Chase Sapphire Reserve® card review (the top-tier Chase consumer card)

The Chase Sapphire Reserve® is one of the best-known premium travel credit cards on the market, and with a $795 annual fee it’s also one of the most expensive. Whether it’s worth that fee depends entirely on how many of its benefits you’ll actually use.

This review goes through everything the card offers as well as its strengths and weaknesses, so by the end, you should be able to decide how well it would fit in your wallet (or if it wouldn’t fit at all).

In brief

The Chase Sapphire Reserve® is a premium travel card that earns Chase Ultimate Rewards points and comes with a long list of travel and lifestyle benefits. The annual fee is high, but for the right cardholder there can be enough in the way of statement credits and travel perks to offset it.

Key facts

Annual fee:

• $795 (terms apply)

Authorized user fee:

• $195 per authorized user (terms apply)

Welcome bonus:

• Earn 100,000 Ultimate Rewards points after spending $6,000 in eligible purchases in the first 3 months from account opening (terms apply).

Earning rates (terms apply):

• 8 points/dollar on all Chase Travel purchases
• 5 points/dollar on Lyft rides (currently through 30 September 2027)
• 4 points/dollar on flights booked directly with airlines
• 4 points/dollar on hotels booked directly with hotels
• 3 points/dollar on dining worldwide
• 1 point/dollar on all other eligible purchases

Key benefits (terms apply):

• Chase Sapphire Lounge by The Club access (complimentary, with up to two guests)
• Priority Pass Select membership – access to 1,300+ lounges worldwide, with up to two complimentary guests (no access to PP restaurants)
• IHG One Rewards Platinum elite status through 31 December 2027
• Access to select Air Canada Maple Leaf Lounges and Air Canada Cafés
• Points Boost (points worth up to 2 cents/point on select hotels and premium cabin flights through Chase Travel)
• No foreign transaction fees
• Comprehensive travel protections (trip cancellation/interruption, trip delay, primary auto rental, lost luggage, emergency evacuation, and more)

Note: These aren’t all the benefits the card offers, just the ones we consider to be key to its usefulness.

Key credits (terms apply):

• $300 annual travel credit (applies automatically to travel purchases)
• $500 annual credit for prepaid stays with The Edit by Chase Travel (up to $250 per transaction, two-night minimum)
• $250 credit for select Chase Travel hotel bookings in 2026 (IHG, Montage, Pendry, Omni, Virgin Hotels, Minor Hotels, Pan Pacific; two-night minimum)
• $300 annual dining credit (up to $150 per half-year; valid at Sapphire Exclusive Tables restaurants on OpenTable only)
• $300 annual StubHub/viagogo credit (up to $150 per half-year; activation required; valid through 31 December 2027)
• $288 in Apple TV and Apple Music subscriptions annually (valid through 22 June 2027)
• $120 annual DashPass membership (complimentary; activate by 31 December 2027)
• $300 in DoorDash promos annually (up to $25/month; valid through 31 December 2027)
• Up to $120 in annual Lyft credits valid through 30 September 2027 (issued as $10 monthly credits)
• Up to $120 annual Peloton credits on eligible memberships. Valid through 31 December 2027 (issued as $10 monthly credits)
• Global Entry, TSA PreCheck, or NEXUS fee credit (up to $120 every four years)

Why this card can be worth it

The $795 annual fee is the number that understandably gives people pause, but the credits available go a long way towards offsetting it, at least on paper.

The $300 travel credit applies automatically to travel purchases, so for anyone who travels at all, it’s essentially immediate value. That alone brings the effective annual fee down to $495 before you’ve used anything else.

Add in the $500 Edit credit, the $300 dining credit, and the $300 StubHub credit, and you’re looking at well over $1,400 in potential statement credits.

The word “potential” is, however, doing quite a bit of work there, which is why it’s worth looking closely at each benefit in turn to see what’s on offer.

