It’s Tuesday, so you know what that means – time for a little Travel Tuesday chat!

If you’re tuned into the travel hacking world, you may have seen the mayhem last week across the internet when there were rumblings that Chase was about to release a new credit card with AMAZING perks – particularly for travelers.

Well the rumors were true.  Chase confirmed the debut of the Chase Sapphire Reserve card.  If you’ve been following along with the Travel Tuesdays posts, you know I’m a huge fan of the Chase Sapphire Preferred (see this post), but guys, this new card is even better!

Let’s break it down!  There are a number of benefits that come along with this card, but the biggest and best, in my opinion, are the following 3 perks.

Best Perks of the Chase Sapphire Reserve

•  3x points on ALL dining & travel (for every $1 you spend, you receive 3 points; Chase’s definition of travel is very broad; and there’s no cap on how many points you can accumulate!)
• $300 annual travel credit (each year, automatically receive up to $300 in statement credits as reimbursement for travel related purchases)
• 100,000 point sign up bonus!! *Unfortunately, this was only an introductory offer, as of September 2019, the sign up bonus is 50,000, still not bad!

The sign up bonus amount is pretty unprecedented (*the original 100.000 point sign-up bonus).  To receive the bonus, you’ll need to spend $4,000 in the first 3 months of opening the card (this still applies to the current sign-up bonus as of September 2019).

Note: Only consider opening this card if you are able to pay off that amount in full.  Otherwise the interest you will end up paying while carrying a balance on the card will offset the value of the bonus points.

How Valuable Are Chase Ultimate Reward Points?

Just to give you an idea of how great the sign up bonus offer is, I recently booked a round trip flight to Europe of 60,000 points.  So with sign up bonus, you would be close to being able to easily book one roundtrip flight to almost anywhere in the world!

The One Catch

The Chase Sapphire Reserve carries a $450 annual fee, which will hit your account on the first billing cycle.

However, when you consider the value of the sign up bonus + $300 travel credit, it’s easy to see how the $450 annual fee is worth it (at least for the first year).  Even with just the travel credit alone, you’ll come within $55 of the annual fee of the Chase Sapphire Preferred card (annual fee $95).

Check out this post to see an inventory of all of the credit cards I currently have in my wallet and why I keep them around!

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