While staying at home during the COVID-19 pandemic, many of us are paying for credit card benefits that we aren’t using. These unused benefits include anything from bonus point earning spending, to airport lounge access, and even complimentary elite status. With these card benefits going unused, the decision to pay an annual fee becomes much more difficult. Instead, perhaps it makes more sense to cancel the card and save the annual fee. After all, you can always apply for the card again in the future.
Because of this, we’ve seen several credit card issuers make changes to their card benefits. These changes are of course an attempt to retain card holders during these uncertain times. So far, Chase and American Express have made the most significant changes to their most popular credit cards.
For example, American Express recently added statement credits for phone bills and streaming services to the flagship Platinum card. While Chase has begun rolling out expanded bonus point earning categories on several cards. Both issuers have been proactively making creative changes to their cards to rewards existing card holders. Now, Chase has made another proactive change to the ever popular Chase Sapphire Reserve card.
Earn 5X Ultimate Rewards Points At Grocery Stores
As far as I can tell, Chase appears to be taking a rewards points approach to card holder retention. Most notably, Chase is offering bonuses points on certain spending during the COVID-19 pandemic. This is clearly an attempt to make up for points lost from spending on travel and dining.
With more card holders staying at home there is no doubt a significant increase in grocery store spending. Most of us are going to the grocery store and cooking at home instead of dining out and ordering in. Therefore, for a limited time Chase is offering 5X points on grocery store purchases. However, this benefits is only offered on spending from May 1 through June 30, 2020.
Additionally, this benefit is capped to the first $1,500 in grocery store spend during the promotional period. This means card holders can earn up to 7,500 Ultimate Rewards points worth at least $113.
You Can Earn 5X Points, But Should You?
I wrote about this the other day when discussing the enhanced benefits offered from many Marriott Bonvoy cards. Basically, just because a card is offering bonus points for certain spending, does that mean you should take advantage of the benefit?
In this case, I think Chase Sapphire Reserve card holders should absolutely take advantage of this benefit. As noted above, if you maximize this benefit and put at least $1,500 of grocery store spend on the Chase Sapphire Reserve card before June 30, 2020, you will earn up to 7,500 Ultimate Rewards points. Since Ultimate Rewards points are worth at least $0.015/each, that’s about $113 of value back from this promotion.
Furthermore, if you put an additional $1,500 of grocery spend on the Chase Freedom card before June 30, 2020, you can earn an additional 7,500 Ultimate Rewards points, again worth at least $113.
Instead, if you were to put that same $3,000 of grocery spend on a Marriott card you would earn 18,000 Marriott Bonvoy points. Although that’s more total ‘points,’ those points are only worth about $108 total! As you can see, putting that spend on a card that earn Ultimate Rewards points is a much better option.
Final Thoughts
I’m actually extremely excited about this new expanded benefit from the Chase Sapphire Reserve card. I’ve been putting all of my grocery store spend on my Chase Freedom card this quarter to maximize the 5% quarterly cash back benefit. With that, I’m very close to maximizing that benefit and would then have to shift my spend to my American Express Gold card, which earns 4X points at grocery stores. Instead, I’ll shift that spend to the Chase Sapphire Reserve card to earn 5X points on another $1,500 of grocery store spending.
With all of that being said, I still plan to close or downgrade my Chase Sapphire Reserve card when my annual fee posts. Sure, the Sapphire Reserve card continues to be rewarding on its own, but when comparing the card to others in my wallet I quickly find the benefits are too redundant to justify the increased annual fee.
