The rumored 200K in-branch Sapphire Reserve card offer is the latest in a series of events that have solidified my belief that the rollout of the refreshed and couponized Chase Sapphire Reserve Card has not gone as well as Chase had hoped. First, they changed the welcome offer to 125K to make the headline more appealing. Then, they tweaked their The Edit credits to make them slightly more usable. Next, they introduced a new $250 credit for select Chase Travel℠ hotels in 2026. And now they’ll apparently bribe select customers with a massive 200,000-point offer. Their desperation is readily apparent.
Here’s the thing… I don’t believe that tweaking the welcome offer or piling on more coupons is the right answer. Instead, Chase should focus on making the Sapphire Reserve card broadly appealing once again. The old Sapphire Reserve card was easy to recommend to all frequent travelers. It was simple to understand, and it offered solid value. The new product is a good fit only for those who are willing to invest the time and effort to learn how best to utilize the card and its numerous new coupons. In this post, I’ll present some ideas for how Chase could modify the new card to make it easy to recommend once again.
3 guiding principles
I believe that fixing the Sapphire Reserve card’s image requires following three principles:
- Simplify
- Bring back the best of the old card’s features
- Keep the best of the new card’s features
To be clear, I’m writing about the card’s core features, not its many coupons. While I do think it’s crucial for Chase to greatly expand both the hotels available through The Edit and the restaurants available through Sapphire Reserve® Exclusive Tables, I believe they’ll get there eventually. Chase has followed the path that Amex invented: increase annual fees and make up for it with coupons. I’m not a fan, but that ship has sailed. Instead of changing that model, I think Chase needs to strengthen the card’s core value to make it broadly attractive once again.
Best old features
The old card had three excellent features that made it easy to recommend to frequent travelers:
- Earn 3x for all travel and dining
- Redeem points through Chase Travel℠ for 1.5 cents per point value
- Best in class travel protections
While the card’s travel protections remain intact, the other features have been replaced with complicated alternatives:
- Earn 3x for dining, 4x for hotels and flights, and 1x for all other travel
- Redeem points through Chase Travel℠ for only 1 cent per point value, except when Points Boosts are available. Then, you can get 1.5, 1.75, or 2 cents per point value.
Best new features
- Earn 8x for all travel booked through Chase Travel℠
- Earn 4x for flights and hotels booked directly through travel providers
- Redeem points for more than 1.5 cents per point when Points Boosts are available
Recommendation
- Recommended earning rates:
- 8x for all travel booked through Chase Travel℠
- 4x for flights and hotels booked directly through travel providers
- 3x for dining and all other travel
- Recommended point redemption rates:
- Redeem points through Chase Travel℠ for 1.5 cents per point value
- Offer “Premium Power Boosts” where select premium hotels and premium cabin flights can be booked with points for 1.75 or 2.0 cents per point value.
The earning and redemption rates outlined above are not as simple as those of the original version of the card, but I think it’s too late to remove the 4x earning rates or Power Boosts. A significant simplification would be for Chase to offer 4x points for all travel, but I assume that’s too expensive; otherwise, Chase would have provided that with the initial card refresh.
How to pay for this fix?
My recommendations, listed above, suggest bringing back two features from the old card:
- 3x for all travel
- Points worth 1.5 cents each through Chase Travel℠
I assume that Chase removed those features because they were too expensive. Maybe so, but these were the key features that we loved about the old card, so it’s better to find a way to pay for them than to take them away and hope we don’t mind!
I know this will be unpopular, but one way Chase can save money is to convert its $300 travel rebate into a $300 Chase Travel℠ discount. As things stand now, it’s safe to assume that there is minimal breakage on the $300 credit, as it occurs automatically whenever the card is used for travel. By changing it to a portal credit and converting it to a discount rather than a rebate, there will be far more breakage. Plus, it will encourage people to pay for travel through Chase more often. That will lead to additional revenue for Chase.
