Back in late August I received an email from Chase. The email outlined my mid-year rewards summary with the Chase Sapphire Reserve card. Now, the Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card was my “go-to” credit card for a pretty long time. In fact, I used little else from when Chase first released the card in 2016 until earlier this year.
When Chase first introduced the Chase Sapphire Reserve card there was almost nothing like it. There weren’t really any cards like it. In fact, I still remember the excitement of reading various forums about leaked benefits offered by the card. Back then, the benefits of the Sapphire Reserve card were unheard of. What’s more, there were no cards that came with insane 100,000 sign-up bonuses for just $4,000 of spend. To this day, it’s insane to look back and realize just how transformative the card has been to the rewards credit card market.
Sadly however, there have been no major changes to the card since its release. The card still earns the same 3X points on dining and travel and still carries a $450 annual fee. Also, Chase has maintained a 50,000 point sign-up bonus for as long as I can remember. With that, other cards have changed quite a bit and are now more competitive.
Because of the introduction of newer cards or refreshed benefits of old cards, I’ve moved a lot of my annual spend away from the Chase Sapphire Reserve which is why my mid-year review is a lot more boring that it’s been in past years.
My Chase Sapphire Reserve Mid-Year Review
When I opened the email from Chase I was honestly a bit surprised by the number of Ultimate Rewards points I’ve earned this year. Not surprised because of how few points I’ve earned, but rather by how many I’ve earned considering my limited spend on the card.
This year, so far, I’ve earned less than 20,000 Ultimate Rewards card from the Chase Sapphire Reserve card. To put that into perspective, I earned close to 100,000 points on the card in 2017.
Even so, those 17,000 points I’ve earned so far this year are worth about $260 in travel. I don’t exactly have plans for how I’ll use these points, but I’m suspect I’ll try to pool them with other rewards currencies. For example, I’d love to move them to the Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer program and fly Singapore Suites once again.
What Happened?
The reason I’ve earned so few Ultimate Rewards points this year is that there are ultimately more rewarding cards available now. For starters, I’ve moved all of my dining, grocery, and misc. spend to the American Express Gold card. With that card I now earn 4X points on dining and groceries and 1X points on everything else. I’ve also moved all of my airfare spend to the American Express Platinum card as I earn 5X points on airfare with that card. Lastly, a lot of my travel spend (cabs, Uber, etc.) has moved to my Citi ThankYou Premier card for no reason in particular. As I mentioned earlier, the Chase Sapphire Reserve card just isn’t competitive anymore when compared to others.
While I’ve love to see Chase offer more competitive benefits, I’m actually a bit glad that they haven’t. See, I wonder how sustainable certain benefits are for card issuers. For example, I’m not sure that Citi can maintain the current Citi Prestige card benefits in perpetuity. Likewise, I wonder if American Express will begin to curb some of the benefits offered by the Gold card.
To me, it seems that card issuers have a nasty habit of overextending themselves to gain marketshare only to claw back benefits later on. I’d hate to see Chase do something like this with the Sapphire Reserve card. Instead, I’d be fine if Chase sits tight and stick with the current benefits of the card. Of course I’d love to see more benefits, but I understand why we haven’t.
Final Thoughts
For about the entire past year I’ve debated if now is finally time to close the Chase Sapphire Reserve card. Every time I reach a decision I almost always immediately change my mind. If I look alone at the benefits offered by the card I’m not sure that I’d keep it open. However, it’s one of the oldest card accounts that I have and it allows me to earn United MileagePlus miles which I often find valuable.
I’m not sure that those considerations alone make the card worth keeping open, but so far this year I’ve earned enough points to equally offset the effective annual fee. Provided that remains the case for future years I suspect I’ll keep the card open. If I ever fail to earn enough points to offset the annual fee then I suspect I’ll finally get around to closing this card account.
