3 Reasons I Upgraded To The Chase Sapphire Reserve (Even Without A Bonus)

I’ve been traveling on points and miles to some extent for almost twenty years now, but the card that really turbocharged our award travel was the Chase Sapphire Reserve. We learned how to leverage it to help fuel our two years of full-time travel and more, but eventually we decided it was no longer part of our strategy.

Things have changed once again, and last month I decided that I wanted to hold the Chase Sapphire Reserve once again. Today I’m sharing why we got rid of it and why I ultimately decided to bring it back, even without the biggest carrot that usually incentivizes travelers.

Our background with Chase Sapphire cards

My husband and I both got it back in 2016 when it first came out and had it until 2023, when we downgraded both cards to the Chase Freedom Unlimited so that we would be eligible to get the elevated offer on the Chase Sapphire Preferred card.

Why does any of that matter? While Chase used to let customers get a sign up bonus on either Sapphire card once every 48 months, more recently the rule has changed. As of 2026, you can only get the welcome bonus on each Chase Sapphire card once in your life.

I promise, they mean it. I’ve tried about a half dozen times in the last year to apply for the Chase Sapphire Reserve with the welcome bonus since it’s been a decade, but I’ve been turned down every time. My husband is in the same situation. Without the welcome bonus – which has been as high as 150,000 points this year – it’s hard to imagine agreeing to spend $795 per year for a credit card.

And yes, here I am about to tell you exactly why I’m doing just that. To be honest, I wasn’t convinced at first, and so this article is going to be roughly chronological in sharing how I finally got to the point of deciding to pull the trigger.

To be crystal clear, if you’ve only had the Chase Sapphire Preferred or the Chase Sapphire Reserve (but not both), you’ll definitely want to do a fresh application for the one you haven’t had yet.

The Chase Sapphire Reserve credits make sense for our spending patterns

Back in 2025, the Chase Sapphire Reserve went through a major refresh. The annual fee jumped from $550 to $795, the award point earnings and redemptions got a shake up and a bunch of new travel and lifestyle credits were added.

Previously the card had two main credits to help offset the annual fee: $300 in statement credits toward any travel expenses, and a TSA PreCheck or Global Entry credit every few years. It earned 3 points per dollar on all travel and dining, then you could turn around and transfer those to partners or redeem them in the Chase Travel portal at 1.5 cents per point. It was clearly more geared for frequent travelers than the less expensive Chase Sapphire Preferred, but still a fairly simple card.

The 2025 refresh turned the whole value proposition on its head. Now the card earns 4 points per dollar on flights and hotels that are booked directly (so no Expedia, Airbnb or Viator, for example) and the same 3 points per dollar on dining. If you redeem through Chase Travel, ordinarily you’ll only do that at 1 cent per point – except what I’m going to talk about in a minute.

But there are also a ton of new credits that can offset the annual fee – and then some – if they align with the spending you already do. As soon as the refresh was announced, my wheels started turning because some of the credits are incredibly easy for us to use like:

• $300 statement credit for any travel (same as before)
• $10 per month toward Peloton membership (which we already pay for)
• $150 twice per year toward StubHub (which we use at least once per year but usually 2-3 times)
• $10 per month toward Lyft (which we use a few times per year)

With just those credits, I figured I would be basically breakeven by holding the Chase Sapphire Reserve. But that ignores two of the biggest credits offered by the card, because to be honest I wasn’t sure I’d be able to make much use of them.

However, some recent changes have made those credits even better:

• $150 semi-annually for Sapphire Reserve Tables – These are automatic credits for select nice restaurants. At first the list of options was too short for me to count on using that credit, but then Chase added a ton of new restaurants including four here in Columbus! Two of them are spots that we visit once or twice per year anyway, so it’ll now be incredibly easy to get this total $300 credit even when we aren’t traveling.
• $250 twice per year for The Edit luxury hotels – You’ll get a $250 credit twice per year when you book these high end hotels through Chase Travel for a minimum of two nights. Initially you got one credit per 6 months, but this was changed to allow you to use them any time during the year. Chase also added a bonus $250 “Select Hotels credit” for 2026 only (unless it gets extended) that also requires a two night stay but can be used on the same stay as one of The Edit credits. I had been skeptical about using these since The Edit hotels are generally pricey but figured I could at least use one credit in conjunction with the Select Hotels credit and get $500 of value out of the promised $750 – which is exactly what happened.
  
  In addition, when you redeem points for The Edit hotels those points are worth more than the default 1 cent per point with a feature called Points Boost: while Chase initially promised 2 cents per point (which is incredible), now you’ll typically get 1.4 to 2.0 cents per point, with an occasional limited-time promotion pushing it as high as 2.5 (still quite good when you’re already covering some with credits).

There are additional credits like DoorDash and Apple TV/Music that I didn’t factor into my deliberations at all. It’s just so many different credits to think about and manage!

By the spring of 2026, I was warming to upgrading one of our no-fee Chase Freedom Unlimited cards back to the Chase Sapphire Reserve – even without a welcome bonus. But I still wasn’t convinced.