Thoughts on the earning rates

The earning rates offered by the Chase Sapphire Reserve card are competitive for a premium card.

The 4 points/dollar on spending made directly with airlines and hotels/hotel chains is strong, and the 3 points/dollar on dining worldwide is in line with what most other comparable cards offer (although it’s worth keeping in mind that this is no better than what you can earn when using the $95/year Chase Sapphire Preferred® card).

The 8 points/dollar on Chase Travel purchases is eye-catching, but it requires booking through the Chase Travel portal and that means potentially giving up hotel loyalty points, status benefits, and status credits on those bookings.

This is a trade-off that won’t make sense for everyone.

Ultimate rewards points

This is a card that earns Chase Ultimate Rewards points and where these points become most interesting is when it comes to the program’s transfer partners.

Airlines:

• Aer Lingus AerClub
• Air Canada Aeroplan
• Air France/KLM Flying Blue
• British Airways Club
• Iberia Plus
• JetBlue TrueBlue
• Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer
• Southwest Rapid Rewards
• United MileagePlus
• Virgin Atlantic Flying Club

Hotels:

• IHG One Rewards
• Marriott Bonvoy
• World of Hyatt
• Wyndham Rewards

Up until very recently, you could transfer Ultimate Rewards points across to all 14 Ultimate Rewards partners in a ratio of 1:1 as long as you held one of the Sapphire cards or the Ink Business Preferred® Card.

That’s no longer the case.

Since 15 June 2026, the transfer ratio for World of Hyatt has been reduced to 4:3 unless you hold a Chase Sapphire Reserve® card or a Chase Sapphire Reserve® Business card*.

With the World of Hyatt generally considered to be one of the stronger Ultimate Rewards partners (despite the recent Hyatt award chart changes), the ability to continue to be able to transfer points across to Hyatt in a 1:1 ratio now becomes a key benefit for the Sapphire Reserve card.

On the airline side, Air Canada Aeroplan, Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer, Virgin Atlantic Flying Club, and Air France/KLM Flying Blue are often among the stronger currencies to use for premium cabin redemptions, but all of these programs are also transfer partners with American Express Membership Rewards, Citi ThankYou Rewards, and Capital One so they’re not exclusive to Chase.

When it comes to United Airlines, however, Chase is the only one of the four major transferrable currencies that can be turned into MileagePlan miles, and that can be important if you do a lot of domestic US travel.

*The 15 June 2026 date relates to new cardholders. Existing holders of the Sapphire Preferred and Ink Preferred cards can continue to transfer to the World of Hyatt in a ratio of 1:1 until 1 October 2026.

The $300 travel credit

This is the most straightforward benefit on the card and the easiest to value. The credit applies automatically to a broad range of travel purchases – flights, hotels, rental cars, rideshares, parking, tolls, and more – and there’s no activation required.

For anyone who spends even a modest amount on travel in a year, it should always be used in full.

There’s not much not to like here. This is a genuinely useful credit which works automatically, and which is available once per card anniversary year.

The one slight (and very minor) drawback is that a cardholder will not earn any points on the $300 of spending which triggers the credit.

The $500 Edit by Chase Travel credit

The Edit is Chase’s curated collection of luxury and premium hotels, bookable through the Chase Travel portal. The $500 annual credit is available as two separate credits of up to $250 each, and as of 1 January 2026, there’s no longer a biannual timing restriction – you can use both credits in the same week if you want to.

Each booking requires a minimum of two consecutive prepaid nights, and the credit applies per transaction rather than per stay.

For anyone who books higher-end hotels and is happy booking through a third-party portal, this can be a genuinely useful credit to have.

There are a few things, however, that you need to keep in mind.

Firstly, when you book through the Edit, your hotel loyalty benefits may or may not be honored – it varies by property. When searching for The Edit hotels, you’ll see a notation if the property is eligible for loyalty benefits (e.g. “eligible for World of Hyatt”).

