A couple of weeks ago, my wife received replacement cards for our Chase Sapphire Preferred in the mail. This served as our reminder that, if we did want to downgrade the card as we’d been talking about for years, now would be the time. See, I’d convinced her to get the card while it was offering a 100,000-point bonus, but we’ve rarely used it for much since. That’s why we decided it was time to finally downgrade… until Chase revamped the card this week.
On Wednesday, Chase announced a refresh for the Sapphire Preferred that included increased credits, new rewards categories, and more. For example, the card now earns 3x on gas and EV charging and 3x on vacation home bookings from eligible brands. These categories join the existing ones, meaning cardholders can still earn 3x on dining, 3x on streaming services, 3x on online grocery purchases, 5x on eligible Chase Travel purchases, and 2x on all other travel purchases. Plus, the previous $50 Chase Travel Hotel credit that the card offered to renewing cardholders has doubled to $100.
Granted, the new 3x categories don’t mean a whole lot to us as our PNC Cash Rewards card earns 4% back on gas, and we don’t rent vacation homes very often (in fact, I don’t think I ever have). However, increasing the cardholder anniversary hotel credit to $100 is a nice addition.
That also brings me to my next point: despite these updates, Chase isn’t increasing the card’s annual fee. Instead, it will remain at $95 — meaning that the $100 hotel credit exceeds the upfront cost. By the way, these new benefits will go into effect on June 15th.
So, if they aren’t hiking the annual fee, there has to be a catch, right? Well, yeah… but it’s not so bad. When the Chase Sapphire Preferred was last revamped, they introduced an interesting bonus where customers could earn a 10% point bonus when they renewed the card. This meant that, if you earned 30,000 points on the card over the course of the year, you’d get a 3,000-point bonus. It was a cool idea, but it wasn’t quite as game-changing as they may have hoped. Thus, it’ being discontinued.
The other change is one that will impact Hyatt fans. Soon, the Hyatt transfer rate for Sapphire Preferred will drop from 1:1 to 4:3 (meaning 4 Chase Ultimate Rewards points will convert to 3 World of Hyatt points). Hyatt points are pretty coveted by points and miles fans, so this is a sad devaluation, to be sure. Still, I’d rather there be a brand-specific adjustment rather than an across-the-board point value adjustment.
Anyway, funny enough, the new perk I’m most looking forward to is a temporary one. Through the end of the year, cardholders can activate a complimentary one-year subscription to Apple TV. Seeing as we’re currently paying for this service, a free year is definitely a welcome perk.
To be clear, it’s not that I’m blown over by these Chase Sapphire Preferred updates and can’t believe I ever considered canceling. It’s just that the benefits are good enough that it makes sense to hold onto the card for at least another year. But, after that, perhaps we’ll go back to our “should we just get the Freedom Flex?” questioning ways.