The Chase Sapphire Preferred Card Bonus is at 60,000 Points, and it’s Still a No-Brainer

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October 2021 Update: This card has new perks!

NEW | $50 hotel credit annually for new and existing card members when booking a stay through the Chase Travel Portal

NEW | 5x points on travel booked through the Chase Travel Portal

NEW | 3x points on restaurants, streaming services, and online groceries

2x points on travel booked outside the Chase Travel Portal

1x points on everything else

NEW | 10% points bonus annually based on your card spending, earned after you renew and pay your annual fee

Enter Bernie Sanders meme:

I am, once again, asking you to consider the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card.

I don’t care if you literally take away nothing else from this blog or spit on my referral link and go to great lengths not to use it. I clapping emoji don’t clapping emoji care! All I want is for you to have the Chase Sapphire Preferred card.

I’ve covered this card and things related to this card a lot on this site, so if you’re the type who likes to research every choice you make (I understand), I’d recommend checking out a few of these posts, too:

• My overall Travel Rewards credit card rewards strategy that has allowed me to score between $10,000 and $15,000 in free travel over 24 months using four travel cards with annual fees that total less than $1,000, of which the Sapphire Preferred card is a shining, exuberant star

• A guide to travel rewards as a couple that will teach you how to get $6,595 (sign-up bonuses alone) in free travel with your significant other

• My favorite way to go on a five-star, all-inclusive vacation for 25,000 Ultimate Rewards (Chase) points per night that doesn’t cost you a dime

• Making the most of your Chase Ultimate Rewards points by utilizing valuable transfer partners like Hyatt and United Airlines

That should be a sufficient list to queue up a formidable number of tabs for perusing later. Now let’s get back to the Sapphire Preferred card.

This 60,000-point bonus is likely worth around $1,500, depending on how you deploy it

And how do I know they’re being modest? Because I once redeemed 50,000 points for an $1,100 vacation. I show you in the article about “making the most of your points” linked above that you can get a roundtrip flight from DFW to Tokyo for 35,000 points on United, which would be $1,386 if you paid in cash.

In short, 60,000 points can go a long f***ing way.

Even the Park Hyatt in NYC costs 35,000 Hyatt points per night (Ultimate Rewards points can be transferred to Hyatt on a 1:1 basis), and that’s a $950/night hotel. For 70,000, you can get a $1,900 hotel stay.

The point? If you redeem for a Hyatt property or book an international flight literally once, this card’s $95 annual fee will pay for itself many times over.

Who qualifies?

Great question. I think every person with a social security number and opposable thumbs should be applying for this card, but the true qualifiers are:

• Excellent credit (think 700+ credit score)

• Hasn’t received a Sapphire bonus in the previous 48 months (which means if you got a Sapphire card on or before October 2016, I would absolutely be downgrading that shit to an annual fee-free Chase Freedom card and reapplying for the Sapphire Preferred)

Because I always want to give you Naked-and-Afraid transparency on this site, I’ll tell you that this card is incredibly valuable (arguably the best value given the low annual fee) but it doesn’t have any ongoing travel credits or perks that make its annual fee negligible. For example, the Marriott Bonvoy Boundless card also has a $95 annual fee – but you get a free, 35,000-point hotel room every single year you’re a cardmember, which makes it an obvious “keep” in your wallet as long as you’re staying at least one night per year in a Marriott property.

That said, because the sign-up bonus is worth so much, there’s really no downside. Even if you used all your points on one magnificent trip then decided you didn’t want to ever leave your house again, worst case scenario is you forget to downgrade or cancel the card for a year or two and you get stuck with a $95 annual fee twice, and best case scenario is you downgrade the card to something with no annual fee (simply call the number on the back of the card and ask them to downgrade it to a Freedom; they’ll probably offer to waive the fee and you’ve got your stellar little travel companion for another year).

And for those of you who are interested in long-term earning potential (aren’t we all?), I’ll note you get:

• 5x point on Lyft through March 2022

• 2x points on all travel and dining

• 1x point on all other purchases

• …and 15,000 points for every friend you refer, which is an easy way to involve your friends and family in a pyramid scheme they’ll actually enjoy being a part of and doesn’t require you to send any DMs that start with, “Hey, girl!”

As always, you need to spend $4,000 in three months to get the bonus ($1,333 per month) which will be a piece of cake if you can pay rent on your card. I’d recommend paying rent on the card once (for example, knocking out $1,000 or so on that one expenditure) to avoid paying a ton in rent credit card fees, and then knock out the other $3,000 by loading it with all your monthly purchases for three months.

Most landlords charge a fee (whether it be a flat $50 or a percentage) to pay rent on your card, so if it’s a flat fee regardless of how much you charge, it might not hurt to pay two months at once to eat up most of the spend threshold.

Why you shouldn’t pay rent on a credit card on an ongoing basis

Now’s a good time to note that, on an ongoing basis, paying rent on your credit card is not a good value because the amount you’ll pay in fees will offset what you earn in points:

$1,200 in rent = 1,200 points, but an estimated 3% fee means you’re paying $36 in fees. If one point = 1.5 cents, you’re really only gaining $18 in points on that purchase.

That’s it, folks. Anything else I’d type right now would be nothing more than an obstacle to you and your next 60,000 points. Go get ‘er done.

Learn more about the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card

*Heads-up: My “affiliate link” for this card looks funky. The link below will take you through a portal with my logo, and then redirect from there to bankrate.com. This is the way in which I receive credit for your application, and it’s up to you whether you want to go that route. Either way, make sure you get those points!

Two of my other top cards with low annual fees, for those who already have the Sapphire Preferred and are still in their first 48 months:

• Marriott Bonvoy Boundless ($95 per year) | That link will trigger three free nights valued at 35,000 points each after you hit the spend bonus. For context, the 5-star resort we booked in Aruba was 35,000 points per night.

• Southwest Rapid Rewards Priority ($149 per year) | The primary reason I love the Priority card is that it comes with an annual $75 Southwest travel credit and four Upgraded Boardings which give you A1-A15 boarding, normally averaging $40 each. Beyond that, the points count toward Companion Pass, the most valuable travel rewards tool in the game.

My next card? Likely the Hyatt credit card, but I’m waiting to see if it goes up from 50,000 points. I’m still getting over my rejection for the Chase Ink Business Preferred.

Editor’s Note: Opinions expressed here are mine alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, hotel, airline, or other entity. This content has not been reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed by any of the entities included in the post.