Last Updated: September 18, 2025 due to changes to the Sapphire Reserve’s travel credits.

Two years ago, I shared with everyone one of many many hobbies: the credit card game. Since then, I have kept up with updates, but 2025 is bringing about such sweeping changes I need to not just update past posts, but completely rewrite them. First up is this post as an updated to my main recommendation of Chase’s entire ecosystem of credit cards.

What‘s the update, Straker? In case you missed it, here is Chase’s press release for the update to its Sapphire Cards. While this will read positively — it’s a formal press release, after all — the TL;DR is that the Chase Sapphire Reserve (CSR) annual fee is hiking from $550 to $795 (a 45% increase) and the Sapphire point redemption bonuses in the Chase Ultimate Rewards (UR) portal is being replaced by “Points Boost.” Points Boost allows Sapphire Reserve card members to redeem Ultimate Rewards points at a rate of up to 2x on rotating offers through Chase Travel.

In other words, the 50% bonus on all point redemption for Chase Sapphire Reserve points is gone for new cardholders and has a staged exit for existing cardholders after October 26, 2025 (for new points earned) and October 26, 2027 (all points earned, including points earned prior to October 26, 2025). Instead, you sometimes will have a bonus of varying amounts, up to 100%.

The Chase Sapphire Preferred (CSP) also lost its 25% bonus on all point redemption and does not have Points Boost, although the annual fee of the card is staying the same at $95.

Cut to the Chase: Do you still recommend the Sapphire cards?

Seewutididthere? 😂

Bad puns aside, yes, I still recommend the Chase Sapphire cards. However, they are no longer the simplest choice for people just entering the credit card game, as the built-in Chase travel portal is getting a massive downgrade for a higher annual fee. However, this is part of the credit card game – keeping up with changes! And the reality is I mostly stopped using the Chase travel portal years ago anyway as transferring points directly to partner airlines for use for international business class travel gets the best point valuation, even with the old 50% bonus on point redemption.

As a reminder, Chase UR points are worth $0.01 natively. This means that with a 50% boost, they are worth $0.015 per point. So why then does The Points Guy value them at over $0.02 per point in August 2025? This is due to the value that transferring points directly to airlines can have. In my experience, this is the minimum value such transfers result in, and often you can get $0.04 to $0.07 per point in value when transferring directly! 🤯

Now, such values are inflated due to being used for business class travel I would be unlikely to pay full retail price for 😅. But still, it’s often only 50% more points for international business class redemption even though the pure dollar cost is 10x more! That’s a massive return on investment that is easy to recommend, and the comfort of a lie-flat seat on a 9+ hour flight is worth it. I find it feels like I get an extra day on vacation as I arrive feeling refreshed and with minimal jetlag, making that added points expenditure have real value in terms of extending the amount I can do while traveling!

If I’m new to the game, which Sapphire card do you recommend?

With these changes, the answer to this question is now clear: the Sapphire Preferred. Simply put, the Sapphire Reserve is now too expensive with lots of “use it or lose it” recurring credits to be worth its cost for those just entering the credit card game.

But for advanced users, is the Sapphire Reserve still worth it?

Absolutely; I will be keeping mine! And there was another sneaky change: you can now have both the Preferred and Reserve at the same time. So, with the recommendation above to start with the Sapphire Preferred, you can always add on the Reserve later! You can choose to downgrade the Preferred to a free card at the time, but you can no longer churn the Preferred like I recommended in the past.

And what about the entire Chase ecosystem; do you still recommend adding on other cards outside of the Sapphire card?

Yes, I do. And I still recommend combining points to the Chase Sapphire card for ease of transferring, or in the case of the Sapphire Reserve card, using Points Boost when applicable. While the Chase Freedom Unlimited may remain as the best free cash back card on the market with 1.5 UR points for $1 spent, I argue the Capital One Venture X is worth considering as an alternative for a paid 2 points back per $1 dollar spent with nearly the same transfer partner availability and value as Chase UR points. However, that will be a dedicated post on its own in the future, and for ease of staying in one ecosystem the Freedom Unlimited is still a card worth having (yes, I have both 🤑).

Proposed Credit Cards and Order

My overall recommendation and order of cards to get has not changed. However, the details of each card — why to get a card — have been updated below. Also be sure you read the Chase 5/24 Appendix at the end of this article before you start applying for credit cards.

