Great Card If
- You want a card that offers flexible redemption options
- You spend a lot on travel, online grocery purchases, dining, and food delivery
- You travel frequently for work
- You’re new to the world of points and miles
- You frequently use rideshare services like Lyft
Don’t Get If
- You seldom eat out and prefer cooking at home
- You don’t enjoy traveling
- You prefer a card with increased offerings like airport lounge access or hotel elite status
Chase Sapphire Preferred Card — Is It Worth It?
For starters, the Chase Sapphire Preferred card is a workhorse when it comes to earning points on purchases that you likely spend the most on.
From travel to dining, online grocery purchases, and even streaming services, the card will help you rack up points on all of these purchases. Plus, each year, you’ll earn bonus points equal to 10% of your total purchases made the previous year.
Of course, once you’ve earned those points, Chase gives you plenty of redemption options that fit whatever you might be looking for. This includes cash-back, redeeming with a 25% bonus through the Chase travel portal or Pay Yourself Back feature, or our favorite — redeeming with one of the Chase transfer partners.
The card offers more than just the opportunity to earn and redeem points though. Cardholders also get a $50 annual hotel statement credit when booking through Ultimate Rewards. Additionally, your card helps keep you covered when things go wrong with trip delay insurance, lost/delayed baggage insurance, rental car insurance, purchase protection, and more.
Not only is the Chase Sapphire Preferred card one of the best first credit cards, but the card often remains a long-time favorite, as it has for our Compliance Editor and Content Contributor Stella Shon, who said:
“The Chase Sapphire Preferred card is essential to my personal life, whether at home or on the go. As a frequent traveler, I love that this rewards card earns handsomely across 2 of my largest expenses: dining and travel. It doesn’t take much to justify the $95 annual fee since that breaks down to under $8 per month — and with that cost, I get a variety of travel and purchase protections, no foreign transaction fees, and access to key travel transfer partners. like World of Hyatt.”
Stella Shon, Compliance Editor and Content Contributor
So, is the Chase Sapphire Preferred card worth it? If you’re looking for a card that’s great at earning points, offers flexible redemption options, and includes solid benefits and travel protections, then yes — the Chase Sapphire Preferred card would be very worth it to you!
Chase Sapphire Preferred Card — Top Benefits
Travel Protections
Your card comes with quite a few benefits to keep you insured while traveling. You’ll receive:
- Trip Delay Insurance — Receive reimbursements of up to $500 per ticket if your flight is delayed 12 hours or requires an overnight stay. This includes items like lodging, food, etc.
- Trip Cancellation and Interruption Insurance — If you need to cancel a trip due to illness, severe weather, or any other covered circumstance, you’ll receive a reimbursement of up to $10,000 in non-refundable travel expenses if you need to cancel your trip or end it early.
- Baggage Delay Insurance — If your checked baggage is delayed more than 6 hours, you’ll receive $100 in reimbursements for essential items per day for up to 5 days.
- Lost Luggage Insurance — The costs you incur to repair or replace checked and/or carry-on baggage due to physical loss, theft, or damage are covered up to a maximum of $3,000 per person.
- Travel Accident Insurance — In the case of accidental death or loss of speech, sight, or hearing during your travels, you can receive up to $500,000 when the incident happens on a common carrier (airline, cruise ship, etc.) or $100,000 at any other part of your trip.
Annual Hotel Credit
Cardholders receive $50 in annual statement credits when they purchase a hotel stay through the Chase Ultimate Rewards portal. Unlike other credit card credits, this $50 statement credit is very easy to use and effectively brings the annual fee of the card down to just $45.
Note that we’ve seen that this credit isn’t awarded until your card anniversary for existing cardmembers. Explore your card account to see if the credit is already available for use, or when it will be applied to your account.
Rental Car Insurance
An Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver (CDW) is a form of insurance that offers protection against damage or theft of your rental car. The Chase Sapphire Preferred’s car rental insurance is primary, meaning you don’t have to file a claim with any other insurance first.
This coverage applies to rentals in the U.S. and in most other countries worldwide. Your coverage extends to any additional drivers listed on your rental agreement, plus any authorized users on your card and additional drivers listed on their car rental agreements.
To activate your coverage, be sure to decline the policy offered by the car rental agency and pay for your entire rental with your card. You’ll also be earning 2x Ultimate Rewards points when renting a car!
