On June 23, 2025, Chase Sapphire Reserve is removing the ability to redeem points giving a 1.5% value (1.5 cents per point) toward purchases with the Chase Travel booking platform.
If you apply for or upgrade to the Chase Sapphire Reserve card before June 23rd, you’ll lock in the 1.5% redemption option for more than two years, until October 2027, for all points earned before October 26, 2025. Points earned after October 26, 2025 will not have the 1.5% redemption option via Chase Travel.
Presumably, if someone upgrades to the Sapphire Reserve card before June 23rd, all of their points balances from prior earnings will maintain the 1.5% redemption option until 2027. Likewise, presumably, any points transferred to a Sapphire Reserve card before October 26, 2025 will maintain the 1.5% redemption option until 2027. (We have yet to receive confirmation on any of this.)
For someone interested in getting the Sapphire Reserve card by upgrading a Freedom or Sapphire Preferred card, many will opt to do so before June 23rd for two reasons:
- You’ll lock in your first membership year at the lower $550 annual fee
- You’ll get 2+ years of the 1.5% Chase Travel redemption option
Someone who appreciates the new perks and credits coming on the refreshed Sapphire Reserve card might prefer to upgrade after June 23rd to get a few extra months of those benefits.
Those looking to signup for a new Sapphire Reserve card will probably prefer to wait until after June 23rd since it’s likely the signup bonus will then be significantly higher at that time versus the current 60,000 points bonus. I wouldn’t give up on that upside unless I had boatloads of points that needed the 1.5% redemption option.
I went back and forth on this decision for days but finally decided to today to upgrade my CFU. I’m over 5/24 so I won’t be getting any subs any time soon anyway, but my main reason was to lock in the 1.5x redemption rate since I have big plans for that.
The representative also informed me that since my P2 was already an authorized user on the CFU, they would receive an automatic AU card for the reserve, and I wouldn’t have to pay the fee. Is that true? That is something I hadn’t heard before.
Still no word on whether the CSR revamp will change PYB?
Was able to PC a Freedom Flex to the CSR 5 minutes ago so still working today.
I got a CSP less than 12 months ago. AIUI I can’t do a product change for 1 year. I do have a couple Freedom cards — could I theoretically upgrade one of those? I assume even if I close my CSP it wouldn’t be enough time to allow for a CSR card application (due to limits on Sapphire cards).
Yes, you can upgrade 1 of your Freedoms to a CSR.
But wouldn’t that violate the rule against multiple Sapphire cards?
I’m not aware of that rule. Even if that is a rule, you mentioned that you were willing to close your CSP. Therefore, you can close your CSP and then do the upgrade.
BTW, if you PC from a CF to a CSR, the card # will likely stay the same. However, if you PC from a CFF to a CSR, the card # will change.
The problem is that when you close a Sapphire-family card, historically you had to wait 1-2 weeks for it to clear the system before you can apply for another Sapphire-family card. I recently did this — I had a CSR, closed it, applied after a week for a CSP, and was denied due to having an existing Sapphire-family card. Had to wait another week to get approved.
Yes, but that is applying for a new card. I told you to PC your CF/CFF to a CSR, not apply for a CSR.
I’m pretty sure that you can do that and still keep your CSP. I’m also pretty sure that others will correct me if I’m wrong.
I’ll give it a try!
What happens to the points earned on the original CF that is to be upgraded to CSR? Are those points automatically moved to the CSR after upgrade?
they would stay in the same account since the concept of points is the same across all chase cards (other than co-branded like southwest united etc), unlike for amex that have cashback vs points cards
if you’re worried about this, you could always transfer them to another chase card then transfer back after the upgrade, but it’s not necessary
Did you mean to tag
David instead of me? The reason I ask is because your comment agrees with what I wrote but you seemed to be implying that you were correcting me.
You’re right. My bad.
There has never been a rule against holding multiple Sapphire cards. The rule (currently) only prohibits opening new ones unless you hold zero.
You can accumulate Sapphires until you run out of Freedoms. MDD is dead, so upgrading is now the only way.
Data point: My wife’s CSP AF hit 6/1 and she was able to product change to CSR on 6/17 afternoon.
We have ~300k UR we were planning to use for a business class fare, so locking in 1.5 redemption option and freerolling the “points boost” seemed like a no brainer.
Yes, I came to the same conclusion. Better to get existing CSR and lock in the 1.5 if you have a substantial amount of points (I have 340k).