Step 1: The Chase Sapphire

Sapphire Preferred

• Annual Fee: $95
• Intro Bonus: 75,000 points if you spend $5,000 in the first 3 months
• Apply: Application Link

Primary Reward Categories

Primary Benefits

• Hotel Statement Credit: Earn up to $50 in statement credits each account anniversary year for hotel stays purchased through Chase Travel.
• Anniversary Bonus Points: Each account anniversary, you’ll earn bonus points equal to 10% of your total purchases made the previous year. That means if you spend $25,000 on purchases, you’ll get 2,500 bonus points.
• Travel Insurance: All of the travel insurance options you can think of when you book travel with this card.
• Concierge Service: Access to Visa Signature Concierge.
• No Foreign Transaction Fees

Temporary Bonus Reward Categories & Partnerships

• DashPass: A complimentary DashPass membership, a $120 value for 12 months. Enjoy $0 delivery fees and reduced service fees on eligible DoorDash orders when you activate by 12/31/27.
• Monthly DoorDash Credit: DashPass members get a $10 promo each month ($120 annually) to save on groceries and retail orders. This does not work for restaurant orders.
• Lyft: 5x total points on Lyft purchases through September 2027. Note that you get discounted Lyft rides every month when you link your complimentary DashPass membership in the Lyft app.
• Peloton: 5x total points on eligible Peloton equipment and accessory purchases over $150 up to $5,000 through 12/31/27.

Sapphire Reserve

• Annual Fee: $795 + $195 for each authorized user
• Intro Bonus: 125,000 points if you spend $6,000 in the first 3 months
• Apply: Application Link

Primary Reward Categories

Primary Benefits

• Travel Statement Credit: $300 annual travel credit. This makes the cost of the card more like $495. Note that points are not earned on purchases that qualify for the annual travel credit.
• The Edit Hotel Statement Credit: $250 off 2+ night stays with The Edit, a collection of hotels picked by Chase twice per year. You cannot use both credits on the same stay, even if you book on separate reservations. These bookings always include free breakfast and a $100 hotel credit for use during your stay. Note that points are not earned on purchases that qualify for this credit. This previously was one credit every six months.
• Travel Insurance: All of the travel insurance options you can think of when you book travel with this card.
• Lounge Access: Complimentary Priority Pass Select membership and access to Chase Sapphire lounges.
• Concierge Service: Access to Visa Infinite Concierge.
• No Foreign Transaction Fees

Temporary Bonus Reward Categories & Partnerships

• Chase Travel Hotel Bookings Statement Credit: $250 in statement credits from January 1, 2026 through December 31, 2026 on prepaid Chase Travel hotel bookings for 2+ night stays with IHG Hotels & Resorts, Montage Hotels & Resorts, Pendry Hotels & Resorts, Omni Hotels & Resorts, Virgin Hotels, Minor Hotels, and Pan Pacific Hotels and Resorts. Note that points are not earned on purchases that qualify for this credit.
• Free DashPass: A complimentary DashPass membership, a $120 value for 12 months. Enjoy $0 delivery fees and reduced service fees on eligible DoorDash orders when you activate by 12/31/27.
• Monthly DoorDash Credit: DashPass members get two $10 promos each month ($240 annually) to save on groceries and retail orders. You also get $5 for restaurant orders each month ($60 annually).
• OpenTable Dining Credit: $150 off OpenTable Sapphire Reserve Exclusive Tables every six months.
• StubHub Credit: $150 off StubHub and viagogo purchases every six months through 12/31/27.
• AppleTV & Music: AppleTV+ and Apple Music are complimentary through 6/22/27 for a value of $250 annually.
• Lyft: $10 of monthly in-app credits ($120 annually) through 9/30/27. Also earn 5x total points on Lyft purchases through September 2027. Note that you also get discounted Lyft rides every month when you link your complimentary DashPass membership in the Lyft app.
• Peloton: Get $10 in statement credits per month on eligible Peloton memberships through 12/31/27, for a maximum of $120 annually. Also earn 10x total points on eligible Peloton equipment and accessory purchases over $150 up to $5,000 through 12/31/27.
• IHG One Rewards Platinum Elite Status: Get this status through 12/31/27.
• Global Entry, TSA PreCheck, or NEXUS Fee Credit: Get $120 every four years as reimbursement for the application fee charged to your card.

Note there are even more benefits if you spend more than $75K in a single calendar year on this card, but I don’t recommend this given I recommend maximizing bonuses across different cards.

Step 2: Chase Freedom Unlimited

My original recommendation to pair this card with a Sapphire card still holds! If you pair with the Sapphire Reserve, then transferring points to it still makes sense for the chance at leverage Points Boost. And heck, sometimes this will be worth more than the 50% bonus from before!

To summarize the previous recommendation, you get this card as it is a free card that gives you 1.5 points per dollar spent on non-bonus categories; the Sapphire cards only give you 1!

• 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)
• Apply: Application Link

Primary Reward Categories

• 5x points on the following categories:
  • 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 points on all other purchases

Temporary Bonus Reward Categories & Partnerships

• DashPass: A complimentary DashPass membership, a $60 value for 6 months. Enjoy $0 delivery fees and reduced service fees on eligible DoorDash orders when you activate by 12/31/27.
• Monthly DoorDash Credit: DashPass members get a $10 promo each month to save on groceries and retail orders. This does not work for restaurant orders.
• Lyft: 2x total points on Lyft purchases through September 2027. Note that you get discounted Lyft rides every month when you link your complimentary DashPass membership in the Lyft app.

