Earlier quoted context omitted.
Citi Double Cashback is 2%
I know, but it had lower approval odds for me at the time. I've also heard a lot of bad things about that specific card, mainly stories of overly aggressive fraud protection.
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How Chase Sapphire retained customers
31–40 of 71 posts
Re: How Chase Sapphire retained customers
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yep. Unfortunately, I don't think I'm going to hit my $300 from travel this year. I did travel early-on but I put all that on another card for various reasons. And I normally spend 10s of Ks on travel :-/
Really? The travel category includes Airbnb, car rentals, rideshare, public transportation, parking, tolls, etc. in addition to the more obvious flights and hotels.
I have spent exactly $0 on any of those things since early March.
Re: How Chase Sapphire retained customers
#33They retain me with the 1.5x value if points are used for booking flights through their portal.
I'm too lazy to run the numbers, but I think I'd lose value on the points I have/will have next year if I downgraded, especially since you can move all your points over from other Chase cards to that account.
Re: How Chase Sapphire retained customers
#34For those of you with 100k in stocks sitting around, I'd recommend the BofA Premium rewards card. You need to transfer 100k in stocks to BofA's brokerage but that'll give you a card which gives 3.5% back on dining/travel and 2.65% on everything else. It saves you way more time than juggling points, and I'm much happier after switching to a one card system.
A discover will give you 5% on Amazon, Gas, Dining and Groceries depending on the Quarter, doubled at the end of the year but maxes out at $75 per quarter. Essentialy 10% cashback when you can get it.
Re: How Chase Sapphire retained customers
#35If you have a Chase Sapphire Reserve card, you can actually get $250 in free statement credits if you call them and ask for the retention offer to help cover the annual fee. https://thriftytraveler.com/chase-sapphire-reserve-retention...
Ironically, I called to cancel mine a couple days ago (without knowing about the retention offer) and the CSR asked why. I said that the reduced benefits and increased annual fee made it no longer worth it for me and I was then offered the $250 statement credit. I accepted since that drops the annual fee to a reasonable level. I don't know if I'll stay next year without an additional offer, though. At the previous annual fee of $450, before COVID when I traveled a fair bit for work, and with easily-transferable points for personal air travel, the benefits easily paid for the annual fee. Now work travel is all canceled, the annual fee is up to $550, and their points can't be redeemed for travel on several of the airlines that I flew most frequently. Ah well, first-world problems.
Re: How Chase Sapphire retained customers
#36For those of you with 100k in stocks sitting around, I'd recommend the BofA Premium rewards card. You need to transfer 100k in stocks to BofA's brokerage but that'll give you a card which gives 3.5% back on dining/travel and 2.65% on everything else. It saves you way more time than juggling points, and I'm much happier after switching to a one card system.
Chase will give you $2k (in cash) if you open a premium account and deposit $250k in it.
Just did this. Now waiting 4 months to withdraw and close.
Re: How Chase Sapphire retained customers
#37I really don't see why people find it worth it to spend $550/year to get the Reserve. Sure, you get a lot of benefits, but I don't really see how they add up to $550 more in benefits over cards with $0 fee. If I want to buy $550 of airline points, I can do that without this card.
The $300 yearly travel credit brings it down to $250 which is more approachable. Then you include the $100 Global Entry credit as well as Lyft benefits (10x points on Lyft + Lyft Pink sub)and it starts to "pay for itself." They're also offering $120 in credits to Peloton Digital subscriptions right now. Seeing the $550 charge on the statement isn't always fun but I think the benefits can start to make sense if you ta…
From the hyped introduction until earlier this year, the fee was $450/yr, bringing it to $150/yr with travel credit.
You also used to be able to cycle the opening bonus of 100k or 80k points every 18 months with the Preferred and Reserve. If you had a partner and were diligent about timing, it was a ridiculous amount of points.
I have a stash of bonus points and that I book hotels and trips with for years.
Previously the hotel and flight bookings in their portal were very good deals, at some point they switched to booking through a rebranded Expedia and now I would say the prices are average compared to other travel aggregators. You still get a higher value redeeming them for travel vs cash back though.
Re: How Chase Sapphire retained customers
#38Here's what I remember: Basically they bribed people with the biggest frequent flier miles offer up to that point in history, lost more money Fedexing cards to customers, got worked by the credit card churning crowd for all the bonuses possible, incentivized people to visit 4 airport lounges per trip and now are struggling to keep customers as travel has fallen off the face of the Earth. So, exactly what you get when…
IIRC Sapphire Reserve was considered a loss leader to attract higher income folks to Chase so they can cross sell more lucrative banking products. You can see how they tried to cash in on the Sapphire brand with Sapphire Checking, which is basically rebranded Premier Plus checking.
This is true. It was a bit of a joke tbh, since everyone I know who uses Chase Sapphire is nowhere touching JPM products with a long pole (extreme customer discrimination and all).
Re: How Chase Sapphire retained customers
#39I really don't see why people find it worth it to spend $550/year to get the Reserve. Sure, you get a lot of benefits, but I don't really see how they add up to $550 more in benefits over cards with $0 fee. If I want to buy $550 of airline points, I can do that without this card.
This year is a no brainier. 100 dollar statement credit and 300 travel/grocery puts the fee at 150. The effective cash back on dining is currently 4.5 percent when using the statement credit feature. There was also a doordash credit.
IIRC uber eats and rideshare also count for the travel credit, so even doing no traveling this year it wasn't very hard to get that full reimbursment.
Re: How Chase Sapphire retained customers
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
The $300 yearly travel credit brings it down to $250 which is more approachable. Then you include the $100 Global Entry credit as well as Lyft benefits (10x points on Lyft + Lyft Pink sub)and it starts to "pay for itself." They're also offering $120 in credits to Peloton Digital subscriptions right now. Seeing the $550 charge on the statement isn't always fun but I think the benefits can start to make sense if you ta…
From the hyped introduction until earlier this year, the fee was $450/yr, bringing it to $150/yr with travel credit. You also used to be able to cycle the opening bonus of 100k or 80k points every 18 months with the Preferred and Reserve. If you had a partner and were diligent about timing, it was a ridiculous amount of points. I have a stash of bonus points and that I book hotels and trips with for years. Previously…
one plus side of booking through chase is that it is pretty much no questions asked cancellation refunded to your original payment method, whereas if you book through an airline good luck trying not to get "travel credits"