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The Chase Sapphire Reserve® Card arrived in 2016 with a bang. It offered 100,000 bonus points. It offered a Priority Pass membership with unlimited free guests. It made your Chase points worth at least 1.5 cents each. It offered triple points on dining and travel. It offered Global Entry/Pre-Check for free. And the card had a low $150 effective annual fee if you utilized the easy to use $300 annual travel credit.
But here we are 5 years later and things haven’t exactly gotten better for Chase’s flagship card. It hasn’t offered a 100,000 point bonus since the card launched. The Priority Pass membership now only comes with 2 free guests and it costs $75 for each additional user to get their own Priority Pass membership. And the effective annual fee has gone up by 67% to $250 after using the $300 travel credit.
To be fair, there have been some improvements. The biggest is the addition of Pay Yourself Back categories that actually make your points worth 1.57 cents each as you keep the points earned on the purchase, while paying yourself back for the cost. Those categories rotate, and through 3/31/22 they include dining, Airbnb, and Away luggage. You can also pay back the card’s annual fee in 2021 at a rate of 1.5 cents per point.
Other additions to the card are more transient. $120 in Peloton statement credits to use this year. $60 in credit for Doordash for use this year and a free year of free DoorDash DashPass. A free year of Lyft Pink and Grubhub+ or Seamless+. But those aren’t slated to stick around.
In the mean time, Chase Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card® Card has gotten much better, all while keeping its annual fee at a modest $95. It now has a $50 annual hotel credit, though that needs to be booked via the Chase portal. You get a 10% anniversary points bonus. With that bonus you now earn 3.1 points per dollar on dining, which beats Sapphire Reserve. You earn 3.1 points per dollar on streaming and online grocery shopping, compared to just 1 per dollar with Sapphire Reserve. You earn 2.1 points per dollar on travel, which is 0.9 points per dollar shy of Sapphire Reserve. Notably, Pay Yourself Back on Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card does not currently cover dining purchases.
So, Sapphire Reserve costs an effective $155 per year more than Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card, or $205 more per year if you’ll use the $50 hotel credit on Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card. For that you get Priority Pass, Global Entry/Pre-Check, an extra 0.9 points per dollar on travel, the ability to pay yourself back for dining, and most critically, your Chase points are worth at least 1.5 cents per dollar for travel and Pay Yourself Back versus 1.25 cents per dollar on Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card. Both Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card and Sapphire Reserve offer the ability to transfer all of your Chase points to airlines and hotels at a 1:1 ratio.
Calculating that value is tough as the value of those perks will vary. If you spend $5,000/year on travel, that’s a difference of 4,500 points, worth about $67.50 at a value of 1.5 cents per point. If you redeem 50,000 points per dollar for paid travel (as opposed to mileage transfers), that’s an additional value of $125 per year. If you use Pay Yourself Back for dining, that will add value. And you can add in your value for Global Entry and for Priority Pass, which Chase allows you to use for airport massages, sleep rooms, restaurants, and to-go items, while AMEX Priority Pass does not.
But then along came Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card X last week and it changes the equation. The card’s $395 annual fee is fully wiped away by the $300 annual travel credit and the $200 vacation rental credit in the first year or the 10,000 mile anniversary bonus given for subsequent years.
Venture X does Priority Pass even better than Sapphire Reserve. It too comes with a Priority Pass membership that includes airport massages, sleep rooms, restaurants, and to-go items, as well as traditional lounges. It too allows for 2 free guests. But unlike Sapphire Reserve, you can add 4 free additional user cards and they each get Priority Pass memberships, a savings of $75 per card compared to Sapphire Reserve. Venture X also gives free access to Capital One lounges and perks like Hertz President’s Circle for all primary and additional cardholders. Plus it comes with Global Entry/Pre-Check credit, though like Sapphire Reserve, that’s limited to one use per account every 4 years.
The 100,000 point+$200 bonus makes picking up the Venture X card with the current limited time offer a no-brainer. That’s especially so as Capital One has been much easier to approve people for Venture X than they have for their other cards.
If you get the Venture X, that wipes out some of the perks of Sapphire Reserve, such as Priority Pass and Global Entry, though Global Entry can still be useful for other family members as even children need that to skip the immigration line when returning to the US.
But with a superior Priority Pass membership on the Venture X, the remaining benefits of Sapphire Reserve over Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card are the extra 0.9 points per dollar on travel, the ability to pay yourself back for dining, and that your Chase points are worth at least 1.5 cents per dollar for travel and Pay Yourself Back versus 1.25 cents per dollar on Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card.
