KEY LINK: Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card – Earn 60,000 bonus points after $4,000 in purchases in your first 3 months from account opening. $95 annual fee.
The Chase Sapphire Preferred card gets a bit of a bad rap in the miles and points community. I get the sense that it’s widely panned by some, because it’s very (VERY) widely mentioned by many travel bloggers. It gets to the point where sometimes it feels like every post by some folks, no matter what the question or topic, ends up with the answer being APPLY FOR THE CHASE SAPPHIRE PREFERRED CARD!
But, there are valid reasons to talk about the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card card – if you’re just starting out in the miles and points world and wanting to use your good credit to help you travel more, the Chase Sapphire Preferred can make a lot of sense as your first card.
Getting the Chase Sapphire Preferred card as a first card
Amongst my family and friends, I am known as the “credit card guy”. I suspect if you’re reading this blog, that probably applies to many of you as well. It is not uncommon that friends or co-workers will ask me my opinion of what credit card to get.
Typically, this is someone who is not really interested into getting into MY lifestyle and signing up for multiple credit cards at a time, but is just looking for 1 or maybe 2 cards to take a specific trip, and even that’s only after I make them decide on where they want to go FIRST. And of course making sure that they are already in solid financial health where they have the ability and financial discipline to pay off their bills in full EVERY month.
I’d say that in over 75% of the cases, the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card is the card (or one of the cards) I recommend they get
Why Chase Sapphire Preferred?
What are some of the reasons I find myself generally recommending the Chase Sapphire Preferred as a “first” card?
- Usually gives a very good signup bonus (currently you can earn 60,000 bonus points after meeting the minimum spending requirement)
- Reasonable annual fee (currently $95)
- Many folks I talk to already have a Chase Freedom Flex® or Chase Freedom Unlimited® as their “go to” card. So signing up for the Chase Sapphire Preferred card lets you use those Ultimate Rewards you might ALREADY have with your Chase Freedom Flex or Chase Freedom Unlimited by transferring them to travel partners (instead of only using them for statement credits at 1 cent per point)
- It allows you to get a valuable signup bonus without locking you in to a particular hotel or airline. You can use your Chase Ultimate Rewards to transfer to British Airways (for my friend who is always flying to New York) or United or Southwest or Hyatt (or some combination of the above!)
- Plus if you ARE later going to get into multiple credit cards, the Chase 5/24 rule might make it more difficult to get the Chase Sapphire Preferred card later on
Comparing Chase Sapphire Preferred vs Chase Sapphire Reserve
I originally wrote this post right after the Chase Sapphire Reserve® came out a few years ago. It seemed like the entire miles and points world had their head asplode. I do agree that the Chase Sapphire Reserve card is a very good card, and for people with a basic understanding of miles and points, it definitely makes sense.
(SEE ALSO: I just got a Chase Sapphire Reserve (and didn’t even get the signup bonus))
(SEE ALSO: Chase Sapphire Reserve vs Chase Sapphire Preferred card)
But I’m not sure I feel comfortable recommending the Chase Sapphire Reserve card as someone’s first miles and points card to get. I think that the $550 annual fee (although possibly somewhat offset by annual $300 travel credits) has a high chance to be wasted, either from forgetting about the $300 travel credits, or by not redeeming them correctly. Remember that $550 comes due right off the top on your first statement. So while I do think the Chase Sapphire Reserve card is a good one, it’s not one I’d recommend for beginners or other people starting out.
The CSR is a little bit less attractive now than it was last summer as the $300 travel credit is now by cardmember year instead of calendar year (preventing you from double dipping the first year) and also the signup bonus is down.
The Bottom Line
KEY LINK: Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card – Earn 60,000 bonus points after $4,000 in purchases in your first 3 months from account opening. $95 annual fee.
So why does the Chase Sapphire Preferred card get so much press? Undoubtedly at least part of it is due to affiliate relationships, where people receive a commission for people that sign up through the card. If you want to apply for this or any other top travel cards and support PWaC, you can find apply for the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card here. And just because people like to talk about it doesn’t mean that it’s not a good card.
As always, please understand the risks of credit cards before you apply for one, and DO NOT SIGN UP FOR A CREDIT CARD JUST BECAUSE SOME GUY ON THE INTERNET SAID SO.
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
Thanks for the link! Sales pitches notwithstanding, the CSP isn’t bad at all. If a newbie does nothing but transfer the sign-up bonus to Hyatt, they’ll probably be doing okay.
btw I’ve also got a list of the Top 10 Chase Sapphire Preferred credit cards if you’re interested:
https://saverocity.com/pfdigest/top-10-chase-sapphire-preferred-credit-cards/
Stupidest list I’ve ever read.
I just recommended the same thing to a friend who was asking how my wife and I seem to fly for free so often. He already has a United card and wanted to know how to get more miles.
One typo: In “Why Chase Sapphire Preferred?”, item #3, you mention signing up for the CSR instead of CSP. I can understand with all the hubbub of late. 🙂
Thanks – I’ve updated the post to fix the typo
I disagree Reserve is only $55 more and it has more benefits. If you don’t have $300 a year in travel expenses, you shouldn’t have a travel card with a $95 AF.
Because Chase pays you a $hit loads of money. There are better cards out there with no annual fees and still ear a lot of valuable points/cash and perks. First National Bank Omaha TravElite.
I will give you the benefit of the doubt that you actually read the article, where I did mention that as one possible reason. Still, I don’t think that explains it all when referral commissions on other cards are comparable.
