Note: This post is updated as significant changes to credit card rewards occur. The last update was April 1, 2024.

Now that I have introduced the credit card game – and all of the necessary precautions about it – it’s time to dig in and start teaching how to play it. Whenever folk engage me wanting to get started, they typically ask the same first question: “if you could have one card, what would it be?”

And to that I have a consistent reply: “It’s not a single card, but a single account: Chase. Then, two Chase cards, where only one needs to be in your wallet at a time: the Chase Sapphire Reserve and the Chase Freedom Unlimited.”

“You cheated, but fine. Why both?”

Because the two stack nicely – the Freedom Unlimited gets you 1.5x back on everything as a free cash back card, but the Sapphire Reserve gives you a 50% bonus on all points. And yes, you can transfer the points between the two, meaning the Freedom Unlimited actually gets you 2.25x back on all purchases at a minimum – the best in the business for a “free” card.¹ Then once you factor in the 3x back on dining that they both have and 3x back on drugstores that the Freedom Unlimited has (equivalent to 4.5% back with the Sapphire Reserve’s 50% bonus), and you have a powerful card combination in cash back alone.

“But you only need one in your wallet?”

Correct. Because the Freedom Unlimited’s bonus is actually better than the Sapphire Reserve’s for day-to-day spending (3x back on both dining and drugstore purchases, where the Sapphire Reserve’s bonus points are on dining and travel purchases), you only need to swap the Freedom Unlimited for the Sapphire Reserve in your wallet when traveling to get travel insurance benefits, the 3x points bonus, and to avoid foreign transaction fees. While I will still use the Sapphire Reserve digitally for other purchases such as travel, it simply doesn’t need to be swiped on a regular basis.

“OK. But then there’s more to this game?”

Yes; all of this was just the start. In this post I am going to lay out the details of the Chase ecosystem and how to play the game in full. While this two card combo is my recommended startthere is a whole lot more. Additionally, as we go through the details there will be plenty of options to adjust to take personal situations into account.

Why Chase?

While there are many different systems – American Express (AmEx), Capital One, etc. – and focus areas – hotel loyalty, airline loyalty, etc. – I believe that Chase is the best starting point due to the following:

1. High Points Valuation: Chase has a strong, well known ecosystem that has high-value called Ultimate Rewards (UR). Check out their value (updated monthly) in the chart The Points Guy produces every month. They’re some of the highest value points!
2. Ease of Use: the Chase UR portal is actually just Expedia but with Chase points. In other words, there are no black-out dates and nearly all airlines and hotel brands are supported. Even if you don’t transfer the points to earn the high value that the Points Guy says the points are worth, the fixed value of points in the portal so long as you have a Sapphire card is good! Points are worth 1.25 cents each if you have the Chase Sapphire Preferred (CSP), and 1.5 cents each if you have the Chase Sapphire Reserve (CSR). Additionally, the ability to combine points to funnel everything to your Sapphire card (boosting points valuations by 25-50% when spending within the travel portal itself) is incredibly powerful.
3. Ease to Earn: Chase credit cards have some of the best bonus categories in the business that make it possible to earn a bonus on most transactions. From dining to travel to drugstores to office supply stores to your cell phone and internet bills, you can earn 3x the rewards or more!
4. Size of the Ecosystem: The amount of Chase cards you can have to cover a lot of bases is impressive, and it’s helpful when starting out to stick to one system and fully utilize it. If you stick with Chase alone, you’ll have multiple cards but only one account,² keeping things simple as you dive deep into the credit card game.³

Note that The Points Guy valuation of Chase UR points is not what I used for the rates mentioned in the summary of this post. If I did, the 1.5x back from the Freedom Unlimited would be over 3x back! But this valuation changes over time, is not guaranteed, and requires transferring points to external partners, so I don’t want to use it as a quote. But just know that I have gotten over $0.05/point on international business class travel with these points, meaning that 3x bonus categories have actually gotten me over 15% back 🤯.⁴

5/24 Rule

There is one “gotcha” to know before you start on your journey of credit card rewards: Chase limits approval for new cardholders by following what is called the “5/24 rule.” You cannot have more than 5 applications for credit in the past 24 months to be approved. Thus, when you want to open Chase cards, you must take order of operations into account to maximize your rewards. There are a few things to note:

1. This post is a unique variation of what is known online as “the Chase Gauntlet.”
2. Business credit cards do not count against the 5/24 limit, but you will not be approved if you are already over the 5/24 limit.