Why would a discount lead to more breakage than a rebate? It’s the same reason why, as a consumer, I prefer travel rebates over discounts. In the post “Best credit card travel portal credits,” I wrote the following:
A problem with a once-per-year discount is that plans can change. Imagine wanting to book two separate, refundable hotel stays, but you’re unsure whether you’ll keep both bookings. With a discount, you need to select just one booking where you’ll apply your discount, and then you’ll have to pay the full price for the second booking. If you end up cancelling the stay where you used your discount, it might then be too late to rebook the other stay or to use the discount elsewhere before it expires. With a rebate, though, you can book both stays, get the rebate, and then feel free to cancel either one. As long as you don’t cancel both stays, your rebate shouldn’t be clawed back. This is just one example of many where a rebate can be better than a discount.
A discount is better for the card issuer for the same reasons that it’s worse for consumers. Still, if this would help Chase bring back the card’s old 3x travel and 1.5 cents per point redemptions, I’m in favor.
Current vs. previous Sapphire Reserve
For reference, the table below shows a side-by-side comparison of the old car details, the current card details, and my proposed “fixed” card details.
| Pre 6/23/25 | Current | Proposed | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Annual Fee | $550 | $795 | $795 |
| Point Earning Rates: | |||
| Flights & Hotels | 3x | 4x | 4x |
| Other Travel | 3x | 1x | 3x |
| Dining | 3x | 3x | 3x |
| Chase Travel Hotels & Cars | 10x | 8x | 8x |
| Chase Travel Flights | 5x | 8x | 8x |
| Chase Travel Other | 3x | 8x | 8x |
| Major Perks: | |||
| Chase Travel Point Value | 1.5 Cents Per Point | 1 to 2 Cents Per Point | 1.5 to 2 Cents Per Point |
| Point transfer to Airlines & Hotels | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Excellent Travel Protections | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Priority Pass w/ 2 Guests | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Major Coupons | |||
| $300 Travel Credit per Membership Year | Rebate on all travel | Rebate on all travel | Chase Travel discount |
| The Edit (Hotels) | N/A | $250 twice per year | $250 twice per year |
| Select Chase Travel hotels | N/A | $250 in 2026 | $250 in 2026 |
| Sapphire Reserve Exclusive Tables | N/A | $150 per 6 Months | $150 per 6 Months |
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I don’t have much problems with benefit side. My friends are justifying the $795 spend with the future value in benefits and that’s good for them. I have problems with earning points and spending them. Earning 1:1 unless you go through Chase website for almost everything is ridiculous. I can get more from most free cards.Same goes for spending…with 1.5X gone we got nothing.
I’ve been a CSR customer since its founding (100k points welcome deal). I am approaching 1 mn UR points, saving for the Big Vacation. About 90% of my card usage is overseas so Freedom Unlimited, more points domestically, doesn’t work. Virtually none of CSR’s new “benefits” benefit me: the last was their yacht on the Seine for the Paris Olympics. I could use my Amex Hilton Aspire but that has limited advantage. And now the VISA settlement threatens CSR acceptance maybe even at Costco? Inquiring minds want to know: what to do.
What is the issue with VISA? The Infinite charges up?
Good article
The refresh of the CSR in my mind was a disaster especially when compared to the AMEX Platinum refresh. The only reason that I am keeping the CSR is the fact that I fly out of PHL often and the Chase lounge at PHL is one of the best in the world where the AMEX Centurion lounge at PHL is probably one of the worst Centurion lounges anywhere.
Other than that there is nothing in the CSR refresh for me.
Many of the new “upgrades” are useless to me as I live in rural Montana.
I loved the:
* 1.5 flight $$$$ concept,
* the 10 point travel credit,
* the annual $300. automatic travel. refund,
* PRIORITY PASS lounge access
* travel insurance, and,
* ‘pay-yourself-back’.
Many of the tauted benefits are too complex and urban oriented.
They raised the price, made it more complicated, all out of greed to drive more people to their OTA. I think they will regret this in the long run. It could be 15x through their portal, and I’d still have issues.
The Sapphire OpenTable junk is much less useful and even rare where many of their cardholders live or even travel. Resy aint awesome for Amex, but better than this.
I also disagree with some of your suggestions, but most notably the $300 annual travel credit. It is the only simple feature left. I’d almost prefer they drop it and lower the annual fee by $300, though.
Some of the features, like Priority Pass and TSA credits, are way too common; I can’t use all of them across my card portfolio.
The Edit benefit also isn’t awesome and is even worse than the AMEX flavor of hotel credits.
