Chase Sapphire Preferred® (CSP) Review (2021.3 Update: 80k+$50 Offer!)

     2021-03-23     2021-03-23 120 Comments

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Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card Review

2021.3 Update: The new offer is now 80k+$50! Besides, there’s a 80k+$50+first year annual fee waived offer in branch.

2021.1 Update: The new offer is 60k+$50. The $50 part is up to $50 in statement credits towards grocery store purchases within the first year.

Application Link

Benefits

  1. 80k+$50 offer: earn 80,000 Ultimate Rewards (UR) points after spending $4,000 in the first 3 months. Plus, earn up to $50 in statement credits towards grocery store purchases within the first year. This is the best ever offer on this card.
  2. We estimate that Ultimate Rewards (UR) points are worth about 1.6 cents/point, see below for a brief introduction. So the 80k+$50 highest sign-up bonus is worth about $1,330!
  3. If you have this card, you can transfer your UR points to partner airlines miles and hotel points.
  4. “Pay Yourself Back”: you can redeem UR points for statement credits against existing purchases in select, rotating categories, at a fixed rate 1.25 cents/point. You can also use your UR points at a fixed rate 1.25 cents/point on the Chase UR travel portal. However, with CSR, the redemption rate is 1.5 cents/point, therefore it is more recommended to use CSR to redeem UR points in this way.
  5. Earn 2x UR points on travel and dining. Earn 1x UR point per dollar spent on all other purchases. Chase is known to be quite flexible with their definition of travel and includes merchants such as Uber and some public transportation.
  6. Primary car rental insurance.
  7. [Limited Time] Earn 5x UR points on Lyft, until 2022.03.31. Here is the official link for this promotion.
  8. [Limited Time] Free DashPass (Doordash membership) for 12 months. Activation required before 2021.12.31. Here is the official link for this promotion.
  9. No foreign transaction fee.
  10. Refer a friend: You can earn 15,000 bonus UR points for every approved account you refer, up to a maximum of 75,000 UR points per calendar year.

Disadvantages

  1. Annual fee $95, NOT waived for the first year.

Introduction to UR Points

Recommended Application Time

  1. [5/24 Rule] If you have 5 or more new accounts opened in the past 24 months, Chase will not approve your application on this card, no matter how high your credit score is. The number of new accounts includes all credit card accounts, not only Chase accounts. See this post for details about how to possibly bypass this rule.
  2. The product is not available to either (i) current cardmembers of any Sapphire credit card, or (ii) previous cardmembers of any Sapphire credit card who received a new cardmember bonus within the last 48 months. Note that what this 48-month clock starts from when you last got the sign-up bonus, not the time you open the account or close the account.
  3. Don’t apply for more than 2 Chase credit cards within 30 days, it’s highly likely that you will get rejected.
  4. We recommend that you apply for this card after you have had other Chase credit cards for at least 3 months, or after you have had a credit history for more than a year.

Summary

Although its spending rewards structure looks bad nowadays, CSP (or CSR) is still a must-have card for the UR points system because with CSP (or CSR) you can transfer UR points to partners to maximize their value. The sign-up bonus is really attractive! However, now you can only choose from either CSP or CSR in the 48 month period. And don’t forget the 5/24 Rule. You really have to choose between CSP and CSR!

Related Credit Cards

Recommended Downgrade Options

  • Chase Freedom. Even if you already have a Freedom, you are still able to downgrade your CSP to have a second Freedom.
  • Chase Freedom Unlimited (CFU).
  • Chase Sapphire. If you are not able to downgrade your card to the above good cards, you can downgrade it to this card and try to product change in the future.

After Applying

  • Call 800-436-7927 to check Chase application status. This is an automated telephone line, and the information has the following meanings: Receive decision in 2 weeks means your application is probably approved; Receive decision in 7-10 days means your application is probably rejected; Receive decision in 30 days simply means your application requires further review and there’s nothing to tell you for now.
  • Chase reconsideration backdoor number: 888-270-2127 or 888-609-7805. Call it if you didn’t get approve immediately. Your personal information will be acquired and they will then review it. You seldom answer questions, instead, just enjoy the music and then you get approved or rejected, or further information is needed to be hand in to the branch or faxed.

Historical Offers Chart

Application Link

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