Purchase Protection
Chase purchase protection provides reimbursement or repair for qualifying items purchased with your card in the event of theft or accidental damage. To qualify, at least part of your purchase needs to be made with your Chase Sapphire Preferred card or points from your Chase Sapphire Preferred card account.
If the item you purchased is stolen or accidentally damaged within 120 days from the date of purchase, you can receive a replacement, repair, or reimbursement for your item at the discretion of the benefits administrator.
The card’s purchase protection policy is capped at $500 per claim and $50,000 per account.
Extended Warranty Protection
Extended warranty coverage increases the U.S. manufacturer’s warranty of an item by 1 year if the original warranty is less than 3 years. At least part of the item needs to have been purchased with your card or points in your Chase Sapphire Preferred card account.
Each claim has a $10,000 maximum, and each account has a maximum of $50,000.
Best Ways To Earn and Redeem Your Chase Points
Aside from using your Chase Sapphire Preferred card for all of your daily purchases, there are many other great ways to earn Chase Ultimate Rewards points, and our dedicated guide will show you just that!
Once you’re sitting on a nice stash of Chase Ultimate Rewards points, next is the fun part — redeeming them! While Chase gives you multiple redemption options for your points, we’ve put together an ultimate guide that covers the best ways to redeem your Chase points for max value.
You’ll notice when reading through our redemption guide that most of our favorite ways to redeem our Chase points are by using the Chase transfer partners to book travel experiences through programs like Air Canada Aeroplan, Air France/KLM Flying Blue, Virgin Atlantic Flying Club, and World of Hyatt.
While these redemptions require a bit more legwork, they are by far the best way to get huge value from your points — especially if you want to stay in luxury hotels and fly in first or business class cabins!
Alternative Cards to the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card
Interested in the Chase Sapphire Preferred card but curious to learn about your other options? Check out these other offerings:
There’s a lot to love about the Capital One Venture card. With a variety of Capital One airline and hotel transfer partners and 2x miles minimum on all purchases, it’s easy to see why this is a direct competitor of the Chase Sapphire Preferred card.
If the majority of your daily spending comes from purchases outside of dining and travel categories, then the Capital One Venture card might be a great option for you.
For more information, check out our detailed analysis of the Chase Sapphire Preferred card vs. the Capital One Venture card.
The Citi Premier card is one of the few travel credit cards on the market to offer a high return on gas purchases. This makes the card an excellent choice for those who drive often for work or love taking road trips.
Review a detailed comparison in our head-to-head article on the Chase Sapphire Preferred card vs. Citi Premier card.
We’ve also compared the Chase Sapphire Preferred card with other popular cards:
UP’s Card Review Methodology
Every card we review is assigned a “U.P. Rating” – our star-based system that encompasses all the key details to showcase a card’s standout features, where it falls short, and how it stacks up for travelers to maximize rewards.
These ratings range from 0 to 5 stars and are determined by carefully weighing crucial factors like:
- Bonus categories
- Benefits and perks
- Quality of associated loyalty programs
- Annual fees and other costs
- Size of the welcome bonus (and relative to the annual fee)
- And several more
You can learn more about how Upgraded Points reviews and rates credit cards.
The information regarding the Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card was independently collected by Upgraded Points and not provided nor reviewed by the issuer.
The information regarding the Alaska Airlines Visa Signature® credit card was independently collected by Upgraded Points and not provided nor reviewed by the issuer.
The information regarding the Bank of America® Customized Cash Rewards credit card was independently collected by Upgraded Points and not provided nor reviewed by the issuer.
The information regarding the Bank of America® Premium Rewards® credit card was independently collected by Upgraded Points and not provided nor reviewed by the issuer.
The information regarding the Bank of America® Travel Rewards credit card was independently collected by Upgraded Points and not provided nor reviewed by the issuer.
The information regarding the Chase Freedom Flex℠ was independently collected by Upgraded Points and not provided nor reviewed by the issuer.
The information regarding the Marriott Bonvoy Boundless® Credit Card was independently collected by Upgraded Points and not provided nor reviewed by the issuer.
The information regarding The World of Hyatt Credit Card was independently collected by Upgraded Points and not provided nor reviewed by the issuer.
For rates and fees of the American Express® Gold Card, click here.
For rates and fees of the Blue Cash Everyday® from American Express, click here.
For rates and fees of the Blue Cash Preferred® Card from American Express, click here.
For rates and fees of The Platinum Card® from American Express, click here.
