Description: This article is going to be about why I upgraded my favorite travel card which is the Chase Sapphire Preferred to the Chase Sapphire Reserved by showing some of the benefits of the card.
I’m going to talk to you about why I upgraded my favorite travel card which is the Chase Sapphire Preferred to the Chase Sapphire Reserved.
The Chase Sapphire Reserved card is a step up from your entry-level travel cards which have no annual fee and offer one cent per dollar or one point per dollar for all of your purchases. If you want to step up, you can get a Chase Sapphire Preferred card which comes with $95 and I have upgraded to the Chase Sapphire Reserved card which has the $450 annual fee, now I’m going to go through the benefits of this card for you.
So first, it gives you two points per dollar that you spend on the categories of travel and dining which means that when you spend money at restaurants, parking or travel, you will get two points per dollar. Comparing to normal cards, Chase Sapphire values at 1.5 cents per dollar and this value goes up when you redeem for travel, some reidemptions can add you up to 8 cents per point.
Another perk is that this card comes with a signup bonus which is 50,000, once you meed the spending requirement of $4,000 within the three months. There are some additional benefits including primary rental car insurance which means if you get into an incident with a real car, the chase insurance kicks in before your own car insurance does, exotic cars aren’t excluded.
Chase Sapphire Preferred card also comes with roadside assistance but it will set you back $60 per call, it also comes with trip cancellation insurance up to $10,000 per covered. Clean and trip delay insurance will cover you up to $500 per ticket for any delays over 12 hours. Baggage delay insurance will cover you for $100 a day up to 5 days, the luggage reimbursement is up to $3,000 per person.
The Chase Sapphire Reserved card also comes with travel accident insurance up to $500,000 for common carrier loss of life, it also includes a 24-hour loss of life benefit of $100,000. The CSR comes with purchase protection up to $500 per claim and $50,000 per account which covers the benefits for the CSP.
It is a card that can be compared with high-end travel cards that come with hefty fees and monstrous benefits like American Express’s platinum cards and City’s Prestige. Now I’m going to add all those benefits together.
CSR comes with an annual fee of $450 after being approved with a minimum $10,000 credit line, so what you are going to get is $300 travel credit including airline tickets and hotels, which means that when you book a flight, remember to make that is up to $300 annually. This is great when compared to American Express cards, whose $200 travel credit can only be used for travel incidentals such as check baggage and in-flight services, you can only use it on the airline that you pre-selected.
The travel credit comes in sub reports within 24 hours, the sign up bonus postcard is commonly on part of the Chase Sapphire Reserved, you are going to spend $50,000 within three months which is a lot of value. You are going to earn a round-trip ticket to Europe or for an additional 30,000 points anywhere in the world.
Also the Chase Sapphire Reserve earns three points per dollar spent on travel and dining versus two points for the Chase Sapphire Preferred, the CSP values at 1.25 cents per dollar, when CSR values at 1.5 cents per dollar, so after the $300-dollar-annual travel credit, the annual fee is $150, with which you are getting priority pass, select lounge access that value $400.
With the membership, you can gain entry to over 900 airport lounges for yourself and your guests, where you can have some drinks and complimentary food before departing for your flight. You can also use your card to purchase a global entry or TSA PreCheck, you will be reimbursed the application fee every five years.
So as you can see, the benefits are adding up and you can get over $800 and benefits or credits. Now there is an authorized user fee for this card of $75 per user, you can add as many users as you want and they will get the same benefits as you do including the Global Entry and TSA Precheck fee, reimbursement priorities, select lounge access.
The Chase Sapphire Preferred card and the the Chase Sapphire Reserved card are almost the same however the Chase Sapphire Reserved card offers the primary rental car insurance includes exotic cars, as well as the CSR roadside assistance which is covered up to $50.00 per service and up to 4 times a year rather than paying $60 per call.
The trip cancellation remains the same which is $10,000 per covered incident trip, the delay insurance for the CSR is slightly better than that of the CSP and the incident time extends to 12 hours, the package insurance is $100 a day up to 5 days, the luggage protection is up to $3,000 per person, the travel accident insurance get beefed up from $500,000 for common carrier, the loss of life raised up to $1,000,000 and remains 24 hours, and the purchase protection has been beefed up to $10,000 per claim.