If you don’t see a notation like this, assume that any benefits you would normally enjoy when booking directly with a hotel will not be honored.

Secondly, the Edit collection, while growing, doesn’t include every hotel. Far from it. In major cities you’ll usually find a good number of participating properties, but outside the metropolises, the number of participating properties drops dramatically.

Thirdly, the Edit is just another arm of Chase Travel – a travel agency – so you need to be careful that by booking through the Edit you’re not paying noticeably more than had you booked directly or through another agency.

Fourthly, the Edit properties are often high-end hotels and resorts which come with hefty nightly room rates. Combine this with the fact that you have to make a stay of 2 nights or longer to activate the Edit credit and your stay will not be cheap.

The Edit credit should probably be viewed as a tool to make high-end stays slightly less expensive and not as a tool that will get you a cheap or free stay.

The $250 select hotel credit (2026 only)

This is a new benefit for 2026, and Chase has said that it will not continue beyond 31 December 2026. It provides a $250 statement credit on prepaid stays of two or more nights at a specific set of hotel brands booked through Chase Travel:

• IHG Hotels and Resorts
• Montage
• Pendry
• Omni
• Virgin Hotels
• Minor Hotels
• Pan Pacific.

The fact that a 2-night stay is required to trigger this credit is a little inconvenient, but unlike the Edit credit, at least this one gives cardholders the option to enjoy a discount at a wide range of less expensive hotels as well as at some higher-end properties.

For a lot of cardholders (especially fans of IHG) this should be quite an easy credit to earn, so it’s a shame that it’s not going to be around in 2027.

The $300 dining credit

The headline figure sounds generous, but this credit is more restrictive than it first appears – it applies only to restaurants that are part of the Sapphire Reserve Exclusive Tables programme.

This is a is a curated selection of restaurants available through a dedicated section of OpenTable and is currently only available in a handful of US cities.

At the time of writing, the OpenTable site shows availability in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Chicago. That’s it.

The dining credit is split into two windows – January through June and July through December – with a $150 credit available to be used in each window.

Importantly, you don’t need to make a reservation through OpenTable to trigger it the credit, you just need to dine at a participating restaurant and pay with your card.

For anyone who lives near or regularly visits a city with a good selection of participating restaurants, this is a solid benefit. For everyone else, this is probably, mostly, useless.

The $300 StubHub/viagogo credit

This credit requires activation and like the dining credit, it works across two windows – January through June and July through December – with a $150 credit available to be used in each window.

The credit applies to purchases made through StubHub and viagogo (sites dedicated to the reselling of tickets for concerts, sports events, theatres, and other live events) and for frequent live event attendees who already use these platforms, this is a very easy rebate to earn and can be valued at face value.

For anyone who doesn’t usually attend enough events to use $300 worth of credits, it’s worth considerably less.

For anyone who doesn’t buy tickets through StubHub or viagogo at all, it’s worth nothing.

One thing to note: this benefit is confirmed through 31 December 2027, so we can’t say for sure if this will be a long-term benefit that this card will offer.

Apple TV and Apple Music credit

This benefit covers up to $288 in annual subscription costs for Apple TV+ and Apple Music (approximately $24/month combined at current rates), and is valid through 22 June 2027.

For anyone who already subscribes to both, this offsets a real cost and the credit is worth face value.

For anyone who subscribes to neither, it has no value unless you’d consider switching.

It’s also worth noting that this is one of several lifestyle credits with a fixed expiry date, so it shouldn’t be relied upon as a permanent feature of the card.

DoorDash credits

The card includes complimentary DashPass membership (free delivery and reduced service fees on eligible DoorDash orders) plus up to $25 per month in DoorDash promos – structured as a $5 restaurant credit and two $10 credits for grocery or retail purchases.

In theory, that’s $300 per year in additional value on top of the DashPass membership.