Does that equal $155 of annual value for you over Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card (or $205 if you would use the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card’s $50 annual hotel credit)? It may, but you’ll need to crunch the numbers on how much you spend and redeem on paid travel and Pay Yourself Back categories. If you strip out the value of Priority Pass and Global Entry, that will mean the decision becomes even murkier than before.
Another point to keep in mind is that after having a card for 12 months from initially opening it, you can freely switch between Chase Ultimate Rewards cards. That means you can keep a card as Freedom, Freedom Unlimited, or Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card and then changing to Sapphire Reserve on demand for a higher redemption value, before changing back again.
There are other Sapphire Reserve benefits, such as free roadside assistance, return protection, $10K purchase protection (vs $500 on Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card), $1M travel accident insurance (vs $500K on Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card), emergency evacuation insurance, emergency medical and dental travel insurance, and repatriation of remains insurance. Whether any of those are worth assigning additional value to Sapphire Reserve will depend on your use of those benefits.
The biggest benefit of Sapphire Reserve is that it helps cap off the awesome Chase Quinfecta, where you can earn lots of points per dollar, something that Capital One doesn’t do well, and redeem them quite valuably. But there’s no doubt that between Sapphire Reserve’s increased annual fee and the benefits of Venture X, some people will find sticking with Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card to be good enough to complete their own Chase Quinfecta.
Will Venture X make you reconsider keeping a Sapphire Reserve card?
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44 Comments On "Does Venture X And Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card Improvements Change The Calculus On Keeping Sapphire Reserve?"
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How often can you freely switch between UR cards and not be flagged by Chase? Could I in effect switch from the Preferred to Reserve every summer if I travel more and then switch back to the Preferred in the fall?
That should be fine.
“That means you can keep a card as Freedom, Freedom Unlimited, or Sapphire Preferred and then changing to Sapphire Reserve on demand for a higher redemption value, before changing back again.” Is it really this easy? You could downgrade a Sapphire Reserve to a Freedom, then when you want to redeem points for paid travel at 1.5/per dollar you can simply call them to switch your card back to a SR? And then after redeeming, switch back to a Freedom? What happens to your annual fee through all that? Any limit to how often you can do this?
I wouldn’t abuse it, but it is doable.
Honestly don’t spend too much time crunching the numbers. They’re both great cards. That extra $155 isnt like a life altering number that warrants so much economic soul searching:) The time it takes to crunch the numbers is also worth money
Like
Lol “economic soul searching”
Couldn’t agree more
Crunching numbers is half the fun!
Yep, crunching the numbers leads to good choices
Will apply or PC for the Venture X. As we are flying more frequently now.
We cancelled CSR in July 2020 at renewal even with grandfathered rate – we weren’t flying enough to justify, and AmEx got crazy with COVID offerings we went.from zero to four Plats. Very lucrative.
Prior to COVID it was easy to offset the AF with PP at PDX/SFO/DEN/SEA the hubs we used the most for $28. Even had an AU for the four of us.
I am looking forward to the Venture X, since it’s a +$5 net winner before any benefits (if you use travel credit and count the 10,000 anniversary points/miles.
We’re a bit deep with Chase cards and CLs as well as both are at 4/24 till next spring/summer.
Now we will see about what Plats we keep next renewal, we’ve been offered $595 statement credits, and 50k MR no spend and 40K with $3K MSR.
But Plat credits are getting redundant for more than one Plat card ($179 clear, GE/TSA/Walmart+/Digital credits/etc).
Great article as usual.
Question: “Another point to keep in mind is that after having a card for 12 months from initially opening it, you can freely switch between Chase Ultimate Rewards cards. That means you can keep a card as Freedom, Freedom Unlimited, or Sapphire Preferred and then changing to Sapphire Reserve on demand for a higher redemption value, before changing back again.”
I can change for a few hours to a reserve, make my booking and switch back to a preferred? How does that work in terms of fees etc? Or did i miss the boat entirely?
I’m over 5/24, so I can’t get a Sapphire Preferred, so I may as well downgrade to one when the annual fee hits next year.
Al, I’m probably going to do the same. We’re in the same 5/24 boat.
The travel credits are not comparable. Sapphire reserve credits you for all travel, Venture X only for travel purchased through their portal.
Of course, nothing is as easy as the CSR credit.
In fact if the story would be the opposite the CSR credit wouldn’t be worth anything because Chase travel portal is most of the time over priced,
but Capital one has better pricing and they even match prices! simply find the cheapest price call up capital one they’ll look it up online while with your on the phone and credit you the difference.
