the first 3 months. However, the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card is offering an increased welcome bonus of 60,000 points after spending the same $4,000 in the first 3 months. So you might as well get the Sapphire Preferred with the high bonus, and if you need in the future, you can always product change and upgrade to the Chase Sapphire Reserve®.

2- New to Points and Miles

 If you’re new to the points and miles world and more specifically new to Ultimate Rewards Points, with a $95 annual fee instead of $550, you can get the best out of your Ultimate Rewards Points. The Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card is the card with the lowest annual fee that allows you to transfer your Ultimate Rewards Points to travel partners to get the maximum value out of your points. No annual fee cards like the Chase Freedom and Chase Freedom Unlimited are only cash back cards except when mixed with a Chase Sapphire Card or the Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card. On top of that, if you’re not into researching award availability, the Sapphire Preferred gives you the option to use those points to book travel through the Chase Travel Portal at 1.25 cents per point value – giving the welcome bonus a minimum value of $750. The only benefit of the Sapphire Reserve over the Sapphire Preferred in this area is that you can use the points at 1.5 cents value instead of 1.25. In my opinion, you get the best value when transferring to partners, so the Sapphire Preferred is good enough for that with a $95 annual fee instead of $550 for the Sapphire Reserve.

3- Add an Authorized User

If you’re looking to add authorized users on your card, authorized users are free to add on the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card and they’ll also earn the same 2x points per dollar on dining and travel. However, adding an authorized user on the Chase Sapphire Reserve® will cost you $75 per user. Keep in mind that with the Reserve, besides having the authorized users earn 3x points per dollar on dining and travel, they’ll also get their own Priority Pass Membership just like you do as the Primary User. So that’s something to think about if you’re looking to get a Priority Pass Membership and have your authorized user get their own membership as well. Which brings me to reason number 4.

4- Don’t Want Priority Pass

If you have Priority Pass membership from other cards like the Platinum Card from American Express or the Citi Prestige, then you might not want to add another membership. However, the Priority Pass Membership that comes with Chase Sapphire Reserve® gives you access to the Priority Pass airport restaurants where the Priority Pass Membership that comes with the Amex Platinum doesn’t. 

5- Your Credit Score or Income

Generally speaking the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card is easier to get approved for than the Chase Sapphire Reserve®. The reason is The Sapphire Preferred is a Visa Signature Card, while the Sapphire Reserve is a Visa Infinite Card. Why does this matter? It matters because the Visa Infinite requires a minimum credit limit of $10,000 while the Visa Signature only requires a minimum of $5,000. So if your credit score is not stellar or your income is not enough, you may not get approved for a $10,000 credit limit.

6- Don’t Spend Much on Travel and Dining

Maybe you don’t really spend that much on dining and travel throughout the year. Or you have other great cards that earn a lot of points on those categories. Two cards that beat the Sapphire Reserve last year is the new American Express Gold and the Citi Prestige Card. The American Express Gold now earns 4x on dining and the Citi Prestige earns 5x on dining. So let’s say you use the entire $300 travel credit every year leaving you with $250 out of pocket for the annual fee on the Sapphire Reserve, you’d be paying $155 more per year compared to the Sapphire Preferred. In order to cover that cost by earning triple points on dining and travel, you’d need to spend $9,117 on dining and travel every year to earn enough points to cover that difference between the Reserve and the Preferred – that’s using a value of 1.7 cents per point on Ultimate Rewards Points.

7- Annual Fee

The last reason you might want to pick up the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card over the Chase Sapphire Reserve® is simply not wanting to pay the $550 annual fee. Even though you have to pay the $550 upfront, you get $300 in travel credit which is pretty much as good as cash even for people who don’t really travel much since the definition of travel here is very broad and covers things like Uber, parking lots, trains and of course airfare and hotels and many other categories. But for some reason some people still shy away from the card just from hearing $550 annual fee – which is understandable. In this case the Sapphire Preferred is better since the annual fee is only $95.

Bottom Line:

Long term, I think the Chase Sapphire Reserve® provides more value especially when you factor in the $300 in travel credit which pretty much knocks down the annual fee from $550 to $250. But, right now it makes total sense to get the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card with the extra 10,000 points welcome bonus. After a year or two, you can always upgrade to the Sapphire Reserve. Chase made it difficult to apply for both cards and earn the bonus on both since you can’t apply for one if you have the other. And you also can’t earn the bonus even if you don’t have a sapphire card anymore but earned the bonus on any of the Sapphire cards within the last 48 months – that’s 4 years. So basically, the best approach to switch between cards is by calling Chase to product change.

This analysis doesn’t take into consideration the new Lyft and Doordash benefits based on my personal opinion that they’re not very useful and I most likely won’t be using them at all so they basically provide zero value to me. Right now with the Chase Sapphire Preferred you’ll get unlimited deliveries with a $0 delivery fee and reduced service fees on orders over $12 for a minimum of one year on qualifying food purchases with DashPass, DoorDash’s subscription service as long as you activate by 12/31/21. You’ll also earn 5X points on Lyft rides through March 2022. That’s 3X points in addition to the 2X points you already earn on travel.

The Chase Sapphire Reserve also added one year complimentary Lyft Pink ($199 minimum value). And complimentary DashPass subscription from DoorDash after activating by 12/31/21.