Chase Sapphire Preferred review: still the default travel card at $95

The Chase Sapphire Preferred is No. 1 in our ranking with a 4.9 rating, the highest we give any credit card, and it charges a $95 annual fee that the no-fee cards ranked below it do not. The case for it is a 60,000-point welcome offer, 3x on dining and a 25% boost when you redeem through Chase Travel. The case against it is just as specific: the points are worth the most only when you book travel through Chase, and after year one its lead over a free 2% card is about $98 a year for the household we model, and negative if the points go anywhere else.

How the Sapphire Preferred earns points

The earning structure has four tiers: 5x on travel booked through Chase Travel, the bank’s own booking site; 3x on dining, select streaming services and online groceries; 2x on all other travel; 1x on everything else. The 3x grocery rate covers groceries ordered online, not the supermarket checkout. Chase generally excludes some big-box and warehouse retailers from that category, so check its current definition. A weekly shop in a store earns 1x.

Points only become money when you redeem them. The card’s listed perks include 25% more value when points pay for travel booked through Chase Travel, which works out to 1.25 cents a point. Redeemed any other way, this review values them at 1 cent, the floor the site applies to every points currency. Those two assumptions turn the multipliers into cents per dollar.

Read the last row first. On uncategorized spending, which is the largest slice of the budget for many households, the Sapphire returns 1.25 cents at best, less than a free 2% card. Its advantage lives in the top five rows.

The 60,000-point welcome offer in real terms

The offer is 60,000 bonus points after $5,000 in purchases in the first 3 months. Redeemed through Chase Travel at 1.25 cents, that is $750 of travel. At 1 cent, $600. Take off the first $95 fee and the net is $655 or $505.

The threshold is the real test. $5,000 in 3 months is about $1,667 a month, and it has to be spending you would have done anyway: points earned on purchases you did not need cost more than they return. Against the no-fee field the bar is high. Wells Fargo Active Cash pays $200 after $500 in 3 months; Citi Double Cash pays $200 after $1,500 in 6 months. Per dollar of required spending, the Sapphire returns 15 cents through Chase Travel against the Active Cash’s 40 cents. In absolute terms, its offer is $550 larger.

The other $95 travel card matches it. The Capital One Venture Rewards offers 75,000 miles after $4,000 in the first 3 months, which our catalogue values at about $750 toward travel. Same headline value, $1,000 less spending.

What the $95 annual fee buys

• 25% more value through Chase Travel. The perk that sets the point value at 1.25 cents. It turns 100,000 points from $1,000 into $1,250, but only as travel booked through Chase.
• A $50 annual Chase Travel hotel credit. Worth $50 if you would have booked a hotel through Chase Travel anyway, which cuts the effective fee to $45. Worth nothing if the stay exists only to use the credit.
• Trip cancellation and interruption insurance. None of the no-fee cards on our list includes it in its listed perks. Coverage of this kind typically applies only to trips paid for with the card, and the limits and covered reasons are in the benefit terms, not our catalogue.
• No foreign transaction fees. Useful abroad, though several no-fee cards on our list, including the Capital One SavorOne and Quicksilver, share it. A tie-breaker, not a reason on its own.

What the fee does not buy is airport lounge access. On Chase’s side, that sits with the Chase Sapphire Reserve and its $795 fee.

Year-one math for a hypothetical household

The household below is hypothetical: two adults who eat out most weeks, order some groceries online, keep a few streaming subscriptions and take a couple of trips a year. It puts $1,915 a month on the card, $22,980 a year, pays the statement in full every month, and books $2,400 of its travel through Chase Travel, including one hotel stay that uses the $50 credit.

At its $1,915 monthly average, the household puts about $5,745 on the card in the first 3 months, clearing the $5,000 threshold with $745 to spare. A household spending $1,500 a month would fall $500 short. The bonus supplies 55.4% of year-one points, which is why year one flatters the card. Year two is its real price test.

Why a $95 card ranks No. 1 over no-fee cards

Our ranking method weighs the size and attainability of the welcome offer, the earn rate on everyday spending, the fee against what comes back, and how broadly useful a card is. The Sapphire Preferred does not win every one of those on its own. Here is the same household, five ways.

Three things follow. First, nothing on the no-fee side comes close in year one: the Sapphire’s bonus alone, at $750, beats everything a 2% card returns on this household’s year, bonus included. Second, from year two the lead shrinks to $98 over a 2% card and $57 over the Freedom Unlimited, and only in the first row. Third, rows two and three show how conditional that lead is.

The ceiling comes from pairing. Chase is widely reported to let cardholders combine rewards across their own Chase cards, and the Freedom Unlimited’s catalogue perks say it pairs with Sapphire cards to lift point value. Move this household’s $12,000 of everything-else spending to a Freedom Unlimited at 1.5x, redeem through the Sapphire at 1.25 cents, and it gains 6,000 points a year, worth $75. Year two rises from $558 to $633, $173 ahead of a 2% card. It takes a second card and a second application; the Chase trio strategy covers how the pieces fit.

