A few days ago I shared why I upgraded back to the Chase Sapphire Reserve even without a welcome bonus, and I promised I’d come back and show you exactly how I’d already made that annual fee back in the first few weeks of holding the card. Here you go!
The short version: I just booked two rooms for four nights each at the Kimpton De Witt Amsterdam – a lovely hotel in a convenient part of town – for a combined total of 100,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points and roughly $50 cash. That’s for two rooms, four nights apiece, for our upcoming Amsterdam/Paris spring break trip.
In this article I’m sharing exactly how I got there, credit by credit and point by point, using Chase’s luxury hotel program called The Edit.
Thanks to my partners at IHG for providing images of the Kimpton De Witt for this article. We can’t wait for our stay!
What is The Edit by Chase?
The Edit is Chase’s version of a luxury hotel collection – similar in concept to Amex Fine Hotels + Resorts, and tied specifically to the Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card and the Chase Sapphire Reserve for Business credit card. Book a property in The Edit for at least two nights through the Chase Travel portal and you get:
- Daily breakfast for two
- A $100 property credit
- Potential for a room upgrade at check-in
- Points Boost – a bumped-up redemption value on your Ultimate Rewards points, usually somewhere between 1.4 and 2.0 cents per point – 2.0 isn’t unusual to find, and I’ve even seen a limited-time 2.5 cent promotion (mine came in at 1.65 cents per point for this stay)
On top of that, the Chase Sapphire Reserve gives you a $250 credit twice a year for Edit bookings of at least two nights, plus a bonus $250 “Select Hotels” credit that’s active for 2026 – it covers brands like IHG, Montage, Pendry and a few others. In theory you can stack those up to $500 in credits on a single two night booking, if you know how to use them.
A word of warning though: many hotels in The Edit are expensive. And some are really really expensive. In some of the most expensive cities like New York, London and Paris, it probably won’t be ideal – especially if you’re traveling as a family. But if you look hard enough and follow my tips here, it might be a great option for your next trip.
Now I’ll go step by step through how I harnessed the power of The Edit for major savings on our family’s upcoming hotel stay.
Trick #0: I used my $300 annual travel credit first
Before I did anything with the edit, I booked a $600 United flight with my Chase Sapphire Reserve. I needed to take care of that ASAP for a family member who was going to reimburse me anyway. For better or worse, that travel credit is automatically applied and gets applied before The Edit and select hotels credits.
The good news is that if you’ve had the Chase Sapphire Reserve for a while, you may have used that annual travel credit without even realizing it. Things like parking and subway fare count. If you aren’t sure, you can go to Chase Travel and the front page will show you what’s left to use.
If you haven’t used the annual travel credit and you don’t want it to apply to your The Edit booking, you can always book a refundable flight as a placeholder. In my experience that tracker on the front of Chase Travel updates within a day or two, even if the statement credit takes a little longer to post. When you cancel that placeholder flight, the credit will be un-applied and available for you to use again.
Trick #1: I made two reservations instead of one
As a family of four traveling in Europe, very often we wind up needing two rooms. It’s common for standard room occupancy to be just two or maybe three, and as you can read in my London hotels on points article a lot of times the rooms that allow four people only offer two double beds rather than two queens. Even worse, a single “family room” is usually more than double the cost of two rooms.
But there are a few ways you can get to the same result of having two rooms: either you can book two rooms on a single reservation, or you can book two reservations for one room each. To trigger all of the credits, I split up our rooms (one child and one adult in each) and made two completely different reservations. Each one triggered a $250 The Edit credit, and because Kimpton is an IHG brand the first reservation also triggered the $250 Select Hotels credit – though as you’ll see below, that credit doesn’t just get wiped out once it’s triggered.
The same logic would have worked in reverse if we were only a party of two: if you only need one room but you’re staying four nights, you could split that into two separate two-night reservations (two nights is the minimum for Edit credits) and trigger all $750 in credits for a single stay. It’s a little more admin, but it’s free money if you’re patient enough to do two checkouts instead of one.
Note: There was a little confusion this summer, but Chase has clarified that you can get $250 credits for back-to-back stays. I think the $100 on-property credit might be a little bit of a gamble – you may only get that once rather than twice, which is the situation with Amex FHR bookings.
Trick #2: I price-matched to a site I’d never have booked directly
Chase Travel has a price match policy, and it’s more powerful than people realize. You can match The Edit rate to a lower publicly available price either on third-party sites – things like Expedia, the hotel’s own website, or even lesser-known sites – as long as the rate has essentially the same cancellation policy and doesn’t require a membership. You have 24 hours from the time of booking to submit your documentation.