“How do I check where I stand in regards to the 5/24 rule?”

As mentioned in the “where do I start?” section of my intro post to this series, you should audit your credit report annually (which is free) and see how many credit pulls currently exist on your account so you can be strategic about which card(s) to open when.

If you Google search “Free Credit Report,” you will be overwhelmed with a barrage of sites (including untrustworthy ads at the top 😡). I trust and recommend the US government’s recommendation.

This guide is written assuming you currently have zero applications for credit in the past 24 months. For most of us, however, that is usually not the case. If you are at or beyond the 5/24 limit, I would wait until you get down to four credit applications in the past two years before starting this process. If you are in between 1-4 credit applications in the past two years, then I would start with the first step outlined below (the Chase Sapphire) and then pivot as needed to business cards (which don’t count against the 5/24 limit) until previous credit applications are more than two years old (enabling you to apply for other personal cards).

“Wait, business credit cards?”

Yes, you read that right. Did you sell something on eBay last year? You’re a sole proprietor! Don’t worry, business revenue can be $0, and all cards will still be linked under one login and points from business cards can be transferred to personal cards just fine. See here for more instructions on applying to small business credit cards, and here if you want more details about why you qualify for a small business credit card.

“Assume I have the space in the 5/24 rule. How quickly do you open new cards?”

One at a time. All Chase cards have introductory bonus offers that are met only when you hit a minimum spend over an initial period of time after opening the card (usually three months, but sometimes longer). You’re always going to want to hit this “intro bonus” before you open a new card, which will also naturally space your credit applications to help with the 5/24 rule.

Proposed Credit Cards and Order

Step 1: The Chase Sapphire

Reserve vs Preferred

When you talk about travel rewards cards, there are a few luxury cards to consider, but a common answer (if you’re only doing one) is either the Chase Sapphire Reserve or Chase Sapphire Preferred. At a high level, the difference is that the Sapphire Reserve costs more, but has more benefits and a better valuation of UR points.

Between those two, I recommend holding the Sapphire Reserve and churning the Sapphire Preferred (instructions outlined in Step 6 below), as the added cost of the Sapphire Reserve more than pays for itself. But for this first step choose one, not both, to get as your first Chase credit card.

The Chase Sapphire Reserve (CSR)

• Annual Fee: $550. This increased by $100 in 2020.
• Intro Bonus: 60,000 points if you spend $4,000 in the first 3 months
• Reward Categories:
  • 10x points on Lyft rides and free Lyft Pink
  • 5-10x when you charge the card on the Chase portal for dining or travel, but this is not something I recommend as booking travel through a 3P leads to challenges should you need to make any changes
  • 3x points on the following categories:
    • Travel
    • Dining
  • 1x back on all other purchases
• Additional Benefits:
  • $300 annual travel credit. This makes the cost of the card more like $250.
  • 50% bonus in travel redemption of UR points
  • $100 application fee credit for Global Entry or TSA Pre✓®
  • Priority Pass™ airport lounge access
  • One year free of DashPass, giving you a $0 delivery fee on all deliveries and $5 off one delivery per month (also works on Caviar)
  • One free year of InstaCart+ and $15 monthly credit for orders. Note that this enables ordering from Costco without a membership.
  • All of the travel insurance options you can think of when you book travel with this card
  • Access to Visa Infinite Concierge
  • No foreign transaction fees
• Apply: Application Link

Why this card?

As you can see, that’s a long list of Additional Benefits above. We’ll start by factoring in the $300 annual travel credit. It’s as simple as it sounds – book travel on your Sapphire Reserve card, and the first $300 will be reimbursed each year (with no work needed by you). That should be easy to do, which is why the annual fee (AF) is often referred to as $250, not $550, as that price takes the refund into account.