Step 3: The Chase Freedom Flex

What’s this, another card named something similar? Yes. This is another free card that isn’t used as much, but its rotating 5% bonus categories are usually useful things like grocery stores, gas stations, or Paypal purchases, making even a few thousand dollars of spend on this card add up! But yes, I mostly use not one, but two of these cards maxing out that recurring Q4 Paypal bonus to stock up on Warhammer eBay purchases…

• 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)
• Apply: Application Link

Primary Reward Categories

• 5x bonus points on the following categories:
  • Rotating categories
• 3x points on the following categories:
  • Drugstores
  • Dining
• 1x points on all other purchases

Temporary Bonus Reward Categories & Partnerships

• DashPass: A complimentary DashPass membership, a $60 value for 6 months. Enjoy $0 delivery fees and reduced service fees on eligible DoorDash orders when you activate by 12/31/27.
• Monthly DoorDash Credit: DashPass members get a $10 promo each month to save on groceries and retail orders. This does not work for restaurant orders.
• Lyft: 2x total points on Lyft purchases through September 2027. Note that you get discounted Lyft rides every month when you link your complimentary DashPass membership in the Lyft app.

Step 4: Chase Ink Business Preferred

I admit, I was hoping Chase would miss a loophole with this card given it also used to offer a 25% bonus in travel redemption of points through the Chase portal; this card is effectively the business version of the Sapphire Preferred. Well, they didn’t miss this; that benefit has been removed. However, I always got this card for the free cell phone insurance combined with the 3x bonus on phone service purchases. This is the best card in the business if you’re a clutz like me and break your screen enough to need this! Note the insurance covers theft and cracked screens, although there is a $100 deductible per claim.

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.

• Annual Fee: $95/year
• Intro Bonus: 90,000 UR points if you spend $8,000 in the first 3 months
• Apply: Application Link

Primary Reward Categories

• 3x points on the following categories:
  • Travel
  • Shipping Purchases
  • Internet, Cable, and Phone Services
  • Advertising purchases with social media sites and search engines
• 1x points on all other purchases

Primary Benefits

• 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

Step 5: Chase Ink Business Cash

This card is effectively the business version of the Freedom Flex mentioned above, but instead of rotating 5% categories every quarter, it’s the same: office supply stores and internet, cable, and phone services. While your phone bill is going to the Ink Business Preferred mentioned above, your internet and cable bill(s) go here.

You might be thinking “office supply stores? Who still goes there?” Well, you have to realize that gift cards purchased there will qualify. This means there are people who go to Office Depot in January every year and buy thousands of dollars of gift cards for what is effectively 5% off. While that is extreme, this is a useful tactic if you have a known larger purchase coming up and can get 5% off of it this way!

Last but not least, this card is good if you don’t have another credit card that gives bonus rewards on gas purchases. If you aren’t making use of any of these bonus categories though, then this card is a good one to churn to earn the high intro bonus on.

• Annual Fee: Free
• Intro Bonus: $900 cash back, or 90,000 UR points, if you spend $6,000 in the first 3 months (take the points, not the cash)
• Apply: Application Link

Primary Reward Categories

• 5x points on the following categories (first $25,000 in spend):
  • Office Supply Stores (includes gift cards)
  • Internet, Cable, and Phone Services
• 2x points on the following categories (first $25,000 in spend):
  • Gas Stations
  • Restaurants
• 1x points on all other purchases

(Optional) Step 6: Churn Additional Cards

The following cards are all valid churn options:

1. Ink Business Unlimited (90,000 UR points, if you spend $6,000 on purchases in the first 3 months)
2. Ink Business Cash (mentioned above)

“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.

While this will have a small impact on your credit score temporarily, it is so small it is not a reason to stop you from doing it.

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 can also earn over 350,000 bonus points in sign up bonuses (not including minimum spend rewards, bonus categories, or any additional churning), valued at $7,000+ if you transfer all points to partners at $0.02/point (or better).

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!

---

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 or to transfer partners; it is strictly a cash back card. This restriction defeats the entire credit card game spelled out here, so it doesn’t belong as a part of this guide.

What about the new Chase Sapphire Reserve Business card?

While this card has a huge 200,000 point intro bonus, it requires $30,000 of spend in 6 months with the same $795 annual fee. Most benefits can already be had with the personal Chase Sapphire Reserve card along with the Ink Business Preferred which actually get you more benefits than this card. I simply do not recommend this card unless you have niche use for it.

Appendix: Chase’s 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.

Appendix: Disclaimer

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.