How a Simple Chase Sapphire Preferred Card Perk Is Helping Me Reach My 2026 Wellness Goal

If you’re anything like me, you make a variety of New Year’s resolutions, but you might only achieve a select few (or none at all!). But this year, I already know I’m meeting my 2026 wellness goal — and it’s in part thanks to the Chase Sapphire Preferred^® Card.

You might be thinking that seems insane. After all, it’s only the first quarter of the year, so it feels nearly impossible to have achieved a New Year’s resolution already. And yes, it hasn’t been fully met quite yet, but thanks to the Chase Sapphire Preferred card, I’m making it happen this spring.

Here’s the story of a tired working mom who will finally get to go on her first yoga retreat in 6 years, thanks, in part, to a small rectangle of branded plastic that lives in her wallet: the Chase Sapphire Preferred card.

Perks of the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card

The Chase Sapphire Preferred card doesn’t come with quite as many perks as its premium older sister, the Chase Sapphire Reserve^®, but it does have a few key benefits that make it one of my favorite and most used credit cards.

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Chase Sapphire Preferred^® Card

U.P. Rating 

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A fantastic travel card with a great welcome offer, good benefits, and perks for a moderate annual fee.

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Chase Sapphire Preferred^® Card

A fantastic travel card with a great welcome offer, good benefits, and perks for a moderate annual fee.

Welcome Offer

Earn 75,000 100,000 bonus points after you spend $5,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.

75,000 100,000 points

UP's Offer Valuation*:

$2,000

Annual Fee

$95

APR

19.24% - 27.49% Variable

Credit Recommended

Upgraded Points credit ranges are a variation of FICO^® Score 8, one of many types of credit scores lenders may use when considering your credit card application.

Good to Excellent

Why We Like This Card

The Chase Sapphire Preferred^® card is one of the best travel rewards cards on the market. Its bonus categories include travel, dining, online grocery purchases, gas, EV charging, vacation homes, and streaming services, which gives you the opportunity to earn lots of bonus points on these purchases.

Additionally, it offers flexible point redemption options, no foreign transaction fees, and excellent travel insurance coverage including primary car rental insurance and emergency evacuation. With benefits like these, it’s easy to see why this card is an excellent choice for any traveler.

Pros & Cons

Pros

• 5x points on all travel booked via the Chase Travel portal
• 3x points on dining purchases, online grocery purchases (excluding Walmart, Target, and wholesale clubs), gas, EV charging, vacation homes (such as Airbnb and Vrbo), and select streaming services
• 2x points on all other travel worldwide

Cons

• $95 annual fee
• No elite benefits like airport lounge access or hotel elite status

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Card Highlights

• Earn 100,000 bonus points after you spend $5,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.
• Enjoy benefits such as 5x on travel purchased through Chase Travel℠, 3x on dining, 3x on vacation homes, 3x on gas & EV charging, 3x on top streaming services and online groceries (excluding Walmart, Target, and wholesale clubs), 2x on all other travel purchases, 1x on all other purchases
• Earn up to $100 in statement credits each account anniversary year for hotel stays through Chase Travel
• Count on Trip Cancellation/Interruption Insurance, Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver, Lost Luggage Insurance and more.
• Get a year of complimentary Apple TV when activated by December 31, 2026 - a value of $156.
• Complimentary DashPass which unlocks $0 delivery fees & lower service fees for a min. of one year when you activate by 12/31/27. Plus, a $10 promo each month on non-restaurant orders.
• Receive one statement credit of up to $120 every four years as reimbursement for the application fee charged to your card for a Global Entry, TSA Precheck^® or NEXUS application.
• Transfer points to leading airline and hotel loyalty programs
• Member FDIC

Financial Snapshot

• APR: 19.24% - 27.49% Variable
• Foreign Transaction Fees: None

Rewards Center

Chase Ultimate Rewards

Here are some of the Chase Sapphire Preferred card’s top perks:

• Bonus Ultimate Rewards points: 5x on Chase Travel, 3x on dining, 2x on travel, 3x on online grocery purchases, 3x on streaming, and 1x on everything else (plus 5x on Peleton purchases through December 31, 2027, and 5x on Lyft through September 30, 2027)
• Complimentary DoorDash DashPass membership for at least 12 months (when activated by December 31, 2027)
• $100 in statement credits annually for hotel stays via Chase Travel
• A solid collection of purchase and travel protections
• Flexible redemption options: Book travel in Chase Travel or transfer points to airline and hotel partners at a 1:1 ratio.

How This Underrated Chase Benefit Helped Me Achieve My 2026 Wellness Goal

There’s a specific benefit that contributed to helping me achieve my 2026 New Year’s wellness resolution, and that’s the $50 Chase Travel hotel credit. Yes, it may sound baffling, but let me explain and provide some background.

