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Last week, I wrote a post covering why I think that as excellent as it is, the new Capital One Venture X credit card isn’t a card that can simply take the place of the Chase Sapphire Reserve® Card. Nevertheless, I’m less than enamored with how Chase appears to be neglecting its most premium card so I’ve been spending the past few days working on finding alternatives. The slightly surprising conclusion that I’ve come to is that for a lot of people, replacing the Chase Sapphire Reserve may not be straightforward or economical.
Replacing the CSR’s earnings
A lot of people hold the card_name for two key reasons:
- It offers strong earnings on all travel spending and on worldwide dining
- The points that the Chase Sapphire Reserve earns can be transferred across to the World of Hyatt and United MileagePlus
To replace the CSR, any card or cards that take its place have to be able to fulfill both of those functions. No single card can do the job as well as the Chase Sapphire Reserve but two cards acting together can – the card_name (review) and the card_name (review).
This is what it looks like when you compare the earning rates offered by the CSR to the earning rates offered by a combination of the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card (CSP) and the Chase Ink Business Preferred Card (CIP):
Note: The green highlights show the best earning rates in each spending category
As you should be able to see, the combination of the Chase Sapphire Preferred and the Chase Ink Business Preferred can match or beat the earning rates offered by the Chase Sapphire Reserve in all but one category.
Better yet, when you take a look at what the cost of holding these cards is, the 2-card combination comes out on top.
As the travel credits offered by the Chase Sapphire Reserve® Card and Chase Sapphire Preferred® Credit Card are so easy to use, I’ve assumed that they’re worth face value and therefore reduced the annual fees accordingly.
That leaves us in a position where the CSR costs $250 to hold (net) and the combination of the CSP and the CIP costs $140 to hold (net).
That’s a nice saving of $110 and because the CSR charges $75 for an authorized user while there’s no charge to add authorized users to either the CSP or the CIP, anyone who wants their friends and family to help them earn more Ultimate Rewards Points will save even more.
If all you care about is the Chase Sapphire Reserve’s earning rates, it’s a card that’s easy to replace.
Unfortunately, while the CSR’s earning rates are attractive, they’re far from the only reason a lot of people have the card in their wallets.
Replacing the CSR’s benefits
A major reason why Chase charges as much as it does for the card_name is that it comes with a variety of useful and valuable benefits.
Here’s how some of the key benefits offered by the CSR compare to the key benefits offered by the 2-card combo of the card_name and the card_name:
And here is how some of the key insurances/protections offered by the CSR compare to the insurances/protections offered by the 2-card combo:
What I take away from all of this is that although the CSP/CIP combination costs $110 per year less than the Chase Sapphire Reserve (net), that $110 buys the following:
- A 20% better redemption rate when Ultimate Rewards Points are used through the Ultimate Rewards portal.
- A Global Entry/TSA PreCheck credit worth up to $100 every 4 years
- Priority Pass Membership (which includes access to PP restaurants)
- Better Trip Delay reimbursement
- Emergency evacuation and transportation cover
- Return protection
That’s quite a lot of good stuff.
For high spenders, the annual points bonus that the card_name offers may move the needle a little way back towards the 2-card combo and the cell phone protection offered by the card_name may move the needle a bit more, but the 2-card combination cannot replace some very key (and very valuable) benefits that the card_name offers.
If you want to continue enjoying Priority Pass membership, a better level of Trip Delay cover, Return protection, a Global Entry Credit, and emergency evacuation and transportation cover, you’re going to need at least one more card… and that may add to your costs.
Ritz-Carlton Card to the rescue?
If you hold the Chase Ritz-Carlton credit card (no longer open to new applicants) and you find that the card pays for itself, you’re doing ok but not great.
The Ritz-Carlton card offers the best Priority Pass membership and all the same protections as the card_name, but if you want to actually use the key travel protections you have to make sure that at least part of your flight spending is charged to the Ritz-Carlton card.
Not only does that mean that you’ll no longer earn 3 Ultimate Rewards Points/dollar for the portion of your flight that you charge to the Ritz-Carlton card, but it also means that you’ll have to go to extra effort to split the cost between the RC Card and, presumably, the Chase Ink Business Preferred Card. That’s far from ideal and far from an easy thing to do.
Will the Platinum Card® from American Express save the day?
If you hold the Platinum Card® from American Express things are a little more straightforward.
card_name offers 5 points/dollar on up to $500,000 of spending made directly with airlines or on airfare booked through Amex Travel (terms apply) as well as a lot of the same travel protections that the Chase Sapphire Reserve offers (it offers better emergency evacuation and transportation cover and slightly worse Trip Delay cover), so as long as you don’t mind giving up 3 Ultimate Rewards Points/dollar when booking flights, things are looking good.
The one negative is that the Priority Pass membership that the Platinum Card gives cardholders doesn’t offer access to Priority Pass restaurants, but if you can live with that and you have no trouble justifying the Platinum Card’s annual_fees annual fee (rates & fees), you may have yourself a three-card combination that just about covers what the Chase Sapphire Reserve offers… but you have still compromised.