Chase Sapphire Preferred changes make the Reserve more valuable

Over the last few years, we’ve gone head-first into World of Hyatt points. I kick myself for not realizing sooner just how valuable Chase Ultimate Rewards points can be for stays at Hyatt hotels. We probably missed some of the “golden age” but since 2023 we’ve learned how to travel a lot more without breaking the bank by transferring from our Chase Sapphire Preferred cards to Hyatt.

We’ve gotten great value at Hyatts in pricey locations like New York City, Maui, Oahu, London, Rome and Venice, while adding in fun weekend resort getaways in places like Florida and Texas. It’s been a blast!

But in June 2026, Chase announced a slew of changes to the Sapphire Preferred – both good and bad – that made both cards more valuable in different ways. While the $95 Preferred card picked up some fantastic credits (like Apple TV and $100 towards any hotel stay in Chase Travel), it also loses a key benefit: starting in October, every four points transferred out of the Sapphire Preferred will become just three World of Hyatt points.

That change comes as Hyatt is increasing the points required for many redemptions (though not all). Talk about a double-whammy!

In theory, you could book those hotels through Chase Travel when a Points Boost is offered to get around the new transfer ratio. However, while Points Boost also applies to the Preferred, it’s far less generous. As an example, on a recent booking with my Chase Sapphire Reserve I was offered a boost to 1.65 cents per point while my husband’s Chase Sapphire Preferred only has 1.1 cents per point for the same hotel. For a $1000 hotel booking that’s a difference of 30,000 points (worth at least $450 to me). Considering the Sapphire Preferred used to get a fixed value of 1.25 cents per point in the Chase Travel portal, this is a huge blow.

That’s not to say you shouldn’t get the Chase Sapphire Preferred at all. It still makes a great first award travel credit card, and in some ways it’s even better than it was before. But if you like using your points for hotel stays, the Sapphire Reserve is now a much much better choice than the Sapphire Preferred. It’s more complicated so it may not be the ideal choice when you’re just getting started, but I think that most people who get deeply into points and miles will want to get it at some point.

Once this set of changes was announced, I started seriously considering the upgrade with an eye toward the second half of this year.

My business needs finally pushed me over the edge

The final piece of my decision to upgrade to the Chase Sapphire Reserve may not totally apply to everyone reading this, but it’s a real part of my own calculation and I’m all about transparency: I decided that I needed to upgrade for my business. There are two parts of that.

First, if I’m trying to help families strategize about how they can travel more, better and cheaper then I need to be able to point to my own real-world experience. There are some things you can’t just theorize about. In fact, within the first week of getting the Chase Sapphire Reserve last month I’ve already more than recouped the annual fee. Through some hard work and strategy, I managed to get incredible value for an upcoming hotel stay for my family.

Second, credit card referrals are part of my business. I’ll never suggest a credit card only to get a referral, but when I think it’s the right opportunity or tool for a specific situation. And in this instance, by August we had already referred so many families for the Chase Sapphire Preferred that my husband hit his annual cap. That’s a good problem to have! Those referrals (which are treated as reported, taxable income) allow us to keep going to cool places and sharing them with you here on the blog, podcast and social media. Of course there’s no guarantee that I’ll generate additional referrals this year from my content, but it’s good to have the potential upside.

If you think applying for one of the Chase Sapphire cards is right for you, I’m always grateful for readers who use my referral link here:

FYI – If you have either of the personal Sapphire credit cards, you can refer your family and friends to either card as well! As of this writing the bonus is 15,000 points per referral but sometimes it drops to 10,000 points.

Wrapping up

So there you have it – no welcome bonus, but also no regrets. Between the new credits matching how we actually spend, the Sapphire Preferred’s transfer ratio getting worse right as the Reserve’s Points Boost got better, and a business case to top it all off, the upgrade made sense a lot more easily than I expected.

Is this the right move for everyone? Definitely not. If you’re just dipping a toe into travel rewards, the Sapphire Preferred or even the Capital One Venture X is still a fantastic (and much cheaper) starting point. But if you’re already deep in the points and miles rabbit hole and you know you’ll use at least some of the Reserve credits, it definitely comes out on top. You can also turbo-charge the earnings side of things by pairing the Reserve with the Chase Freedom Unlimited, which earns 1.5 points per dollar on your “everything else” spending – that’s an extra 50% on your Target and Costco runs compared to either of the Sapphire cards.

I’ve got the full breakdown of how I turned the first week of Reserve ownership into more value than the annual fee – you can read it here. In the meantime, check out these other resources to level up your points and miles game:

• Case Study: Chase Sapphire Reserve’s The Edit Shines in Amsterdam
• Chase Sapphire Preferred: What’s Changing and What You Should Do About It
• Looking for the Best Credit Cards for Family Travel? Check These Choices
• The Southwest Companion Pass Trick: How We Earn It Without Flying
• Learn How to Travel With Kids for FREE (or close to it)
• Four Reasons I LOVE Award Travel (Other Than Free Stuff)