Importantly, Chase is comparing the subtotal before taxes and fees – you can see above that the subtotal is $1423 when you back out the taxes. And they don’t require that the price match rate include the same bougie benefits you get from The Edit! It’s really easy to submit a price match from the “Trips” section of your Chase Travel account – anything that is eligible for a price match will have a button next to it for the first 24 hours.
So how did I make the most of this? I searched around until I found the cheapest possible site for my dates, and I was very glad that it seemed to show a lower-than-expected subtotal with higher-than-expected taxes and fees. I’d honestly never even heard of Prestigia.com before I was doing this research. But a quick trip through the website turned up their rate for the exact same room and dates, with a cancellation policy that was almost the same (it differed by about 12 hours). I submitted a screenshot of what I found and a link to the website.
I admit that I was a little nervous about how it was going to work, so I only booked one reservation at a time. I waited for the first price match to be approved before I booked the second room. The great news is that each price match only took 23 hours from submission to approval!
Here’s something important to keep in mind: the math on Chase’s price match isn’t always intuitive – it actually ended up being more generous than I expected, and I’m not going to complain about that. I thought I’d get back around $300 on the first booking, but in the end it was $345.
Here’s the part I didn’t expect: the Select Hotels credit isn’t an all-or-nothing trigger. It gets drawn down against your actual cost, not just applied in full the moment it’s eligible. So once the price match knocked down what I owed on the first booking, the portion of that $250 credit I hadn’t actually needed rolled back into my available balance – which meant I still had some of it left to put toward the second reservation.
By the time I sat down to write this, the same search actually would have gotten me closer to a $450 match per room. I’m leaving that money on the table, though, because Chase ties your The Edit credits to the specific booking they were issued on. Since the price matches I got were more generous than I expected, I don’t want to risk them being rejected or lower than they were before. It’s just not worth it for me, especially when I’m having to work a lot harder to figure out our hotel situation in Paris.
Honestly this price match policy can be a total game-changer. You can get great benefits, earn 8 points per dollar by booking through Chase Travel and take advantage of screaming-low prices without the risk of a random website… and there’s still one more trick up The Edit’s sleeve.
Trick #3: I stacked cash and points on purpose
Normally it’s not a good idea to redeem your points in a bank’s travel portal, as you will only get a maximum of 1 cent per point in value – Amex Travel only gives you a paltry 0.7 cents per point! By comparison, you can often get at least 1.5 cents per point of value by strategically transferring points to partners.
When Chase refreshed the Sapphire Reserve in 2025, they got rid of fixed Chase Travel redemptions at 1.5 cents per point unfortunately. But they offered an alternative, which they call Points Boost. For select flights and hotels – including all The Edit bookings – you’ll be able to redeem your points for 1.4, 1.65 or 2.0 cents per point to cover whatever is left after you use all those credits. In the case of Kimpton De Witt, the Points Boost was 1.65 cents per point – not the best you’ll ever find, but respectable by any measure.
Full disclosure: When the refresh initially occurred, Points Boost was supposed to be 2.0 for all The Edit bookings. Unfortunately Chase nixed that after a few months. Obviously that would have been even more amazing!
Once the credits and price match brought the cash price down, I didn’t just pay for the rest with a credit card. I made sure I was charging at least as much as my combined credits and price match discount in actual dollars, then covered the remaining balance with my “boosted” Ultimate Rewards points – points my husband and I have pooled together from a mix of Sapphire, Freedom, and Ink cards.
The downside is that I had to do some serious math to figure out roughly how many points to apply to each reservation. It was simple(ish) to calculate what I thought was the right balance of points vs cash for the first room. But before I booked the second room I had to make myself a spreadsheet to figure out how many points to use, accounting for my expected price match (since the Prestigia price had dropped further), the partial Select Hotels credit that was left over and the $250 The Edit credit.
Weighing alternatives to The Edit
To be honest, there weren’t a ton of hotels I considered for our time in Amsterdam. I might have slightly preferred the Andaz Prinsengracht and it had a better Points Boost of 2.0 cents per point, but I couldn’t find a website to price match that was less than $2000 per room. But based on feedback I’ve gotten from other travelers, the Kimpton De Witt was right up there near the top of my list.