Using the $50 Chase Credit Has Been an Afterthought

I never really gave the $50 Chase Travel hotel credit much thought. It’s not enough to cover a full night, it’s not a huge amount of credit, and I don’t often stay somewhere for just 1 night. For longer stays, I prefer to use the Citi Strata Elite℠ Card $300 credit for booking with Citi Travel, or the $300 annual credit for Capital One Travel available on my Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card.

In fact, in 2025, I almost forgot about the Chase Travel hotel credit. I sometimes find Chase Travel’s prices to be slightly higher than booking directly on the hotel’s website, so I usually book through the hotel’s website and therefore don’t have as many opportunities to use the credit. In fact, I don’t even think I used the credit in 2024, which would have cut my annual fee nearly in half. Shame!

However, in 2025, I was able to maximize the credit to help me reach my 2026 wellness goal. Although, first, a little backstory is required.

Backstory

Flashback to 2020. If that year sounds vaguely familiar, it’s probably because of the COVID-19 pandemic. I also happened to be pregnant for the first time. It was a hard time for many, not just myself.

Being pregnant during this time was anxiety-inducing, and the icing on the cake was that I live in Spain. The country had one of the strictest lockdowns and quarantines in the world, and I was unable to leave my home, legally, for months.

I gave birth in 2021, and borders were still closed. My family in the U.S. was legally not allowed into the country when I had my son. Add that to a physically and mentally traumatic pregnancy and birth (one in which my husband was almost not allowed to be with me due to COVID-19 restrictions), and I wasn’t in the best place.

A few things slowly began to heal my mind and body, and those were Pilates and yoga. Spain had loosened its restrictions somewhat, and I was able to focus on recovery. That is, until my favorite yoga teacher, Eliza Coolsma of the Natural Yogi, moved to Italy, where her partner was from.

Even before she moved, she offered an annual yoga retreat in Italy, and I had always wanted to go. Pre-COVID, I had such a hectic travel schedule that I couldn’t make one, and post-COVID, it was hard to escape with a little one who needed me. But now that I couldn’t attend her weekly classes, a retreat sounded even more magical.

My 2026 New Year’s Wellness Resolution

Now that my son is 4, I decided that for 2026, my wellness New Year’s resolution would be to finally take that yoga retreat. As a working mom, it’s close to impossible to put myself first, but I really wanted to make this happen. My husband could hold down the fort for 5 days, and Italy is just a 2- to 3-hour flight from Spain.

When I saw that my teacher was offering a retreat in April 2026 at a cozy agriturismo in the Tuscan hills, it was fate. I was ready to savor organic, delicious Italian food, stroll through 75 acres of woodland surrounding the dormant Monte Amiata volcano, and, of course, relax and rejuvenate through daily yoga and Ayurvedic sessions.

How the $50 Chase Travel Hotel Credit Made My Dream Retreat a Reality

I budgeted just enough to cover the retreat and my $300 Vueling flight between Madrid (MAD) and Florence (FLR). However, I then realized I would need to spend the night in Florence before the retreat began, as I couldn’t fly in early enough on the same day to catch the group transport departing from Florence for the retreat. The agriturismo was a few hours’ drive away by car, located in the mountains, making it challenging to arrive by train or otherwise.

It was the end of 2025, and I’d already used up the annual free night credits that came on a few of my co-branded hotel cards. I’d already used up my $300 Citi Travel and Capital One Travel credits, and I had already allocated the next set for a summer trip to Thailand in 2026.

Hotel rates for spring travel to Florence were sky-high — well into the hundreds or even thousands for 1 night. I knew the city was a popular destination, but prices seemed exaggerated. Would this single night in Florence make or break my retreat plan?

No, it wouldn’t, thanks to Chase’s $50 Chase Travel hotel statement credit. I realized a stay at the Hotel Indigo Florence was around $270 per night on Chase Travel, but was nearly $350 on IHG’s website! I won’t earn IHG One Rewards points on the stay and likely won’t have my IHG Platinum Elite status recognized (though I’ll still try). But the $50 credit brought the cost down to $220, a rate that felt reasonable. And I’ll still earn 5 points per $1 spent with Chase Travel, minus the credit, which is more than 1,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points, which I can always transfer to IHG One Rewards or other partners.

Final Thoughts

It seems crazy to think something as small as a single night in a hotel could make or break an entire travel plan, but it was close. And Chase Travel’s lower rate, along with the Chase Sapphire Preferred card’s $50 hotel credit, saved my travel plan and 2026 wellness resolution. Thanks to this random perk, I’ll be omming my days away in the Tuscan hills and enjoying a solo night in the beautiful Italian wonderland of Florence.