Will the Capital One Venture X credit card save the day?
Possibly.
The card_name is a very good card as not only does it have an annual fee that should be easy to recoup (annual_fees), but it also offers a good Priority Pass membership (which includes PP restaurants), access to Plaza Premium Lounges, a Global Entry/TSA PreCheck credit, and a lot of the same key travel protections that you get with the card_name.
As long as you’re happy booking all your airfare through Capital One (the Venture X Card earns 5 miles/dollar for airfare bookings made through the Capital One portal) this could be the card that, alongside the Chase Sapphire Preferred and the Chase Ink Business Preferred, allows a holder of the Chase Sapphire Reserve Card to give that card up.
If you’re not happy booking all your airfare through a portal (for whatever reason), the Venture X Card will fall down in a similar way to the Ritz-Carlton Card because if want to make the most of all the great travel protections when you fly, you’re either going to have to…
- Accept 2 miles/dollar for your airfare spending instead of 3 Ultimate Rewards Points/dollar or
- You’re going to have to find a way to split your airfare between the Venture X Card and the Chase Ink Business Preferred Card.
As most people who hold the card_name will almost certainly prefer 3 UR points/dollar to 2 miles/dollar, I suspect that only those who are prepared to book airfare through the Capital One Portal will find that the Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card is the final card (in a set of 3) that they need to give up the card_name.
The key assumption
To replace the card_name, you’ll need at least one other card on top of the card_name and the card_name to make sure that you cover most of what the CSR offers.
The assumption that allows this to be a reasonable way of replacing the CSR is that the net cost of all of those cards doesn’t exceed $250.
With the card_name that shouldn’t be too much of an issue and I find that the Ritz-Carlton Card can earn its annual fee back reasonably easily too, but with card_name, that’s not a forgone conclusion.
Yes, I know a lot of people claim to be able to get all of the Platinum Card’s annual fee back through the various benefits that the card offers, but the fact is that those people are in a minority.
For considerably more people, holding the Platinum Card will come at a cost and that cost could easily make the Platinum Card an uneconomical option as part of a CSR replacement plan.
Bottom line
To replace the card_name you’ll have to be happy to give up the ability to redeem Chase Points at 1.5 cents each through the Ultimate Rewards portal, you’ll probably have to compromise a bit on the travel protections that you end up with, you’ll have to make sure that you don’t inadvertently end up paying more to replace the CSR than you would have paid to retain it, and you will need to hold at least three other cards to do get the job done.
It’s definitely possible to replace the Chase Sapphire Reserve Card, but because no one other card can fully match what the CSR offers, deciding what to replace it with isn’t straightforward.
Note: I’m aware that other card combinations exist that may/could replace some/most of the CSR’s benefits, but I think the main contenders are mentioned above.
For rates and fees of the Platinum Card® from American Express, please visit this page
To be fair, you can’t exactly replace all of the Venture X features with a CSR either. In fact, you can’t even add another Chase card to match it’s unbonused spend returns. It’s authorized user benefits are better as well.
That is 100% corect and as I’ve said a few times, I think that the X is an excellent card.
What I’m trying to do here, however, is to show that even though the CSR has fallen in favor (and it has fallen a looooong way), it’s still as card that’s hard to replace for those of us who have held it for the UR points and the travel protections/benefits.
Ultimately, it’s easy to say that a card has to be cut. But replacing it isn’t necessarily straightforward.
I’m happy with the CSP on a few fronts. The primary CDW is awfully nice, the worldwide restaurants at 3X is quite good, and the (now lessened) trip delay insurance is amazing because it works on award tickets where you’re only paying a small amount for taxes and fees. I don’t normally pay cash for my tickets so that last one is a big deal for me. Different strokes, I suppose.
Any idea if Amex offers 4X on dining worldwide? The website just says dining, which leaves a lot of wiggle room.
Yes, the Amex consumer Gold Card pays 4x on dining outside of the US. For reasons best known to Amex, affiliates were told to remove “worldwide” wording from any reference to the dining earnings a few months ago but the benefit still works around the world (although there can still be issues with how some transactions code).
If you have large shipping expenses associated with your business and you can run them through a credit card (like Ship Station) it seems like a no brainier to go with the Chase Ink Business Preferred with 3x points credit per dollar spent. Please correct me or point out other issues…
I’m a HUGE fan of the Ink Preferred (I finally got approved recently) and if you have shipping expenses, it’s a very good card to use. One word of warning, however, before you start charging $$$ of shipping costs to your card from anyone other than the major shippers, make sure Chase is coding the charges correctly. I’ve never had an issue but that doesn’t mean that issues can’t arise.
Amex Plat is vastly inferior because it does not provide travel insurance on one-way tickets (which are virtually all of mine) and zero PP restaurants which I use frequently and which are far superior to the lounges in locations and offerings. The nickel and dime credits are also a PITA to use vs CSR $300 credit which is usually and easily used up by the end of January. The only reason to carry an Amex Plat is for the free Amex lounge access and even that is going bye bye for guests as of 2023.