Additionally, the Sapphire Reserve gives a bonus of 50% for all UR points that are used to redeem travel through the Chase UR portal. This bonus is why this card is the first in the pecking order, as you’ll be transferring all points from other cards to this one to get this 50% bonus. This means that if you want to baseline UR points to dollar value, you can easily do so: with the 50% bonus, all UR points become worth a guaranteed $0.015. Thus, a 3x bonus bonus category in UR points is equivalent to 4.5% cash back.

Last but not least, travel booked with this card means you’re protected in every way possible:

• Lost luggage insurance (up to $3K/passenger on travel booked with the card)
• Trip cancellation/insurance (up to $10K/person)
• Auto rental collision damage waiver (up to $75K)
• Trip delay reimbursement (if delayed more than 6 hours, get up to $500 in reimbursements when the airlines don’t cover it)

The Chase Sapphire Preferred (CSP)

• Annual Fee: $95
• Intro Bonus: 60,000 points if you spend $4,000 in the first 3 months
• Reward Categories:
  • 5x points on the following categories:
    • Peloton
    • Lyft
    • Travel when you charge the card on the Chase portal for dining or travel, but this is not something I recommend as booking travel through a 3P leads to challenges should you need to make any changes
  • 3x points on the following categories:
    • Online grocery purchases (excluding Target, Walmart and wholesale clubs)
    • Select streaming services
  • 2x points on the following categories:
    • Travel
    • Dining
  • 1x back on all other purchases
• Additional Benefits:
  • 25% bonus in travel redemption of UR points
  • One year free of DashPass, giving you a $0 delivery fee on all deliveries and $5 off one delivery per month (also works on Caviar)
  • 6 months of InstaCart+ and $15 monthly credit for orders. Note that this enables ordering from Costco without a membership.
  • All of the travel insurance options you can think of when you book travel with this card
  • Access to Visa Infinite Concierge
  • No foreign transaction fees
• Apply: Application Link

Why this card?

While you should be able to see a steep drop-off in benefits when compared to the Sapphire Reserve, the Sapphire Preferred is still a very respectable card. If you are worried about the annual fee of the Sapphire Reserve, then this is a great alternative to still net a bonus on all UR points (just 25% instead of 50% though). The biggest difference however is the lack of PriorityPass through this card. Once you experience free lounge access in airports (and realize how much money this saves you through free food and drink), the $155 per year in savings isn’t that much. It is also important to note that the travel insurance options are slightly worse than the Sapphire Reserve. Specifically, the trip delay reimbursement only triggers if delayed 12 hours or more rather than 6.

While the additional bonus categories not covered by the Sapphire Reserve may seem tempting, there are other, better cards for these categories that we will get into in future posts; they’re just not Chase cards.

Step 2: Chase Freedom Unlimited

• Annual Fee: Free
• Intro Bonus: $200 cash back, or 20,000 UR points, if you spend $500 in the first 3 months (take the points, not the cash)
• Reward Categories:
  • 5x points on the following categories:
    • Lyft
    • Travel when you charge the card on the Chase portal for dining or travel, but this is not something I recommend as booking travel through a 3P leads to challenges should you need to make any changes
  • 3x points on the following categories:
    • Drugstores
    • Dining
  • 1.5x back on all other purchases
• Apply: Application Link

Why this card?

As covered in the introduction to this post, this will become your “go to” card for any purchase that doesn’t qualify as a reward purchase. It has a default 1.5% cash back, which is a bit below top-of-the-line 2% cash back cards. However, when you pair it with the Sapphire Reserve card, it becomes the best “free” cash back card on the market:

• If you transfer these points to your Chase Sapphire Preferred (CSP), that 1.5% turns into 1.875% because of the CSP’s 25% bonus on UR points spent through the UR portal.
• If you transfer these points to your Chase Sapphire Reserve (CSR), that 1.5% turns into 2.25% because of the CSR’s 50% bonus on UR points spent through the UR portal.
• If you transfer these points directly to partner airlines, you can get over two cents/point valuation when redeemed, turning the 1.5% into 3%+ (regardless of which Chase Sapphire card you have). This valuation varies and is not guaranteed, hence the recommendation to always pair this card with a Chase Sapphire for a minimum valuation.