Zoey, your cynicism would be appropriate if the CSP was a crap credit card. but it isn’t.
Personally, I find Dan’s approach — and he certainly doesn’t need anyone to defend him — more acceptable:
1) He continually WARNS people (this time in all caps) “DO NOT SIGN UP FOR A CREDIT CARD JUST BECAUSE SOME GUY ON THE INTERNET SAID SO.”
2) He acknowledges the pay-out (which most people don’t) by saying, “So why does the Chase Sapphire Preferred card get so much press? Undoubtedly at least part of it is due to affiliate relationships, where people receive a commission for people that sign up through the card.”
Meanwhile, as always, you are free to accept or reject the advice of bloggers, friends, strangers, and parents. And you can certainly apply for the CSR — or ANY credit card — *without* going through any sort of a link and thereby saving Chase (or another issuer) money by not having to pay out any sort of commission.
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As for the First National Bank Omaha TravElite AMEX card . . . On the plus side, I think it’s great that there’s no AF + you get a $100 travel credit. On the downside however . . .
— Points can not be transferred into other loyalty programs, this means they have no hotel or airline partners;
— Points can be used for travel, gift cards, merchandise or cash back as a credit to your account;
— Points are worth $0.01 a point (1¢ a point). So a $25 gift card will set you back 2,500 points. When booking a flight a fee of $15 is added. If you’re purchasing merchandise then shipping and handling are also added. There are currently 81 merchants listed that you can get gift cards for and as we mentioned previously you can redeem for cash back. There are over 200 airline and 50,000 hotels that you can redeem for worldwide (but keep in mind the $15 booking fees).
— The previous application link now has become “not found”, and this card is no longer on the FNBO credit card list page. The existing users shouldn’t worry about the existing benefits for now. It seems the $100/year free money is indeed not sustainable for these small banks
Thanks Jason. I think one big takeaway is that someone is going to make money off you signing up for a credit card. You can decide whether it’s a particular blogger, or the bank (by applying directly so they don’t have to pay out a commission). Or look for I believe some sites that donate their affiliate commissions to charity which can work too.
Even before / when I did not have affiliate links for this or any other card, CSP is one of the top cards I would recommend for people starting out or who don’t want to go hog wild signing up for 100s of cards. If you’re just going to have one card, CSP has got to be near the top of that list IMO.
Do the affiliate commissions play a part in how much it’s talked about in the miles and points world? Of course, and I mention that in my post (as you noted). But even setting that aside, I stand by my reasons.
Re: $300 travel credit on CSR:
How do you forget something that is automatic and is applied towards the category where the card has leading rewards, so should be your go-to card anyway?
Your assertion that the Sapphire Reserve annual fee “has a high chance to be wasted, either from forgetting about the $300 travel credits, or by not redeeming them correctly” suggests that you don’t actually have the card.
It’s neither possible to forget nor incorrectly redeem the $300 travel credit. The entire process is automatic.
I’ll play devil’s advocate here and assert that I definitely know of people (at least one in the TH101 group) who failed to use the credit due to not redeeming it before their December statement hit (now a moot issue since it it moving to an anniversary year basis).
@Ian — a) You said it yourself, it’s a moot point; b) I cannot imagine any sort of year in which I’m not spending well over $300 in travel.
The only thing one needs to remember is to use the card, rather than putting all your airfare spend on your co-branded airline credit card in an attempt to gain status through spend.
With all the links in the article it still looks A LOT like a sales pitch and I understand that this is how you make your living so I am not judging you for that. However, I have started to tell everyone: if you don’t need Hyatt get the Citi Premier.
-Same sign-up bonus
-better bonus categories
-and (I think) they have better transfer partners with Avianca & Etihad
Chase lost Korean, and their unique partner United devalued it’s own chart with the move to the revenue based model. BA Avios got devalued for their award partners and I now see Avios (AA awards) on par with Avianca (UA awards) for US domestic travel, unless you have to deal with phone agent because Avianca is pretty abysmal.
The CSP has slightly better travel protection, but the Citi has a lot better purchase protection. Overall it is in my eyes a clear win for Citi unless you need Hyatt but then you also have the Chase Hyatt…
Thanks for the response. Maybe it would make a good post to compare the 2. I can see some of the value in what you say. One other thing that I think that the Sapphire Preferred has for it over the Citi Premier is that it’s a LOT easier to get Chase points than Citi points, in terms of number of cards that offer them / signup bonuses. Ink Preferred, Ink Unlimited, Ink Cash, Sapphire Preferred, Sapphire Reserve, Freedom, Freedom Unlimited. Plus the expiration policy is much better with Chase – as long as you have another Chase card, you’re good. Compared to Citi where if you close a card then you have 60 days to spend the points from that card, even if you have another Citi card. But you make good points!
Because Citi Premier does NOT pay you a fat commission/referral. Don’t lie.
Referral bonus?
Any advice on how I can get a US CC. I am British in US on B visa 6 months of year, have a bank account at Wells Fargo, an address and own vehicles but obviously no social security number. Good credit ratings in UK, 2 AE CC and 1 Virgin Atlantic, I’m missing out on points 6 months of year on everyday purchases, any advice on which if any Travel CC would entertain an application. Obvious problem with online applications is no social number = end of application.
That’s a good question and I am not 100% sure. This post had some ideas. The other suggestion I had was to check out some of these UK specific blogs
https://www.headforpoints.com/
https://economyclassandbeyond.boardingarea.com/