So the No. 1 ranking describes the card at its best for the reader it is built for: someone who pays in full and travels at least occasionally. For that reader it combines a $750 welcome offer on a $95 fee, protections the no-fee cards leave out, and a points currency the no-fee Chase cards can feed. Its yearly edge is modest. Its first year and its ceiling are not.

The 25% boost is the card’s engine, and it only runs on travel booked through Chase Travel.

Where the Sapphire Preferred falls short

One point on everything else. Utilities, the in-store grocery run and most retail earn 1x. At 1.25 cents that is 1.25% back, below the Freedom Unlimited’s 1.5% and a free card’s 2%. The categories have to outweigh this every year.

The value runs through Chase Travel. The 5x rate, the 25% boost and the hotel credit all depend on Chase’s booking site. Prices there can differ from booking direct, and hotel loyalty programs commonly treat portal bookings as third-party reservations that may not earn their points or elite benefits. Compare before you book.

A high bar for the bonus, and no intro APR. $5,000 in 3 months is ten times the Active Cash threshold and $1,000 more than the Venture’s. Our catalogue lists no 0% intro period, only the 20.24% to 28.24% variable APR.

Who should get the Sapphire Preferred, and who should skip it

It fits if

• You pay the statement in full every month.
• Dining, streaming and online groceries are a large part of your budget, or you travel a few times a year.
• You will book at least some of that travel through Chase Travel, where points are worth 1.25 cents and the hotel credit applies.
• You travel abroad and want no foreign transaction fees and trip cancellation cover on one card.
• You may add a no-fee Freedom card later and want the hub for it.

Skip it if you carry a balance

The APR is 20.24% to 28.24% variable. Interest runs every month on whatever you carry; rewards arrive once per purchase. For our household, a balance of $3,000 held through the year cancels the points.

If you need time to pay something down, a 0% intro APR matters more than any earn rate. The Freedom Unlimited offers 15 months on purchases and balance transfers, and the balance transfer comparison covers longer windows.

Skip it if you will not redeem for travel

The 25% boost is the card’s engine, and it only runs on travel booked through Chase Travel. Redeem any other way and this review values points at 1 cent. At that value our household’s year two falls to $437, $22 behind a free 2% card. If it also books its trips direct, losing the 5x and the hotel credit, year two is $315, $144 behind.

Skip it if you want pure cash

A 2% card pays 2 cents on every dollar with no fee and no booking site in the way. The Sapphire pays 1 point outside its categories, 1 cent at our floor and 1.25 cents at best. If the goal is money in your account, the flat-rate cash back showdown is the better starting point.

Sapphire Preferred alternatives: Venture, Freedom Unlimited and Amex Gold

Capital One Venture Rewards: same fee, flat 2x

The Venture charges the same $95 and replaces categories with 2x miles on every purchase, plus 5x on hotels and rental cars booked through Capital One Travel. The trade is direct. On our household’s $12,000 of uncategorized spending, the Venture earns 24,000 miles to the Sapphire’s 12,000 points; on its $4,800 of dining, the Sapphire earns 14,400 points to the Venture’s 9,600 miles. The Venture adds up to $120 toward Global Entry or TSA PreCheck and transfers to 15+ travel partners, and is rated 4.6. The full contest is in Sapphire Preferred vs Venture, or put the two side by side.

Chase Freedom Unlimited: no fee, and a feeder card

Rated 4.8, the Freedom Unlimited is the highest-rated no-fee credit card on our list. It pays 5% on travel booked through Chase Travel, 3% on dining and drugstores and 1.5% on everything else, plus an extra 1.5% on up to $20,000 spent in the first year. It also carries a 0% intro APR on purchases and balance transfers for 15 months, then 19.99% to 28.74% variable. For our household it returns $801 in year one and $501 after. The trade-off: 1.5% on streaming and online groceries where the Sapphire pays 3x, and no trip insurance among its listed perks.

American Express Gold Card: for supermarket-heavy budgets

The American Express Gold Card costs $325, $230 more than the Sapphire. It pays 4x at restaurants worldwide, 4x at U.S. supermarkets on up to $25,000 a year, 3x on flights booked direct and 1x elsewhere, with 60,000 Membership Rewards points after $6,000 in the first 6 months. Valuing its points at 1 cent and the Sapphire’s at 1.25, the dining gap nearly vanishes, 4 cents a dollar against 3.75, while an in-store grocery dollar returns 4 cents against 1.25. On groceries alone, covering the $230 fee gap takes about $8,364 of U.S. supermarket spending a year.

The Gold’s monthly Uber Cash and dining credits, up to $120 a year each, change that only if you would spend the money anyway. Counted in full against the Sapphire’s $50 hotel credit, they leave an effective $85 against $45, a $40 gap. It is rated 4.7.