In practice, the monthly credits need to be used each month or they’re lost, and the grocery/retail credits require you to be making those purchases through DoorDash specifically.

For someone who uses DoorDash frequently for both food delivery and grocery orders, this is a meaningful benefit. For anyone who doesn’t, it adds nothing.

The Lyft credit

The card provides $10 per month in Lyft in-app credits, valid through 30 September 2027, along with 5x points on Lyft rides for the same period.

These credits can be considered to be worth face value if you use Lyft at least once a month (it’s a straightforward offset against rides you’d be taking anyway).

For anyone who uses a different rideshare service and who isn’t prepared to use Lyft at least once a month, this isn’t a credit which will make much difference.

The Peloton credit

This benefit provides $10 per month in credits towards eligible Peloton membership fees, valid through 31 December 2027, along with 10x points on eligible Peloton equipment and accessories over $150. Activation is required.

For existing Peloton members, and for people wanting to join, the $120 annual offset is genuine value. For everyone else, it’s irrelevant.

The 10x on equipment is a generous earning rate, but it only applies to Peloton’s own products (obviously) and only when the purchase exceeds $150, so this isn’t a benefit that will move the needle for most cardholders.

Chase Sapphire Lounge access

This is one of the stronger parts of the card’s value proposition, particularly for those who travel through US airports.

Chase Sapphire Lounges by The Club are well-regarded, and the card offers access for the cardholder and up to two complimentary guests.

Current open locations are New York LaGuardia, Boston Logan, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Diego, and Las Vegas. Dallas/Fort Worth and Los Angeles are confirmed as coming soon and there are murmerings about a Miami lounge as well.

The lounge network is still relatively small compared to the Amex Centurion Lounge network, and it’s entirely US-centric, but the individual lounges are consistently well-reviewed.

Anyone who travels frequently through these airports will find real value here.

Priority Pass Select membership

The Priority Pass Select membership that comes with the Sapphire Reserve card provides access to 1,300+ lounges worldwide, with up to two complimentary guests per visit.

It’s a broad network that covers a lot of airports that Chase’s own lounges don’t reach, including a lot of international destinations.

One important thing to be aware of, however, is that as of July 2024, Priority Pass restaurant credits are no longer included for Chase Sapphire Reserve cardholders.

This isn’t unique to Chase as most US card issuers have removed this perk, but it’s worth knowing if you’ve read older reviews that mention it.

Air Canada lounge access

Sapphire Reserve cardholders get access to select Air Canada Maple Leaf Lounges and Air Canada Cafés in the US, Canada, and Europe.

This benefit is most useful for those who fly Air Canada or Star Alliance partners frequently through Canadian airports, or through select US and European airports where Air Canada operates lounges.

For cardholders who rarely or never fly with Air Canada or other Star Alliance airlines, it’s of limited relevance.

IHG One Rewards Platinum Elite status

Cardholders can activate complimentary IHG One Rewards Platinum Elite status, valid through 31 December 2027.

Platinum Elite is IHG’s second-highest status tier (below Diamond) and offers a 60% points earning bonus, room upgrades subject to availability, and not much else, so it’s not an elite status that’s particularly highly regarded.

That being said, for anyone who stays at IHG properties, holding Platinum status is definitely better than having no status at all (although it should be noted that you can enjoy IHG Platinum status courtesy of the IHG® Rewards Premier credit card which, at $99/year, is a considerably cheaper card to hold than this one).

Global Entry/TSA PreCheck/NEXUS credit

The Sapphire Reserve card reimburses the application fee (up to $120) for Global Entry, TSA PreCheck, or NEXUS once every four years.

Global Entry includes TSA PreCheck, so most frequent flyers who don’t already hold one of these should opt for Global Entry.

At $120 every four years, this isn’t a major benefit but it’s an easy one to use. The limitation is the four-year cycle and if you already hold Global Entry and it’s not up for renewal, you won’t see any value from this benefit until it is.

