Non-affiliate disclosure: all information about this card has been collected independently by the US Credit Card Guide and has not been reviewed by the issuer.
2023.6 Update: The offer is lowered from 80k to 60k. It seems the 90k offer in branch is still alive according to DoC, but we don’t know when it will end. [Update] The 80k link is magically alive again. HT: Doc.
2023.4 Update: The online offer is now 80k.
2023.3 Update: There’s a 90k offer, in branch only for now.
Offer Link
Benefits
- 80k offer: earn 80,000 Ultimate Rewards (UR) points after spending $4,000 in the first 3 months. The recent best offer is 100k.
- We estimate that Ultimate Rewards (UR) points are worth about 1.6 cents/point, see below for a brief introduction. So the 100k highest sign-up bonus is worth about $1,600!
- If you have this card, you can transfer your UR points to partner airline miles and hotel points.
- Points earning rates:
- [New] Earn 5x UR points on travel booked through the Chase Travel portal.
- [New] Earn 3x on dining, select streaming services and online grocery (excluding Target, Walmart and wholesales).
- Earn 2x UR points on other travel purchases. Chase is known to be quite flexible with their definition of travel and includes merchants such as Uber and some public transportation.
- Earn 1x UR point per dollar spent on all other purchases.
- [New] $50 Annual Hotel Credit per cardmember year. Must be booked through UR portal. New cardmember can use this credit now. Existing card members should be able to use it after their card anniversary.
- [New] 10% bonus points per year. After card anniversary, you will be given 10% bonus points based on the total spend on your Sapphire Preferred card in the last year. For example, if you spend $30k in total, you will get 3k bonus points.
- “Pay Yourself Back”: you can redeem UR points for statement credits against existing purchases in select, rotating categories, at a fixed rate of 1.25 cents/point. You can also use your UR points at a fixed rate of 1.25 cents/point on the Chase UR travel portal. However, with CSR, the redemption rate is 1.5 cents/point, therefore it is more recommended to use CSR to redeem UR points in this way.
- Primary car rental insurance.
- [Limited Time] Earn 5% cash back on Lyft, until 2025.03. Here is the official link for this promotion.
- [Limited Time] Free DashPass (Doordash membership) for 12-24 months. Activation required before 2024.12.31. Here is the official link for this promotion.
- No foreign transaction fee.
- Refer a friend: You can earn 15,000 bonus UR points for every approved account you refer, up to a maximum of 75,000 UR points per calendar year.
Disadvantages
- Annual fee $95, NOT waived for the first year.
Introduction to UR Points
- You can earn UR points with Chase Freedom Student, Chase Freedom, Chase Freedom Unlimited (CFU), Chase Sapphire Preferred (CSP), Chase Sapphire Reserve (CSR), Chase Ink Cash (Business), Chase Ink Unlimited (Business), Chase Ink Preferred (Business), etc.
- You can move your UR points from one UR card to another at any time.
- UR points never expire. You will lose the UR points on one card if you close the account, but you can prevent losing your UR points by moving the points to another UR card beforehand.
- If you have Chase Sapphire Preferred (CSP), Chase Sapphire Reserve (CSR), or Chase Ink Preferred (Business), UR points can be transferred to some hotel points. One of the best ways to use UR points is to 1:1 transfer to Hyatt points. UR points can also be transferred to some airline miles. One of the most common and best ways to use UR points is to 1:1 transfer them to United Airlines (UA) miles (Star Alliance), and combine them with the UA miles earned from the UA card. Other good options are: Southwest (WN) (Non-alliance), British Airways (BA) (Oneworld), Virgin Atlantic (VS) (Non-alliance), etc. If you use UR points in this way, the value is about 1.6 cents/point.
- If you have Chase Sapphire Reserve (CSR), you can redeem your UR points at a fixed rate of 1.5 cents/point towards air tickets or hotels on UR travel portal; if you have Chase Sapphire Preferred (CSP) or Chase Ink Preferred (Business), you can redeem your UR at a fixed rate of 1.25 cents/point towards air tickets or hotels on UR travel portal.
- If you have any of the UR cards, you can redeem your UR points at a fixed rate of 1 cent/point towards cash.
- In summary, we estimate that UR points are worth about 1.6 cents/point.
- For more information about UR points, see Maximize the Credit Card Points Values (overview), and Introduction to UR: How to Earn and Introduction to UR: How to Use (very detailed).
Recommended Application Time
- [5/24 Rule] If you have 5 or more new accounts opened in the past 24 months, Chase will not approve your application on this card, no matter how high your credit score is. The number of new accounts includes all credit card accounts, not only Chase accounts. See this post for details about how to possibly bypass this rule.
- The product is not available to either (i) current cardmembers of any Sapphire credit cardor (ii) previous cardmembers of any Sapphire credit card who received a new cardmember bonus within the last 48 months. Note that what this 48-month clock starts from when you last got the sign-up bonus, not the time you open the account or close the account.
- Don’t apply for more than 2 Chase credit cards within 30 days, it’s highly likely that you will get rejected.
- We recommend that you apply for this card after you have had other Chase credit cards for at least 3 months, or after you have had a credit history for more than a year.
Summary
Although its spending rewards structure looks bad nowadays, CSP (or CSR) is still a must-have card for the UR points system because with CSP (or CSR) you can transfer UR points to partners to maximize their value. The sign-up bonus is really attractive! However, now you can only choose from either CSP or CSR in the 48 month period. And don’t forget the 5/24 Rule. You really have to choose between CSP and CSR!
Related Credit Cards
Recommended Downgrade Options
- Chase Freedom. Even if you already have a Freedom, you are still able to downgrade your CSP to have a second Freedom.
- Chase Freedom Unlimited (CFU).
- Chase Sapphire. If you are not able to downgrade your card to the above good cards, you can downgrade it to this card and try to change the product in the future.
After Applying
- Call 800-436-7927 to check Chase application status. This is an automated telephone line, and the information has the following meanings: Receive a decision in 2 weeks means your application is probably approved; Receive a decision in 7-10 days means your application is probably rejected; Receive a decision in 30 days simply means your application requires further review and there’s nothing to tell you for now.
- Chase reconsideration backdoor number: 888-270-2127 or 888-609-7805. Call it if you didn’t get approved immediately. Your personal information will be acquired and they will then review it. You rarely answer questions, instead, just enjoy the music and then you get approved or rejected, or further information needs to be handed in to the branch or faxed.
Historical Offers Chart
Offer Link
Editorial disclosure: Opinions expressed here are author’s alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, hotel, airline, or other entity. This content has not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of the entities included within the post.
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