How I’m Planning a Winter Getaway With the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card

The holiday season and travel go together like mashed potatoes and gravy or Santa and his cookies.

Especially as I’m based in Michigan, a holiday-season escape to sunnier climes has become a bit of a tradition over the last decade. However, along with everything else, these kinds of trips have become incredibly expensive.

However, snagging the welcome bonus offer on the Chase Sapphire Preferred^® Card has the potential to mitigate those costs in a big way — let’s take a look at the reasons why.

Chase Sapphire Preferred Card Overview

The Chase Sapphire Preferred card has long been one of our favorite options for an all-around travel card, thanks to its robust earning potential and travel-specific perks.

Now, the card has the following welcome bonus offer that makes it even more appealing: Earn 60,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.

BEST BEGINNER CARD

Chase Sapphire Preferred^® Card

U.P. Rating 

The rating for this card has been determined by our own industry experts who know the in's and out's of credit card products. Bonuses, rewards as well as rates and fees are all taken into account. Compensation from the issuer does not affect our rating. We only recommend products we either use ourselves or endorse.

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

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 60,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.

60,000 bonus points

UP's Bonus Valuation*:

$1,200

Annual Fee

$95

APR

20.74% - 27.74% 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 cardapplication.

Good to Excellent (670-850)

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, 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. 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
• 5x points on select Peloton purchases over $150 (through March 31, 2025)
• 5x points on Lyft purchases (through March 31, 2025)

Cons

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

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Card Highlights

• Earn 60,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.
• Enjoy benefits such as 5x on travel purchased through Chase Travel℠, 3x on dining, select streaming services and online groceries, 2x on all other travel purchases, 1x on all other purchases, $50 Annual Chase Travel Hotel Credit, plus more.
• Get 25% more value when you redeem for airfare, hotels, car rentals and cruises through Chase Travel℠. For example, 60,000 points are worth $750 toward travel.
• Count on Trip Cancellation/Interruption Insurance, Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver, Lost Luggage Insurance and more.
• Get complimentary access to DashPass which unlocks $0 delivery fees and lower service fees for a minimum of one year when you activate by December 31, 2027.
• Member FDIC

Financial Snapshot

• APR: 20.74% - 27.74% Variable
• Foreign Transaction Fees: None

Rewards Center

Chase Ultimate Rewards

Of course, there’s much more to love about this card than just its shiny new welcome bonus offer. It’s a powerful tool to have in your wallet, as it earns tons of points on everyday purchases according to the structure below:

• 5x points on travel purchased through Chase Travel
• 5x points Lyft (through March 31, 2025)
• 3x points on online grocery store orders, select streaming services, and dining
• 2x points on all other travel purchases

Further, the card comes with a $50 annual hotel credit on bookings made through Chase Travel, primary rental car insurance, trip delay insurance, baggage delay insurance, and purchase protection. You’ll even receive a 10% bonus on your annual spending as bonus points on your account anniversary.

How To Redeem Ultimate Rewards Points

You also have myriad options for redeeming Chase Ultimate Rewards points. If you choose to redeem them for cash-back, you can do so at a rate of 1 cent per point, meaning 60,000 points are worth $600. You’ll also get a 25% bonus if you decide to redeem your points through Chase Travel, meaning each point is worth 1.25 cents apiece, so 60,000 of them would be worth $750 if redeemed this way.

However, our favorite way to redeem points is to transfer Ultimate Rewards points to 1 (or more) of Chase’s numerous travel partners. Doing so will almost always yield significantly more value for each point. Some of our favorite Ultimate Rewards transfer partners include World of Hyatt on the hotel side and airline programs such as Air France-KLM Flying Blue, Air Canada Aeroplan, Virgin Atlantic Flying Club, and more.

Applying for a Chase Sapphire Card … Again

As you can see from the above, the Chase Sapphire Preferred card is a powerful travel credit card. And to be eligible for the welcome bonus offer, I’ve made the decision to add it to my wallet.

That said, I already have the Chase Sapphire Reserve^®, and Chase doesn’t allow you to have both versions of the Sapphire card or earn the welcome bonuses for both. However, since I applied for the Chase Sapphire Reserve card more than 5 years ago, I could downgrade it to a Chase Freedom Unlimited^® Card and be eligible to apply a new Chase Sapphire Preferred card. (Luckily, Upgraded Points’ Senior Features Editor, Stella Shon, details the step-by-step process to qualify for another welcome offer on the Chase Sapphire Preferred card in her guide).

Maximizing Chase Ultimate Rewards Points for Holiday Travel

The 2 most costly items to purchase for a holiday trip — and likely any vacation — are airfare and lodging. Luckily, holding the Chase Sapphire Preferred card can help tremendously with both.

For the first order of business, I had to decide where I wanted to go. I’ve been to many sunny destinations over the winter holidays: Aruba, Curaçao, Miami, Mexico, and more. This year, however, I wanted to try somewhere different. I narrowed my destination search to destinations that have World of Hyatt properties because I knew that I’d attempt to transfer my Ultimate Rewards points to Hyatt’s program to score a few nights.

Then, I combined this with ease of access and affordability of flights. I knew that I could — if I wanted to — transfer points to a number of airline programs to book flights, but because I was planning to use a large number of points for the hotel stay, I could pay for it with my Chase Sapphire Preferred card and earn 2x points on the purchase.

After looking into a few destinations, such as St. Kitt’s and Nevis and Costa Rica, I landed on the Bahamas. It offers a “Goldilocks” scenario for the trip I want. There’s the World of Hyatt Category 6 Grand Hyatt Baha Mar resort, and reaching the capital (and main gateway) of the Bahamas, Nassau, is relatively easy from the Midwest.

Then, it was time to check the costs. First, I made sure there was award availability at the Grand Hyatt. Sure enough, award nights were available for my desired dates at 25,000 World of Hyatt points per night, meaning I’d have enough for 2 nights simply from the bonus-point portion of the Chase Sapphire Preferred card’s current welcome bonus offer. Even better, I’m currently sitting on about 45,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points earned from my Chase Sapphire Reserve card, resulting in a total of 105,000 points — enough for 4 free nights at the property!

Then, I had to browse flight options. Even though I’ll be traveling just after the new year (it’s usually cheaper to travel just after the holiday than between Christmas and New Year’s), I wasn’t expecting flights to be cheap by any standard. I was pleasantly surprised, however, to find a round-trip flight from my home in Grand Rapids (GRR) to Nassau (NAS) for $523 round-trip with American Airlines, far less than what you’d typically pay from my home base to Caribbean destinations in the peak winter travel season (think close to $1,000 round-trip).

Final Thoughts

Applying for the Chase Sapphire Preferred card has singlehandedly made a holiday-season Caribbean escape possible for just a few hundred dollars (excluding what I’ll spend while on the trip, of course).

The combination of robust points-earning potential and a strong suite of travel protections make this the ideal choice for planning a quick getaway to the sun in the dead of the cold and dark northern winter.