So we’ve now “hacked” a free cash back card into a top-of-the-line paid cash back card. Feeling even cleverer than before? Good.

Step 3: The Chase Freedom Flex

• Annual Fee: Free
• Intro Bonus: $200 cash back, or 20,000 UR points, if you spend $500 in the first 3 months (take the points, not the cash)
• Reward Categories:
  • 5x bonus points on the following categories:
    • Rotating categories
    • Lyft
  • 3x points on the following categories:
    • Drugstores
    • Dining
  • 1x back on all other purchases
• Apply: Application Link

Why this card?

The answer here is simple: 5% cash back – or 5 UR points – per dollar spent is the highest reward across all Chase cards. And then when you transfer the points:

• If you transfer these points to your Chase Sapphire Preferred (CSP), that 5% turns into 6.5% because of the CSP’s 25% bonus on UR points spent through the UR portal.
• If you transfer these points to your Chase Sapphire Reserve (CSR), that 5% turns into 7.5% because of the CSR’s 50% bonus on UR points spent through the UR portal.
• If you transfer these points directly to partner airlines, you can get over two cents/point valuation when redeemed, turning the 5% into 10%+ (regardless of which Chase Sapphire card you have). This valuation varies and is not guaranteed, hence the recommendation to always pair this card with a Chase Sapphire for a minimum valuation.

Are you seeing why you should never take the cash back, but instead maximize value using UR points?

Step 4: Chase Ink Business Preferred

• Annual Fee: $95/year
• Intro Bonus: 100,000 UR points if you spend $8,000 in the first 3 months
• Reward Categories:
  • 5x points on Lyft rides
  • 3x points on the following categories:
    • Travel
    • Shipping Purchases
    • Internet, Cable, and Phone Services
    • Advertising purchases with social media sites and search engines
• Additional Benefits:
  • 25% bonus in travel redemption of UR points
  • Free cell phone insurance
  • All of the travel insurance options you can think of when you book travel with this card
  • No foreign transaction fees
• Apply: Application Link

Why this card?

In comes the first small business card, with the highest of introductory bonuses of all cards we’re going to recommend in this walk-through. This is no small consideration, as what are we going to do? Transfer the points to our Sapphire Reserve to get a 50% bonus on the points value, making the cash value of these points $1,500.

Why didn’t I mention the Sapphire Preferred as a transfer option? Well, the Ink Business Preferred card already has a 25% points value bonus – this card is essentially the small business version of the Sapphire Preferred. But it has some key differences, and you have to look beyond the bonus points on travel to see them. In particular, the Internet, Cable, and Phone Services category.

We all have internet and cell phone bills, and we may as well earn bonus rewards on these bills. But the bonus with this card extends beyond Ultimate Rewards (UR) points; when you pay your cell phone bill with this card, you get cell phone insurance for free for all devices whose bill you paid. This covers theft and cracked screens, although there is a $100 deductible per claim.

So with this card you now have phone insurance on all of your devices, you earn the highest of intro bonuses, and you earn rewards from your internet and cell phone bills that alone should cover the annual $95 fee. See here for more instructions on applying to small business credit cards, and here if you want more details about why you qualify for a small business credit card.

Step 5: Chase Ink Business Cash

• Annual Fee: Free
• Intro Bonus: $750 cash back, or 75,000 UR points, if you spend $6,000 in the first 3 months
• Reward Categories:
  • 5x points on the following categories (first $25,000 in spend):
    • Office Supply Stores (includes gift cards)
    • Internet, Cable, and Phone Services
    • Lyft
  • 2x points on the following categories (first $25,000 in spend):
    • Gas Stations
    • Restaurants
• Apply: Application Link

Why this card?

