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Chase Sapphire Preferred: BiggerPockets Review
Sep 24, 2020
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This card has long been a favorite among frequent travelers—and people who play the miles and points game—thanks to its valuable perks and substantial signup bonus.
Chase Sapphire Preferred is a travel credit card, often compared against its cousin, the Chase Sapphire Reserve. Preferred comes with a $95 annual fee (compared with $550 for the Reserve) and offers less substantial but still impressive travel perks.Â
Cardholders earn two points for every dollar spent on travel and dining—so if you’re a real estate investor who travels frequently for work or leisure, or if you entertain clients or colleagues, this could be a good fit. And Chase’s definition of “travel” with respect to earning points is quite generous here: For instance, you’ll earn at this rate for parking expenses as well.Â
All other purchases earn one point per dollar. There’s also no foreign transaction fee.
Preferred also comes with some newish perks that might appeal to investors on the move: Lyft rides earn five bonus points per dollar (in addition to the two standard points for this travel purchase). And the card comes with a membership to DashPass, DoorDash’s premium subscription service (typically $9.95 per month).
Quick facts
- The Chase Sapphire Preferred credit card comes with a substantial 60,000 bonus points on sign-up—equivalent to $750 in travel when redeemed through the Chase Ultimate Rewards Portal.
- There’s a $95 annual fee, which is much less than the Chase Sapphire Reserve at $550, for lesser but still hefty travel benefits.
- There’s no foreign transaction fee for this travel-focused card.
- The card earns two points on travel and dining purchases, or one point per dollar on other purchases.
- Preferred comes with some new perks, including a subscription to DoorDash’s premium service, DashPass.
CURRENT SIGN-UP BONUS
The current sign-up offer is 60,00 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first three months after opening your account. It’s equivalent to $750 toward travel when redeemed through the Chase Ultimate Rewards portal. You’re eligible to receive it if you don’t have a Sapphire card and haven’t received a new cardmember bonus for any Sapphire card in the past 48 months.
CREDIT REQUIREMENTS
People with good to excellent credit are likely to get approved. Apply with a minimum credit score in the high 600s, though approval for this card is less strict than for Chase’s Sapphire Reserve for which you might need a minimum credit score in the low 700s.
PROS
- Chase Sapphire Preferred comes with a hefty sign-up bonus, worth $750 in travel.
- You get major travel perks with this card, even though the annual fee is a somewhat modest $95—a far cry from the $550 annual fee of the Sapphire Reserve.
- There’s no fee to add additional users onto this card.
- The card comes with extra perks like free enrollment in DashPass, DoorDash’s subscription service, for at least a year.
CONS
- If you’re not traveling now due to the pandemic, you won’t get the most out of the card’s main benefit in normal times: travel perks.
- While the $95 annual fee is small compared to Chase’s Sapphire Reserve card, it still amounts to an expense some might choose to avoid with a low- or no-fee card.
- This card doesn’t offer an introductory APR.
The stats
- APR: 15.99 to 22.99 percent
- Annual fee: $95
- Balance transfer fee: $5 or five percent of the amount of each transfer, whichever is more
- Foreign transaction fee: $0
The rewards
With Preferred, cardholders earn one point per dollar spent, or two points for purchases made on travel and dining. You’ll also earn three additional points on qualifying Lyft rides (through March 31, 2022). You can redeem points for an array of available reward options, including cash and gift cards—though the highest value is in transferring points to travel partners or redeeming points for travel purchases made through the Chase Ultimate Rewards portal.
When you redeem for cash, each point is worth one cent (so, 100 points equals one dollar). However, when booking travel through the portal, each point is worth 25 percent more—$0.0125—and that’s how you’d get $750 toward travel through the 60,000 sign-up bonus currently offered.
Points don’t expire as long as the account remains open.
What BiggerPockets users say:
Forum users generally praise Chase’s popular Sapphire cards as a way to earn miles and points. While the Reserve earns more travel perks, the Preferred comes with a fraction of the annual fee.
“Chase Sapphire Reserve is my #1 recommendation” for a card that earns travel perks, says BiggerPockets forum user Cee Small. “But if the annual fee scares you, then go for the Chase Sapphire Preferred.”
Aaron McGinnis adds, “If you get a personal Sapphire or Sapphire Reserve card with Chase, and transfer your business points to that card, you can get a heck of a lot of value out of the points for travel.”
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