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How Chase Sapphire retained customers

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Re: How Chase Sapphire retained customers

#3
I was living in Manhattan when the fancy Chase Sapphire came out. It was genuinely shocking to me how many people I knew switched to Chase just to get the new card design. To be fair, it did look and feel exponentially better than any other cards around at the time.

Re: How Chase Sapphire retained customers

#4
I 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.

Re: How Chase Sapphire retained customers

#5
post #3

I was living in Manhattan when the fancy Chase Sapphire came out. It was genuinely shocking to me how many people I knew switched to Chase just to get the new card design. To be fair, it did look and feel exponentially better than any other cards around at the time.

I chose amex cash magnet out of a sea of otherwise equivalent 1.5% cashback cards for pretty much the same reason. kinda makes me wonder why most credit cards have such boring and even ugly designs. a conservative design can still be appealing, and it's not like graphic designers are prohibitively expensive to employ.

Re: How Chase Sapphire retained customers

#6
post #5
post #3

I was living in Manhattan when the fancy Chase Sapphire came out. It was genuinely shocking to me how many people I knew switched to Chase just to get the new card design. To be fair, it did look and feel exponentially better than any other cards around at the time.

I chose amex cash magnet out of a sea of otherwise equivalent 1.5% cashback cards for pretty much the same reason. kinda makes me wonder why most credit cards have such boring and even ugly designs. a conservative design can still be appealing, and it's not like graphic designers are prohibitively expensive to employ.

Citi Double Cashback is 2%

Re: How Chase Sapphire retained customers

#7

I 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.

With $300 in travel refund it’s more like $250.

It is worth $250 over other cards? It definitely was for me pre-2019. The points add up fast if you travel for work.

It’s no longer a “great” card. But there isn’t a good competitor.

Re: How Chase Sapphire retained customers

#8

I 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.

Well first, it's effectively $250 a year because of the $300 travel credit. Second, there's other benefits like dashpass and lyft pink. Third, Chase has the best travel transfer partners for me and where I want to go. I flew first to tokyo last year by transferring to Virgin Atlantic, and using that to buy a ticket on ANA. Round trip was 120k points. Super easy to justify $250 a year based on that.

Re: How Chase Sapphire retained customers

#9
post #2

If 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...

I canceled a Chase United Club card a while back as it made no sense to renew for benefits I wouldn't use for many months. They offered me $200.

Re: How Chase Sapphire retained customers

#10

I 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 take advantage of them.
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