Points Boost

Points Boost allows cardholders to redeem Ultimate Rewards points at up to 2 cents/point in value on select hotels and premium cabin flights booked through Chase Travel. The catch is that “up to” and “select” are doing a lot of very heaving lifting in that sentence.

Firstly, while Points Boost technically gives holders of the Reserve card the opportunity to redeem Ultimate Rewards points for between 1.5 cents and 2.0 cents per point (other consumer Ultimate Rewards cards technically offer between 1.25 cents and 1.75 cents per point in value), we’ve been seeing very few options that would allow cardholders to get as much as 2 cents per point out of their balances.

Mostly, cardholders tell us that they’re being offered between 1.2 cents and 1.5 cents per point, and that’s disappointing.

Secondly, not all hotels and airlines qualify, and those that do are hand-picked by Chase and are subject to change.

That means that it’s worth checking whether the specific properties or airlines you want to use are included before relying on this benefit.

When it works, Points Boost can be genuinely good value, but when Chase is being miserly and when your chosen airlines and properties aren’t eligible for Points Boost, this benefit isn’t really a benefit at all.

The travel protections

The Chase Sapphire Reserve® has long been considered one of the better credit cards for travel protections, and that remains the case today.

The card includes the following:

• Trip cancellation and interruption insurance
• Trip delay reimbursement (after 6 hours)
• Primary auto rental collision damage waiver
• Lost and delayed luggage reimbursement
• Emergency evacuation and transportation coverage.

The primary auto rental coverage is particularly notable as most cards offer secondary coverage (which only kicks in after your personal insurance had been involved) and the trip delay cover is among the best around (matching the protection offered by cards like the Platinum Card® from American Express and the Ritz-Carlton™ card).

In short, for anyone who doesn’t hold a separate comprehensive travel insurance policy, the protections here are real and offer genuine value, even if they’re harder to quantify than a statement credit.

We value these highly and if you fly with any great frequency, you probably will too.

$75,000 spending benefits

When a cardholder puts $75,000 of eligible spending (net of returns) on their Chase Sapphire Reserve® card, they unlock a series of new benefits.

Specifically:

• IHG One Rewards Diamond Elite status
• World of Hyatt Explorist status
• Southwest Airlines A-List Elite status
• $500 Southwest Airlines Chase travel credit (must book flights through Chase Travel)
• $250 Chops at Chase credit

$75,000 is a large chunk of change to be putting on a single card, so this set of rewards is considerably more niche than a lot of the others.

That being said, while we don’t really place much value in the World of Hyatt Explorist status, if you’re in a position to spend $75,000 on this card, the IHG top-tier Diamond Elite status could prove to be very useful as could the Southwest A-Lists status (assuming you ever fly with Southwest).

More importantly, if you’re a fan of Southwest, the $500 Southwest flight credit combined with the $300 travel credit that all cardholders automatically receive would effectively negate this card’s annual fee – all the other credits would just be a nice big bonus on top.

Bottom line

The Chase Sapphire Reserve® is a card with a genuinely strong benefits package, but at $795 a year it requires quite a bit engagement to justify the fee. The card has been couponized.

The $300 travel credit and the lounge access are probably the benefits which are the most broadly useful, and beyond those, the case for the card depends heavily on how many of the other credits match your spending habits.

For frequent travellers who use Hyatt and want to maintain the 1:1 transfer ratio, travel through airports with Chase Sapphire Lounges, will happily book properties on the Edit list and who can realistically use several of the lifestyle credits, there value is clearly there.

For those who can’t/won’t use the dining credit, have no interest in StubHub, DoorDash, or Peloton, and who don’t usually book hotels from the higher end of the cost spectrum, the fee is a lot harder to justify.

In summary, we think that this is a card worth having if it fits your life and your travel patterns. It’s not, however, a card worth paying $795 for if you have doubts about how you would use a significant number of the credits.