[I didn’t experience this yet but that’s how it works according to them usually they don’t make much of a hassle to use there services]
This is true. But, is their portal that bad? Wouldn’t I be able to book any flight or hotel through it that I would ever need, with no problem and similar prices?
Hi Dan, if i want to book a last minute ticket, to england, usually what the best option with hybrid points? either economy or business?
There’s no one best option, need to check with multiple airlines to see which have the best option.
If we would all be @Dan then we would definitely know how to search and find greatest rates for flights.
Dan What about you start doing a service of searching and booking best fare flights hotels etc. for a preset service fee?
let us feel a little the passion of maxing out miles. 🙂
I’m not sure why at least the doordash credit isn’t calculated (I consider it 30.00 with the mark up.) in the equation to lower the fee? That being said I plan on canceling my csr upon renewal.. it’s a big mistake on chase’s part to up the fee it’s turning casual travelers to cancel the csr card which will cause people to stop using their other chase cards as they won’t have the quad affect anymore..
Because that benefit ends next month.
any idea when the Venture X special offer ends?
Nope.
In the case of Capital One, I’m curious why it matters? There isn’t a 5/24 clock or a 48-month-Sapphirre clock you’re waiting to run out- so how does it help with your planning, you can just get it now?
I think VentureX combined with the $0 AF SavorOne for the 3X dining and grocery is the way to go. For anyone wanting travel to Israel (or based in Israel), Cap1 partners are vastly superior.
That is a great combo!
Can you elaborate on the benefit of Capitol one in Israel?
All Cap One cards have no foreign transaction fees, and tend to have a great dollar exchange rate. (I have done spend in Israel were they literally exchanged from dollars to shekels at a rate higher than the market was at any point that week!)
On the travel side, think 32K points (47K for business) with no surcharge (just taxes) for non-stop tickets from EWR to TLV on United via CO transfer partner / United Star Alliance partner Turkish. The Venture X card is like having the Citi Double-Cash (unlimited 2% cash back) and Citi Premier (convert to Citi ThankYou points & transfer to partners) rolled into one card (with a lot of overlap in transfer partners).
“For anyone wanting travel to Israel (or based in Israel), Cap1 partners are vastly superior.” What do you mean by this? What partners does Cap1 have that others don’t, and how are they specifically good for Israel travelling? Thanks in advance 🙂
As a Savorone card holder i definitely agree!
In my opinion the Savorone at it self without a combo is by far the best $0 Af card
Its a world elite which gives you a bunch of benefits you won’t get from any other $0 AF card
Way too complicated
I believe the venture x has return protection as well
Right, was comparing CSR to CSP.
VentureX has $300/item return protection up to $1K/year.
CSR has $500/item return protection up to $1K/year.
Strip out the lounge benefits, signup bonuses and the hodgepodge of credits and you should focus on value for dollar spent.
The banks want you to spend money on the card. They distract you with all these shiny baubles.
So if you’re a real spender this is a good individual card but not the best spending strategy.
Citi Doublecash + Prestige is the best as you earn at 2% and can redeem against anything or transfer to airlines.
Chase Freedmon + CSR is 2nd best as you earn at effective 2.25% (for travel only) or transfer to airlines.
The Cap1+ can redeem at effective 2% against travel only and (importantly) does not require the portal. Can also transfer to airlines.
If Cap1 had enhanced the redemption options over their cheaper cards this would have been the real winner.
Otherwise, get this cards for the bonuses and lounge benefits than shelve it for the Citi or chase combos.
Any quick way to cash out dining spend. Any stores catogerize as dining that sell gift cards?
How does the Cap1 travel portal compare to chase?
Can capital one points from all their credit cards transfer to airlines? Seems that some are advertised as points and some as cash back.
No.
Venture, Venture X, and Spark Miles.
https://www.dansdeals.com/credit-cards/capitalone/capital-one-will-launch-venture-x-card-next-week-awesome-benefits-signup-bonus/
So then the “Saverone” combo mentioned above in the comments doesn’t really combine to points.
You can transfer Capital One cash back into miles on mileage cards.
One thing to consider is how much harder it seems to get the Capital one. With chase good income,score,and below 5/24 you’re pretty much a shoe in to get card. Cap 1 seems to be 50/50 even if you have significant income, 800+ credit, etc and it results in 3 pulls.
Venture X is easier to get than other Capital One cards.
The problem is your discounting Capital One’s required spending of $10k in 6 months to hit the intro bonus which is a steep threshold to meet for many people.