The Chase Sapphire Preferred has a limited-time welcome bonus that can help you save on travel this year.
I consider any opportunity to save on travel worth my time. So when the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card* comes along with a boosted bonus, I take notice.
It’s already one of my favorite travel credit cards, and now you can earn 100,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points after spending $5,000 within the first three months of opening the account.
Usually, the card offers a 60,000-point welcome bonus when spending $4,000 within the first three months. So yes, you have to spend an extra $1,000 to earn the extra points, but you can also save more when you use your points to book flights and hotels with Chase.
These boosted Chase welcome bonus offers typically only last a few months, so I don’t recommend sleeping on this offer. I’ll explain how to decide if the card is a good fit for you and give you tips on how to maximize your earnings on travel this year.
How I’d spend the Chase Sapphire Preferred welcome bonus
The CSP is my favorite low annual-fee travel card. Beyond the welcome bonus, I love the card’s travel perks, like trip cancellation and interruption insurance. I’ve had the card for about two years, and it’s saved me a lot of money on flights and hotels — especially when I earned the welcome bonus.
I’d go after the new welcome bonus myself but I heard about Chase’s 48-month rule. If you’ve earned a welcome bonus on your Chase Sapphire card in the past four years, you can’t qualify for the new bonus.
Chase points are typically valued at one cent per point, but you’ll get more value if you redeem them in the Chase Travel portal, where points get a boosted rate of 1.25 cents. That would make those 100,000 bonus points worth $1,250.
Hands down, I’d use the points toward flights. Let’s say I wanted to book roundtrip economy tickets for my family of four from Charlotte, North Carolina, to New York City (June 4 to June 8). If I book through the Chase Travel portal, it would cost about $1,016. So I’d have enough points to cover the cost of plane tickets for my whole family.
You can also book hotels, rental cars and cruises at the boosted rewards rate.
Before you book via the Chase Travel portal, be sure to look for deals and other redemption options. Chase has airline and hotel partners that offer higher redemption rates if you transfer your points. You can earn the most through transfer partners but can still get extra redemption value when booking through Chase’s portal.
Other ways to redeem the Chase credit card offer
If you don’t have any upcoming trips, there are other redemption options but at a lower value. For example, you can redeem one cent per point toward a $1,000 statement credit to lower your credit card balance.
Chase also has a “Pay Yourself Back” program that lets you use your rewards for statement credits on purchases from select categories at a rate of 1.25% per point. However, this offer is only available for select charities.
The bottom line
If you’re considering getting the Chase Sapphire Preferred, look at the card’s other features first. Welcome bonuses are usually a one-time deal, so you’ll need to make sure the card is worthwhile beyond the bonus rewards and that you earn enough rewards with your regular spending to offset the $95 annual fee.
Most important, don’t accrue debt trying to earn credit card rewards. The average credit card interest rate is over 20%, so any value you’d get from the rewards would be wiped out by the interest you accrue, leaving you in debt.
The CSP is CNET credit card editor Evan Zimmer’s go-to pick for travel, but if you’d rather have a card that helps you earn more on your everyday spending, the Blue Cash Preferred® Card from American Express lets you earn 6% cash back at U.S. supermarkets on up to $6,000 per year (then 1%) and 6% on select streaming services. Cash back is received in the form of Reward Dollars that can be redeemed as a statement credit or at Amazon.com checkout.
(see rates and fees)
Terms apply to American Express benefits and offers. Enrollment may be required for select American Express benefits and offers. Visit americanexpress.com to learn more.
For rates and fees of the Blue Cash Preferred Card from American Express, click here.
*All information about the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card has been collected independently by CNET and has not been reviewed by the issuer.
Correction, 12:45 p.m. PT: This story initially gave an incorrect figure for the amount Chase requires you spend in the first three months after opening the card. That figure is $5,000.
