Normally it’s pretty easy to get hundreds or even thousands of dollars of value out of a good, solid, premium credit card. However, some of you might still be reluctant to open up a card like that. The fact is that even though the card pays for itself, you still need to cough up hundreds of dollars for that annual fee ahead of time.
What if I told you that there is a card out there that could get you over a thousand dollars of value in the first year (and hundreds every year thereafter) that would only cost you $95 annually? Would you think I’m crazy?
Well, you’re not wrong about me being crazy.
But I’m not joking around here. Such a card really does exist, and I’m going to tell you all about it.
I’m talking, of course, about the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card.
I’m going to not only break down why this card is so great, but also give firm examples of how much value you can get based on different levels of spending on the card.
Let’s talk about the welcome bonus first.
Currently, Chase is offering 60,000 Ultimate Rewards points after spending $4,000 in the first 3 months of account opening.
This is an incredible upgrade for such a low annual fee.
That amount of points alone could easily yield a thousand dollars (or more!) of value if you transfer the points to hotels or airlines.
But even if you think about it more conservatively, it can get you an easy $750+ of value, especially when redeemed for travel through Chase TravelSM . That’s because Chase lets you redeem Ultimate Rewards points for 1.25 cents each if you book travel in their portal.
The Chase Sapphire Preferred Card also offers an annual $50 hotel credit when booking through the Chase travel portal. As long as you spend $50 a year on hotels (which, let’s be honest, you hopefully do if you’re reading this), then you can think of your annual fee as about $45 per year.
So you’re getting a minimum of $750 of value for a net $45 card. But what about year two? Or year three? Or year ten? Is the card still worth holding?
The answer is a resounding…
Here’s why:
This card has some of the most competitive earning rates out there. You can basically earn more than one point per dollar on almost all of your spending.
The earning rates are structured as follows:
- 5x points on travel booked through the Chase portal
- 3x points on streaming services
- 3x points on dining, take out, and food delivery
- 2x points on all travel purchases (outside of the portal)
- 1 point on everything else
It’s like the “Swiss army knife” of credit cards. Except you’re allowed to take this on a plane with you. And you should, because the card also has no foreign transaction fees.
And that’s everything you need to know! Isn’t the card great?
JUST KIDDING. There’s still much more that this card has to offer.
I mentioned that you get a $50 hotel credit every year to use toward hotels booked through the Chase portal. But there’s also another pretty sweet annual perk...
Every year, you’ll get a lump 10% bonus points based on the amount you spent during the previous year.
For example, if you spend $25,000 on the card in a year, you’ll get 2,500 bonus points in addition to all the points you already earn from the spending.
If you really want to get maximum value out of all those points, you can transfer them to any one of Chase’s 14 transfer partners.
Now if all of this theoretical talk about points and value is hard to visualize, let me help by doing a breakdown based on some conservative spending estimates.
- Streaming: $600 = 1,800 points per year
- Dining, online groceries, delivery: $6,000 = 18,000 points per year
- Travel (in the Chase portal): $1,000 = 5,000 points per year
- Travel (not in the Chase portal): $1,000 = 2,000 points per year
- Other spending: $6,000 = 6,000 points per year
- 10% bonus: 3,280
Total points: 36,080
If you use those points with transfer partners (which yields about two cents per point in value), you’re getting $722 of value per year against a net $45 annual fee (accounting for the $50 hotel credit). That’s ridiculous.
Keep in mind - that's a pretty conservative estimate... I don't know about you, but I actually spend quite a bit more than that in a given year. So if you want to take some rough estimates of your own spending and run the numbers, you might be surprised how that number of points jumps up.
For now, let's stick to the conservative estimate and look at a couple of quick examples of what you could do with those points:
You could transfer 30,000 points to KLM/Air France and book these round-trip flights from New York to Marseille.
Let's say you're more of a warm weather kind of guy. You could book a FareDrop to Bali (shameless plug, no regrets), transfer 34,000 points to Marriott Bonvoy, and book seven nights at this hotel:
Since these points are from your spending and not even accounting for the welcome bonus, you could book trips like this every. single. year - just from your normal day-to-day spending.
The fact of the matter is that even without the points, this card is likely to pay for itself. That’s because chase also has merchant offers that allow you to earn statement credits for spending at various merchants.
Okay, this is just exhausting... how many benefits could a $95 credit card possibly have?
The answer is... a lot. If this sounds more appealing to you than coughing up a $400, $500, or $700 annual fee, then you can read more about the card and/or apply by clicking here.
