Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card: An essential travel card with best-in-class travel insurance

The Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card is one of Chase’s flagship rewards cards. It offers elevated rewards in useful categories like travel, online grocery, dining, and select streaming services and best-in-class travel insurance protections. The Chase Sapphire Preferred® carries an annual fee of $95.

The card offers rewards of three points per dollar in several categories, including online grocery, select streaming providers, and dining. When you purchase travel through Chase Ultimate Rewards, you’ll earn five points per dollar. All other travel earns two points per dollar. Finally, the card also offers increased rewards for Lyft rides (5x) and Peloton purchases.

The Sapphire Preferred features travel insurance benefits like primary rental car insurance, baggage delay insurance and trip delay reimbursement coverage, making it an excellent choice to use for booking travel. Most importantly, the card offers transfers to Chase’s useful suite of travel partners, plus 25% increased value for your rewards when you redeem them for travel through Chase Ultimate Rewards.

Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card at a glance

Here’s what you need to know about the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card.

Welcome offer

For information on historical welcome offers on the Chase Sapphire Preferred and to compare it to other available bonuses, see our database of welcome bonuses.

Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card rewards

The Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card offers increased rewards in select categories including travel, dining and grocery store purchases. Details are below.

Lyft rides: 5 points per dollar (through March 31, 2025)
Travel purchased through Chase Ultimate Rewards: 5 points per dollar
Dining, including eligible takeout and delivery: 3 points per dollar
Online grocery purchases (excluding Target, Walmart and wholesale clubs): 3 points per dollar
Select streaming services: 3 points per dollar
Travel purchases: 2 points per dollar

All other purchases: 2 miles per dollar

In addition to earning cards on its own, this card opens up point redemption synergies with other Chase cards you might have like the Chase Freedom Unlimited and Chase Freedom Flex. These synergies make the points you earn from these other Ultimate Rewards credit cards even more valuable.

Chase Ultimate Rewards card synergies

Chase Ultimate Rewards points can always be redeemed for cash back rewards at one cent each. This makes 10,000 points worth $100. But your points can become even more valuable when you hold a premium Ultimate Rewards credit card.

If you hold a Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card, Chase Sapphire Reserve, or Ink Business Preferred card, you have access to a handful of redemption options that can increase the value of your points:

• Point transfers to airline and hotel partners
• Increased value when you redeem for travel through Chase Ultimate Rewards
• Pay Yourself Back options

To use the points you earned from your non-premium Ultimate Rewards credit card for one of these redemptions, simply transfer your Ultimate Rewards points to your premium Ultimate Rewards credit card.

How to use Chase Ultimate Rewards points

The Chase Sapphire Preferred card earns Chase Ultimate Rewards points as its currency. You can always redeem your Chase Ultimate Rewards for cash back rewards at 1 cent per point, but you can easily increase the value you get from the points by redeeming them for travel through Chase Ultimate Rewards or redeeming for statement credits against purchases in select, rotating categories through Pay Yourself Back. If you redeem through either of these options, you will receive 1.25 cents per point of value.

Like most transferable points currencies, you can get additional value out of your points by transferring them to airline and hotel partners.

How to apply:

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A few notes on applying for Chase cards

• Chase generally won’t approve you if your credit report is showing 5 or more new credit card accounts opened in the last 24 months. This rule is knows as the 5/24 rule. If you’re unsure if you are “under 5/24” you should check your 5/24 status before applying for a Chase card. Note that recently this rule seems to have softened. See our coverage about Chase 5/24 for more.
• How often you can earn a welcome bonus on a Chase card varies by card family.
  • Most cards allow you to earn a welcome bonus if it has been at least 24 months since your last received a welcome bonus on the same card.
  • Chase Sapphire-branded cards, such as the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card and Chase Sapphire Reserve®, you can only earn a welcome bonus once every 48 months.
• You can only hold one Chase Sapphire-branded card at a time.
• If you apply for a Chase card and the bank offers a higher bonus within 90 days, you can send Chase a secure message or call them to have your welcome offer matched.
• Chase business cards do not report to personal credit reports as long as they are current.

Should you keep the card after the first year?

The Chase Sapphire Preferred card has a $95 annual fee. You should only keep a card after the first year if you receive ongoing value in excess of the card’s annual fee. Here are the benefits that might make this card worth keeping after the first year.

• Increased earnings in bonus categories like travel, dining and online grocery
• Excellent trip delay reimbursement and baggage delay insurance benefits
• Access to airline and hotel transfer partners

Chase Sapphire Preferred card benefits

The sheer volume of travel benefits available on the Chase Sapphire Preferred card can be overwhelming, so we’ve grouped them into sections.

Travel insurance benefits

The Chase Sapphire Preferred offers best-in-class travel insurance benefits

Trip Cancelation and Interruption Insurance: If your trip is canceled or cut short by sickness, severe weather and other covered situations, you can be reimbursed up to $10,000 per person and $20,000 per trip for your pre-paid, non-refundable travel expenses, including passenger fares, tours, and hotels.

Primary Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver – Decline the rental company’s collision insurance and charge the entire rental cost to your card. Coverage is primary and provides reimbursement up to the actual cash value of the vehicle for theft and collision damage for most rental cars in the U.S. and abroad.

Baggage Delay Insurance – Reimburses you for essential purchases like toiletries and clothing for baggage delays over 6 hours by passenger carrier up to $100 a day for 5 days.

Purchase insurance benefits

Extended Warranty – Extends the time period of the U.S. manufacturer’s warranty by an additional year, on eligible warranties of three years or less.

Purchase Protection – Covers your new purchases for 120 days against damage or theft up to $500 per claim and $50,000 per account.

Benefits most will use

10% Bonus Points – Each account anniversary, you will earn bonus points equal to 10% of your total purchases made during the previous year.

No Foreign Transaction Fees – This card does not charge a foreign transaction fee for purchases made outside the United States.

Benefits some will use

Gopuff Statement Credit – Receive a $10 monthly statement credit from Gopuff. Gopuff quickly delivers drinks, snacks and other household essentials to your doorstep. Promotion runs through December 31, 2023.

DashPass Subscription – Get complimentary access to DashPass – a membership for both DoorDash and Caviar – which unlocks $0 delivery fees and lower service fees on eligible orders for a minimum of one year when you activate by December 31, 2024.