You might be getting a little confused now and thinking that this card overlaps too much with other cards, but hear me out. First, we have a large gap of reward coverage with the current cards: gas stations. Maybe you drive an electric car, or don’t drive at all, but if not, this category is likely a big one for you. Second, while I believe the free call phone insurance from the Chase Ink Business Preferred is worth more than the additional 2x bonus points from paying the bill with this card, you may as well earn an additional 2x bonus points on your internet (and cable) bill. But the real gravy of this card is in the Office Supply Store reward.

You may be thinking: who goes to office supply stores anymore? Well, you will once you realize this trick. With this card, you can go into a Staples or Office Depot and buy gift cards ahead of large purchases that you are going to make anyway. Buying new skis from REI? A new TV from Best Buy? Why not hop in to your nearest office supply store and use this card to stock up on gift cards to cover the purchase.

Remember, that 5% turns into 6.25 – 7.5% just by transferring to your Sapphire card. If you pair this card with the Sapphire Reserve and redeem the points from a full $25,000 in spend on this card in the 5x bonus categories, that’s 125,000 UR points with a floor valuation of $1,875 ($0.015/point). And if you transfer points to external partners, this valuation can rise significantly ($0.02/point or greater).

While maximizing this benefit every year is unlikely, it’s still worth the cost of being absolutely free.

(Optional) Step 6: Churn Additional Cards

The following cards are all valid churn options:

1. Sapphire Preferred
2. Ink Business Unlimited

We’ve already laid out the details of the Sapphire Preferred above, but if you want the Sapphire Reserve and the Preferred, well, you’re in luck. You might think: why do that? Well, because the 60,000 point intro bonus is worth $750 – $1200+, and the annual fee is only $95!

“OK, but what is churning?”

Churning is where you open a card, earn the intro bonus, use or transfer the points, and then close or downgrade the card. For chase cards, you can do this once every 24 months from the date you close or downgrade the card.

You can do this with the Ink Business Unlimited as well whose intro bonus is 75,000 points right now with no annual fee!

Conclusion

So with all of these Chase credit cards, you earn bonus points on:

• Dining
• Drugstores
• Travel
• Internet, Cable, and Phone plans
• Shipping
• Advertising
• Office Supply Stores
• Quarterly Rotating Categories (often gas stations, groceries, or Paypal)
• Lyft Rides

You also will have earned at least 294,000 bonus points in sign up bonuses (including minimum spend rewards assuming no bonus categories and not including any churning), valued at $3,675 (if you have the Sapphire Preferred), $4,410 (if you have the Sapphire Reserve), or $5,880+ if you transfer all points to partners at $0.02/point (or better). And yes, better does happen; the highest valuation I ever got was 15 cents per point on a series of business class flights on Emirates Air. While two cents per point is not a guarantee, I am regularly able to redeem in the 2-5 cents/point range, increasing the value of the credit card game substantially.

But wait – there’s more! You can have your partner follow the same guide instead of adding each other as authorized users, so you can double the rewards – and yes, you can transfer points to each other’s cards!

If you’ve made it this far in this guide, you now have enough points to go on an absolutely amazing vacation with a special someone. All I ask is you show off with your fellow Personal Finance gurus!

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FAQ

What about the Chase Ink Premier card?

At the time of this writing, this is the only Chase credit card that explicitly disallows transferring points across cards. This restriction defeats the entire credit card game spelled out here, so it doesn’t belong as a part of this guide.

Disclaimers

This is not financial advice. I also will do my best to keep this page up to date, but if you see something out of date, please message me so that I can update it. This page contains affiliate links, however, I was not paid to share my opinion.

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Footnotes

1. OK, it’s a little unfair to call this “free” given the Sapphire Reserve’s annual fee, but it is still a powerful combination. ↩︎
2. If you dive into the business cards, that’s technically a second account, but all of your personal cards can be added to your business account to keep it at one account. ↩︎
3. I’m going to need to trademark “the Credit Card Game” with the amount I am referencing it 😂 ↩︎
4. It is important to note that redemption rates for points are often inflated due to being used for business class travel that if paid for, economy class would be purchased instead. However, points often have a much higher valuation when redeemed for business class, so they are commonly used this way. ↩︎