Normally, it’s pretty easy to get hundreds or even thousands of dollars of value out of a good, solid, premium credit card.
However, some of you might still be reluctant to open a card like that. Even though the card pays for itself, you still need to cough up hundreds of dollars for the annual fee up front.
What if I told you that there is a card out there that could get you over a thousand dollars of value in the first year (and hundreds every year thereafter) that would only cost you $95 annually? Would you think I’m crazy?
Well, you’re not wrong about me being crazy.
But I’m not joking around here. Such a card really does exist, and I’m going to tell you all about it.
I’m talking, of course, about the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card.
I’m going to not only break down why this card is so great. I’ll also give firm examples of how much value you can get based on different levels of spending on the card.
First things first, the welcome bonus is something you don’t want to miss.
The current welcome offer is: Earn 100,000 bonus points after you spend $5,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.
This is an incredible upgrade for such a low annual fee. That amount of points alone could easily yield a thousand dollars (or more!) of value if you transfer the points to hotels or airlines.
The Sapphire Preferred also offers an annual $100 hotel credit when booking through the Chase travel portal. As long as you spend $100 a year on hotels (which, let’s be honest, you hopefully do if you’re reading this), then you can think of your annual fee as about oh…$0 per year ($95 annual fee - $100 hotel credit, so technically -$5 per year).
Plus, this card has some of the most competitive earning rates out there. You can basically earn more than one point per dollar on almost all your spending.
The earning rates are structured as follows:
- 5x points on travel booked through the Chase portal
- 3x points on vacation homes at top brands (like Airbnb and Vrbo)
- 3x points on gas and EV charging
- 3x points on dining, takeout, and food delivery
- 3x points on streaming services
- 2x points on all travel purchases (outside of the portal)
- 1 point on everything else
It’s like the “Swiss army knife” of credit cards. Except you’re allowed to take this on a plane with you. And you should, because the card also has no foreign transaction fees.
And if you really want to get maximum value out of all those points, you can transfer them to any one of Chase’s transfer partners (some of the best in the game).
Now, if all this theoretical talk about points and value is hard to visualize, let me help with a breakdown based on conservative spending estimates.
- Gas: $1,000 = 3,000 points per year
- Streaming: $600 = 1,800 points per year
- Dining, online groceries, delivery: $6,000 = 18,000 points per year
- Travel (in the Chase portal): $1,000 = 5,000 points per year
- Airbnb rentals: $1,000 = 3,000 points per year
- Travel (not in the Chase portal): $1,000 = 2,000 points per year
- Other spending: $6,000 = 6,000 points per year
Total points: 38,800
If you use those points with transfer partners (which yields about two cents per point in value), you’re getting $776 of value per year against a net $0 annual fee (again, accounting for the $100 hotel credit). That’s ridiculous.
Keep in mind — that's a pretty conservative estimate... I don't know about you, but I actually spend quite a bit more than that in a given year. So if you want to take some rough estimates of your own spending and run the numbers, you might be surprised how that number of points jumps up.
For now, let's stick to the conservative estimate and look at a couple of quick examples of what you could do with those points:
You could transfer 30,000 points to KLM/Air France and book these round-trip flights from New York to Marseille.
Let's say you're more of a warm-weather kind of guy or gal. You could use Daily Drop Pro to book a cheap flight to Bali, transfer 34,000 points to Marriott Bonvoy, and book seven nights at this hotel:
Since these points are from your spending and not even accounting for the welcome bonus, you could book trips like this every. single. year — just from your normal day-to-day spending.
The fact of the matter is that even without the points, this card is likely to pay for itself. That’s because Chase also has merchant offers that allow you to earn statement credits for spending at various merchants.
Okay, this is just exhausting... how many benefits could a $95 credit card possibly have?
The answer is... a lot. If this sounds more appealing to you than coughing up a $400, $500, or $700 annual fee, then you can read more about the card and decide if you want to apply!
