Thoughts on Keeping the Chase Sapphire Card

There’s been some talk recently in the blogosphere over the acclaimed Sapphire Preferred card from Chase and whether it’s worth keeping or just getting it for its great signup bonus of 40,000 points + 5,000, and then relegating it to the sock drawer.

Julian and Drew value the card only for its first year and its signup bonus, while Gary still loves the card. I just wanted to put down a couple of quick thoughts.

Card Usage

The real question here is how you use credit cards. We constantly write about credit cards and how you can maximize your benefits from them. That being said, most normal people in the world aren’t constantly opening and closing credit cards. Your average American may apply for a new card every couple of years. Maybe they’ll see an offer in a store to get 10% off that day’s purchase, perhaps a bottle of soda caught their eye, or maybe they’ll decide to change to a new card which suits their needs better. It’s not something constantly on the mind of the cardholder when to cancel one card and sign up for a new one.

I’d classify most people as Keepers of credit cards, versus the few of us who are Gamers of credit cards.

Keepers

A Keeper doesn’t have to be someone who will actually keep the card for years at a time; maybe when the annual fee becomes due they shake their head and say, ‘I’m closing this one’. The point is that when they sign up for a card they’re looking at it for its long-term value. When looking at credit cards from a Keepers perspective a signup bonus is just a push to get that card.

Looking at the Sapphire card: For someone who travels a lot the no-foreign-transaction-fee is a must, and the 2x points on travel and dining could really make the card more valuable than the Arrival.

Certainly we can debate how the Sapphire matches up with the Arrival and the Citi Premier (or Prestige). It would really depend on the consumer – what their main spend is and what kind of travel they do. But as a baseline, having one of these 3 cards would be the go-to options for any frequent traveler.

Gamers

Coming from a Gamers perspective, we need to evaluate the fact that the 45,000-point signup bonus can be had every 24 months or so. And that you can constantly rotate your Ultimate Reward-earning credit cards so as to never pay an annual fee.

Coming from that perspective, it probably wouldn’t have made sense to keep the Sapphire card going back a year either, despite certain redemption options which were better then. It would be hard to justify losing 45,000 points every ~2 years, when you could easily earn UR points with the INK card, or even earn with the Freedom card and wait until you have the Sapphire to redeem them.

For that matter, even if the Sapphire card didn’t have any annual fee it still wouldn’t make sense to keep the card, since as a Gamer it would be worth it to cancel so that you can apply again later. You would only keep it until the 24-month mark and no longer.

The reason we don’t hear much of canceling the Freedom in order to reapply is since the signup bonus is lackluster, plus it has nice quarterly category bonuses year round.

Final Thoughts

To be clear, I would categorize myself with the Gamers and I’ll be canceling my Sapphire unless I’m offered some nice retention offer. I’m sure many of our readers are in the same boat as me. But it’s hard to make that the end word on the value of the card.

In the final analysis, I consider the Sapphire a solid card for an ordinary credit card user. If someone (a traveler) would ask you advice on which single credit card to get, this would certainly be one of the possibilities that goes through your head.

Speaking of which…what would you advise someone if they asked you which single credit card they should get and keep (let’s assume it’s someone who travels internationally)? Let us know in the comments.

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James
James (@guest_198407)
November 17, 2015 18:49

If anyone is thinking of applying for the chase sapphire preferred, here is my link and I’d really appreciate is even one person is willing to use it. thanks! 😀

https://applynow.chase.com/FlexAppWeb/renderApp.do?PID=CFFD2&SPID=FGKQ&CELL=6RLH&MSC=1517938244

Alex
Alex (@guest_109273)
April 26, 2015 02:22

For me, it’s not entirely about the points. For me, the CSP’s worth it due to the various travel insurance programs, flexibility (points can usually be redeemed for > $0.01/point, esp. with upgraded tickets), and real live American customer service. Ideally, you never have to contact customer service. In reality, when things go wrong it’s refreshing to NOT deal with overseas script-readers who aren’t allowed to do anything other than read scripts to you and ultimately can’t help you.

Joel
Joel (@guest_109162)
April 25, 2015 13:04

Why is gaming the system so important. Every time you apply for a new Chase card Chase will look at your entire portfolio – both number of cards issued and utilization of the cards. The people at Chase are not dumb. The assumption that you will be able to churn Chase cards forever is crazy! Don’t you think that the executives at Chase read these blogs?

If a card works for me I don’t mind paying a reasonable price for it. The CSP card gives me about $4,000 in savings on trip cancellation insurance on cruises that I book (7% of the trip cost is the average savings amount).