The real question, for many of us, is going to be: do we downgrade our current Reserve to be able to get the huge SUB, even though that would mean giving up the 2 years of getting 1.5 cpp in Travel?? The problem I see is, if one downgrades you give up the 1.5cpp forever without any guarantee of actually getting the SUB- since you might land in the new “Chase pop-up jail.” Very risky…
This isn’t a question for me. 99% of my UR redemptions have been through transfers to SW and Hyatt. With SW likely not being my for sure go-to for flying anymore, I hope Hyatt holds course for a bit longer as I still have ~300k URs to go through.
I’ve found very little value add using the Chase portal, and will never book a flight using it again. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Too long of a story to type out what happened.
What is the issue with chase portal for booking the flights? I haven’t booked airfare from there for several years. I just checked several routes yesterday and I saw the fare is the same as if I book the ticket from airline directly. Just curious.
If an airline screws you over for pretty much any reason, you’re at the mercy of Chase to get a refund, and well, I’ll just say that will not go well and you’ll not only be out the entire ticketed amount (even on a “refundable” fare ticket), you’ll have wasted a lot of time in the process trying to get it rectified.
+1 here – only book if you’re almost certain you will take the trip…
My story goes beyond that. The flight still departed as planned…I just wasn’t on it and the situation was completely out of my control and entirely the airline’s fault. I lost 10’s of thousands of URs due to utter incompetence.
Airline bookings through the chase portal are via 3rd party, not direct. So you receive zero support from the airline if something goes wrong. And they’re the least flexible type of booking.
I prefer to transfer points to whichever airline I’m planning to fly and then book direct.
I think it’s a preferred redemption option and basic math problem. If you have like 500k+ UR then 1.5x redemption is worth $2500+ vs a 1x redemption which is more than whatever signup bonus the new CSR will be worth. If you only transfer your points it doesn’t make sense to upgrade in advance.
https://www.reddit.com/r/CreditCards/comments/1le5htc/im_trying_out_the_new_sapphire_reserve_features/ Relevant thread where the person confirmed some things over the phone about it
Strange, I was just checking my DoorDash account and it’s already showing a popup saying DoorDash/Sapphire Reserve: “$10 off monthly benefit for 2 grocery & retail orders”. It also doesn’t work on liquor purchases so there goes my plan to get 2 cheap bottles of wine per month.
What do you mean that it “already” is showing that? DoorDash has had that benefit for months.
Good topic as I was running the math last night. I have a CSP that just renewed so I can get the AF refunded if I upgrade to CSR before June 23rd. People really need to do individual calculations of value. The following is for my own situation, as someone who holds a Ritz card (already have access to Chase lounges/Priority Pass), no authorized users, don’t usually use Chase travel portal, don’t use Peloton or Apple TV/Music, 3/24 status:
-$300 travel credit, valued at $300, organic travel spend.
-$250 x 2 Edit Hotels (min 2 night stay), valued at $0, these are higher end hotels with nightly rates likely over $250. Will need to spend additional $500+/year to get this credit, which means forced overspending.
-$150 x 2 Sapphire Reserve tables, valued at $150, not a large selection of restaurants even in big cities. Can squeeze some value here but inconvenient.
-$150 x 2 Stubhub, valued at $150, Stubhub fees are awful, haven’t used them in a long time, but can squeeze some value out.
-$10/mo Lyft credit, valued at $100, organic ride share spend, may miss a couple months due to overseas travel.
-$5/mo Doordash restaurants, valued at $50, organic spend, may miss a couple months due to overseas travel.
-$10/mo Doordash non restaurants, valued at $50, use these at 7-11 for pickup but not good value.
Based on my own evaluation, these credits add up to $800, which is greater than $550 annual fee, so I should upgrade, right? I’m hesitant because it will take a lot of time and attention to track these credits, and for a net $250 benefit it is not worth it to me. I would rather pay the $795 new fee AND get a large SUB along with the credits, which is what I plan on doing.
These are my own estimates of value, as always YMMV.
Current CSR holders don’t get the benefits until October, so you’d only have 2-3 months to use the new credits before they reset in 2026 (for the credits that are semi-annual).
Yes, there is more risk of credit slippage with the first set of new credits given the October timeline.
I personally see all monthly credit as 0. not worth the time tracking it.
Except you can still double dip the travel credit in your first year so add another $300 to your math and that might tip the scale.
It isn’t clear whether the $300 travel credit can be double dipped going forward, given the new clause about clawbacks by Chase if the CSR is closed within 90 days of the credit. Doc posted about this on June 17.
But let’s say the double dip is still possible. I still would prefer higher AF with big SUB and 2 x $300 credits than lower AF and just the credits.