So here are the three options I came up with for booking the Kimpton De Witt for our family of four – more on the other two options below the table:
| Options | Points used | Cash used | Extras included |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Edit, split into 2 reservations (what I actually did) | ~100,000 UR points (combined) | ~$50 (combined) | Breakfast for 2 x2 rooms, $100 property credit x2, upgrade potential, earn IHG points on booking |
| Book direct with IHG, using the 4th-night-free IHG credit card perk | 328,000+ IHG points (2 rooms x 164,000, now pricing at 182,000 each) | $0 | Upgrade potential |
| Book 1 room with IHG, then pay to upgrade to two double beds | 164,000 IHG points | ~$800 (roughly $200/night upgrade fee) | Earn Chase points on upgrade fee |
Alternative #1:
Among many, many, many credit cards I hold is the IHG One Rewards Premier Credit Card, which costs $99 per year. In addition to a free hotel night every year, it also grants me automatic IHG Platinum status and unlocks the fourth night free on direct IHG points bookings. Platinum status has gotten me a very nice upgrade at a rather basic Holiday Inn before, but otherwise doesn’t come with a ton of upside on points.
Note: If I didn’t have the IHG credit card, I would get automatic Platinum status with the Sapphire Reserve anyway! More on why that’s relevant in a moment.
However, that fourth night free perk can be really handy in some circumstances. Using it to book directly through IHG would have run 328,000+ IHG points for two rooms (and that number has already crept up since I first checked – it was 164,000 per room, now it’s 182,000 each).
Alternative #2:
The other option the hotel offered was that I book the basic room for 164,000 points and then pay about $200 per night to upgrade to a larger room with two double beds. It was cheaper in points but still needed nearly $800 in cash and gave us a less comfortable setup than two separate king rooms. In general I always recommend that families visiting Europe and Asia check into this type of option before committing to two rooms, as the upgrade fee in some places is as little as $50 while other brands (like Hyatt) may offer a significant discount on a second room.
One small nugget of goodness from Alternative #2 is that the Chase Sapphire Reserve earns four points per dollar spent on charges directly with hotels. In this case, I would have eventually earned 3200 Chase Ultimate Rewards points by paying the upgrade fee, worth about $50. Woohoo!
An added bonus of booking with The Edit
Even booking The Edit versus Alternative #2 (points + cash upgrade) is saving me $750 cash plus a ton of points. Despite upgrading my no-fee Chase Freedom Unlimited card without the welcome bonus, I’ve already more than broken even on the $795 annual fee of the Sapphire Reserve and that’s before considering the annual travel credit and various lifestyle credits that are included. We also get a great breakfast for everyone, the potential to upgrade and some spending money to have food on-site at some point if we’d like.
But there’s another monetary benefit that’s worth mentioning: my bookings flow through to IHG as if they’re paid with cash. Remember how I mentioned that I get free IHG Platinum status with the Chase Sapphire Reserve? That gives a 60% bonus on IHG points I earn from stays. In this case I can already see in my IHG account that each room will earn over 17,000 points – cumulatively worth about $200 toward a future stay, but potentially much more (closer to $500 when I eventually use them to take the family to the Kimpton Seafire in Grand Cayman).
Is that a deal breaker? No, not at all. But it’s a nice little kicker on top of an already great deal.
Wrapping Up
Chase’s The Edit isn’t always going to be a slam dunk. It depends on where you’re going and exactly what your needs are. But with hotel prices rising across the board and devaluations among hotel points programs in the last few years, it’s nice to have another option in the toolbox.
This is exactly the kind of real-world math I couldn’t have written about without actually holding the card again – which is a big part of why I upgraded to the Chase Sapphire Reserve in the first place. Two rooms for four nights each at a nice hotel in Amsterdam for 100,000 points and $50 is a redemption I never could have conjured up on my own. I’ll take it!
Want to try it yourself? Grab the Chase Sapphire Reserve or Chase Sapphire Reserve for Business here.
Chase Sapphire Reserve The Edit FAQs
You need a Chase Sapphire Reserve or Chase Sapphire Reserve for Business to access The Edit’s benefits, credits, and Points Boost through the Chase Travel portal.
Yes, as long as each booking meets the minimum two-night stay requirement and you’re using separate reservations. Just be aware the credits are tied to that specific booking (unless you cancel it).
I’ve seen anywhere from 1.4 to 2.0 cents per point depending on the hotel and timing – 2.0 is not unheard of, though 1.65 is more typical. I’ve also seen a limited-time promotion push it as high as 2.5 cents per point, but treat that as the exception, not the norm. Mine was 1.65 cents per point for the Kimpton De Witt Amsterdam.
It’s an official Chase policy, so it’s not risky in that sense as long as you book a refundable option (or can live with Chase’s stated price if it’s non-refundable and the price match doesn’t work).
More resources
- 3 Reasons I Upgraded To The Chase Sapphire Reserve (Even Without A Bonus)
- 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)
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