My wife and I have over 30 Chase cards (business and personal). I don’t mind supporting a good company, certainly when they provide excellent customer service.

By the way there are no retention bonuses on the CSP card!

Those of you who game the system – risk being barred from the system. You will have no method of appeal!

Mike
Mike (@guest_109159)
April 25, 2015 12:47

Timely discussion for me, since my CSP first annual fee falls due this summer. Any tips from those with experience getting an Ink card using a start-up business?

Carole
Carole (@guest_109153)
April 25, 2015 12:21

I had a $45.00 item stolen in Cambodia and was quickly reimbursed by Arrival.

Carole
Carole (@guest_109152)
April 25, 2015 12:19

My husband and I travel a great deal, both internationally and domestically. I have the Chase Sapphire Preferred, Arrival and Citi Thank You. The Thank You is new, and I’m not sure how to use it. We’re leaving for a month long trip to Europe and I’m thinking I should use the TY because it gets three times on travel. I have used the Arrival to pay for travel expenses, and have about 600,000 UR points, and a Sapphire card that still gets 7% at the end of the year. Which card should I use on this trip, or should I use all three?
Thanks.

William Charles
Admin
April 25, 2015 17:55

What points do you find more valuable?

andreas
andreas (@guest_107917)
April 22, 2015 16:43

One thing that is not discussed often is the insurance & protection benefits that come with premium cards. If I’m going to return something or need warranty, I usually put it on an amex card (protections are virtually identical on all cards so I use SPG ).

The travel insurance provided by chase sapphire is the best I know of. AFAIK, Amex does’t have any meaningful trip cancellation/interruption insurance. The purchase protection benefits on CSP as just as good as amex. That’s another reason I can justify the CSP. The $95 is not a big deal if you make it up elsewhere in the hobby.

The card protection benefits that come with arrival and c1 venture are rather weak and therefore I don’t use them for shopping high value items. They are good for pay for non personal items like a car wash, laundry bill, netflix, phone bills etc.

Steven
Steven (@guest_109209)
April 25, 2015 19:22

Sorry but it’s laughable comparing amex purchase protection with Chase purchase protection.

I know from personal experience and check out the Internet of people’s horrible experience with Chase, amex on the other hand makes it extremeley easy

andreas
andreas (@guest_109283)
April 26, 2015 03:30

yes. I’d agree that amex was an easier process. Amex purchase protection is only upto $300 per item. CSP is $500 per item. My experience has been positive with both. YMMV.

i don’t think amex has any trip interruption insurance. Even if they did, since most of their cards have FT fees, I wouldn’t really be using them for my trips. I was reimbursed $1700 for a trip that i put on my CSP.

Jon
Jon (@guest_107891)
April 22, 2015 16:04

I constantly recommend the arrival plus, its gotten me the must continual rewards and its the only card I put actual spend on. The CSP was one of the first cards I got, and Im still sitting on points. I will be canceling before the annual fee.

andreas
andreas (@guest_107532)
April 21, 2015 21:14

for people who read miles points blogs, paying AF on CSP makes no sense. I think your arguments along with the commenters are pretty clear.

The other category of people are keepers who don’t do MS, don’t want hassle of miles/points and dont’ want to manage a lot of cards, they can pair amex bcp for groceries with another card to get aroudn 3% cashback on their overall spend.

The other pairing card depends on how much they spend. some good options would be
sam’s club for 3% at restaurants
fidelity 2% or double cash for 2% with no AF
boa 1.5 % travel card for no FT with no AF.
chase hyatt: $75 AF but 2x hyatt points on airline, restaurants and no FT fee. Hotel points involve less hassle in redemeing than airline points.

SJ
SJ (@guest_107450)
April 21, 2015 16:02

Unless you are 100% sure of being automatically approved, I would not recommend this. A credit analyst smartly pointed out during my last Chase reconsideration call that I was smartly going through all credit cards they had and getting all signup bonuses. He asked questions like oh, why did you cancel the united explorer … I had legitimate reasons, so no issues.
But I think if its clear that you closed a card and reapplied just to get another bonus, not sure how that would fly. Sure, its allowed, but Chase can twist the terms to their advantage anytime.

andreas
andreas (@guest_107533)
April 21, 2015 21:15

will lowering your CL prior to applying help? I have been approved many times after splitting CL

Lantean
Lantean (@guest_107717)
April 22, 2015 08:36

yes, lowering CL definitely helps… also closing cards you simply know you won’t need any more.