Keeping Chase Sapphire Reserve with fee increase?

[JK]

Just curious if people plan on keeping their Chase Sapphire Reserve with the anticipated $100 annual price increase. Although not a prolific traveler (a few trips a year), I've had the card for years and been very happy. Not sure if I'll keep it or downgrade to Chase Sapphire Preferred. Thoughts?

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/ch...rks-2020-01-08

https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/vie...8215&p=4941681

[Larry Ragman]

I have the “preferred” as a travel card. Benefits and customer service have been great.

[NephronDon]

Looking into Schwab AMEX Platinum. Same price. In fact, Schwab will discount annual fee by $200 if you have over $1M in assets with them. More airport lounge access, including Priority Pass, Delta Sky Club (with Delta ticket) and Centurion Lounges. Uber, Saks Fifth Avenue rebates. If they offer the 100,000 point bonus, I'm jumping.

[hightower]

Hmm, I've been on the fence about keeping our card for quite some time. Signed up for it back when it still had the insane bonus points for new cards.

We use the $300 travel credit every year no problem. But in addition to that, we have to spend at least 10k on top of that just to break even with the remaining $150 fee. Now, it's $250 additional which would mean we have to spend 16-17k per year on the card just to break even on the fee. Doesn't seem worth it anymore. Our Delta Amex is our main card and we get so many free flights from all the miles it's crazy. Plus they give bonus miles and companion passes every year. I think I'm going to have to shut down our Chase Sapphire now.

[StarTrekDoc]

It's hard to maintain two high premium cards without a lot of travel.

We keep Hilton aspire as it pays itself quite easily with the travel ,hotel reimb and certificate. All that is spent rather easily each year.

Southwest business premier too for now as we have become spoiled with the free wifi reimbursements and seat upgrades. Spoils our companion pass travels.

Amex gold rewards gets all our restaurant spend at x4 and shake shack reimbursement and travel pay for that mostly too.

With all the points above in combo with our drawer cards...Hyatt, Marriott x2,, we've gone to rotating our chase reward card and amex me csrds to bonus churns at this time to fill out random point needs.

[EM-CCM MD]

Shake shack what now?

[HandFellow]

Some good articles about this out there. I don't get a lot of value out of my CSR, besides the 300 credit. Lounge and TSA credits are good. I do like the 1.5 cent redemption through the travel portal. But I can get the value out of the CSR with a card that costs less. I think I am going to get out before the next annual fee.

It used to be a great card for the 3x on travel and restaurants. My Amex gold card gets 4x at groceries and 3x on travel and restaurants. So I don't actually put a ton of spend on the CSR anymore.

[Hank]

Looking into Schwab AMEX Platinum. Same price. In fact, Schwab will discount annual fee by $200 if you have over $1M in assets with them. More airport lounge access, including Priority Pass, Delta Sky Club (with Delta ticket) and Centurion Lounges. Uber, Saks Fifth Avenue rebates. If they offer the 100,000 point bonus, I'm jumping.

Incidentally, Amex Platinum is free for active duty military. Makes it kind of a no-brainer for uniformed docs.

[Molar Mechanic]

Where was this information 10 years ago?!?

[Good Life]

I'm on the fence about getting rid of the Reserve. I'm going to keep it one more year I think because I have stockpiled 500,000 points I'm going to use for a big family trip next year, and the 1.5x redemption value is still going to be worth it for me to hold onto for one more year. Makes those 500,000 points really 750,000, which will go a lot further for redemption. Once I use those points, I may get rid of the Reserve. I'll keep my Freedom (5% rotating) and Freedom unlimited, both with no fees, and once I've stockpiled some more points in 4 years or so I'll sign up for the Reserve again to take advantage of the increased redemption value and whatever current bonus they have.

[MSooner]

You might consider going to the Preferred. I keep ours around for the rental car insurance benefits, but mostly because it allows me to transfer Chase points to Southwest Airlines & Hyatt--it tends to be a really good value. The Freedom and Freedom Unlimited don't allow for that.

[Molar Mechanic]

Airline point (in my experience) are only best if you can get the saver fares. Otherwise redeeming at 1.5x has been better and oh so much easier for us.

[MSooner]

Fair enough. We're at a point in our life still where if there is no "Wanna Get Away?" then we don't. At least not on that flight

The Hyatt points have been great, though. We have a large family and Hyatt Places are usually our best shot for a nice hotel room in a city that will fit our family. I can usually find one for $5-8K points a night and that is a great value compared to booking for cash.

[fasteddie911]

Yes, I ran my spending and numbers and CSR still comes out ahead of the other options.

[VagabondMD]

My CSR renewed a couple months ago. I will probably keep it for at least one more renewal. I have about 220,000 points to deploy.

[FIREshrink]

For us it makes it hard to justify, the one thing keeping us is our home airport has a PP restaurant which we use every single time we fly for $28*3 = $84. So that's about $800 per year of decent free food. Too bad the other restaurant we go to the most has no PP lounge at all. AMEX Plat would be an option as we'd get a DL lounge at our two most frequent airports, and I'd definitely do it if we had a Centurion lounge at the airport, but we don't. But the PP guest policy is not as good with the AMEX PLAT which is essential since we travel as a family.

We will almost certainly cancel wife's CSR, and have her get an AU card off my account.

[Lithium]

As someone wading back into the credit card reward game, this has been a great thread to follow. I have about 300K UR points and apparently now you can only apply for the CSR every 4 years, which for me is next year. I'm debating holding off on using them until I can get the CSR again so I can maximize the redemption value. In the meantime I may get the Southwest and United cards later in the year.

[afan]

CSR and Amex Platinum are very different. As best tI canell, the platinum works for those who do a lot of business travel to accumulate Amex points and then do a lot of personal travel, booked through Amex. Even better if the personal travel is business or first class.

CSR would be good for that sort of person, with somewhat less generous points earned for travel. But CSR is much better for those with lower travel consumption patterns.

The Amex perks, Uber, airline incidentals, Saks will only work for certain people. I can go months without taking Uber, so most of the credits would go unused. I never buy food or drink on an airplane and I check a bag maybe once a year. I have managed to go my entire life without buying anything from Saks. Spending $100 there would be of no value to me.

The CSR $300 travelb is as good as cash and just as flexible. The UR points cover my little personal travel and 3% back on travel (mainly business) adds up. At $450 even after the first year, I come out ahead. I suspect the Lyft and Doordash will not generate $100 of value for me, but I will see how it goes this year. It is close.
If they would do something like the Amex $200 cash credit to your Schwab account it would be a great deal.

For those whose spending matches the target for Amex Platinum, doing the Schwab deal is a no brainer.

[StarTrekDoc]

As someone wading back into the credit card reward game, this has been a great thread to follow. I have about 300K UR points and apparently now you can only apply for the CSR every 4 years, which for me is next year. I'm debating holding off on using them until I can get the CSR again so I can maximize the redemption value. In the meantime I may get the Southwest and United cards later in the year.

Don't forget to cycle in ink on that

[Lithium]

I started with the Ink business preferred actually! Just got the minimum spend done.

[Molar Mechanic]

We run $400k plus through the ink card annually. Half of those points are mine, and I can transfer them to the reserve and still get 1.5x redemption.

[artemis]

I'm planning to keep the card, but it was not a no-brainer decision. Right now, though, I find Chase points easier to use than AmEx points, so dropping the CSR in favor of an AmEx Platinum doesn't make sense for me.