Some of the other features that many have grown to love about the CSR over the years aren’t as good as they think. For example, the primary rental car coverage does include coverage for loss of use (a cash cow for rental car companies). However, it doesn’t include diminished value of the vehicle (a different flavor of cash cow for rental car companies after an accident). It also doesn’t cover convertibles.
The loss of 1.5 is one of my biggest reasons I no longer need this card, in addition to the increased fee, of course. Just look at the comments, and I think you can tell that Chase will regret this at some level.
I’d rather keep my CSR because I like it better than my Amex Platinum, but I don’t think I can in 2026.
The real thing they need to do is legit make it more closely aligned with the Amex Plat. Save money on Chases end by making this a lifestyle card. 3x on travel and transit, drop the 3x on dining like the CSR Biz card.
This will ensure all true CSRusers get what they want, as well as entice those same users to get the CSP for the 3x on dining or one of the freedom cards.
The freedom cards help if someone is mostly domestic with 3x on dining and the CSP helps with international travel NTF.
People obviously value the 3x more than anything else, give them what they want, allow them to build out the rest of their hopefully Chase setup to maximize if that’s what they want. Otherwise Amex has truly shown Chase the blueprint with their Plat card being and ABYSMAL earner on everything else but flights.
Just my two cents.
No way is 3x on travel coming back. Chase is already the 3rd largest travel portal in the game. And you’re now going to pay 3x to Expedia, your competitor? Not going to happen. View from the wing, had a very realistic take on CSR a few days ago. They were pretty clearly losing money on 50k Airbnb and cruises which they aren’t getting a cut of. People were not doing enough 1x spend. The goal of this refresh was to lose the low profit customer. I think they could goose some benefits for private client or JPMPC clients to deepen their relationship however. Big miss IMO to not leverage this.
Chase sells cruises in their portal…They also have home rentals.
Pretty clear not many of their existing users were utilizing that.
I don’t, but I qualify for special industry rates, that Chase would never have anything close in price. I still think that Chase is missing out not bonusing cruises. HNWI spend a lot on cruises, and the portal isn’t offering what HNWI want. One short Silver Seas booking could be $30k. Booking thru Amex Cruise Privileges gives 3X, plus other benefits. Thru Chase portal, 8X, but you have to deal with the portal. When one is spending $30K for a vacation, going thru a portal isn’t the kind of service that a HNWI wants.
I disagree with the portal. The portal is more expensive than even the hotel’s own websites and even other portals, which have Rakuten or Retail Me Not to lower the price. Chase previously had price match. If Chase believes it is offering the best price, then it needs to stand by its prices and price match. Otherwise, the portal is pointless and the 8x points isn’t a real benefit.
Further, the coupons are irritating. In Washington, DC there are ten restaurants that are on the OpenTable portal.
The Edit is a joke, and should have a more inclusive list including more countries.
Losing the 3x broad travel category is significant. I can imagine the cruisers are leaving.
Instacart and DoorDash are nightmares with horrible customer service. They should each have dedicated Chase reps to sort out problem deliveries and with people who know the benefits. Off-shore reps do not work.
Finally, Chase particularly Jamie Dimon should talk to people in this lounges. He has the perfect focus group arena. He should ask people what they want and not what their consultants think they want. The lounges have become places where people complain amongst each other. Not good.
I think Capital One is going to come out ahead. Their advertising was already clear, we make it easy. Now, that has become a more powerful message.
I just want a card with good multipliers and lounge access. The rest of it is over-priced noise.
Hotels in Chase Travel are more expensive than booking anywhere else. Why?
That is my question.
I have done a few comparisons, Chase’s properties (even non-Edit hotels) are more expensive. Not even close in many instances. Frequent Miler had a comparison posting: https://frequentmiler.com/luxury-booking-showdown-fine-hotels-resorts-vs-the-edit-vs-the-reserve-vs-premier-collection. FM gave the Edit an advantage on price that I have not been able to reproduce in big cities like London and NYC.
Why are Chase’s offerings more expensive? Because the general consensus is that Chase made these changes to lower their cost of offering the CSR. But, I say it is greed!
We’ve seen the Chase ecosystem become a less friendly ecosystem over the past few years. And, for many, it’s changed from “looking for reasons to stay” to “looking for reasons to leave.” In a way, I have to thank Chase as the CSR refresh made my decision far easier.
Greg, I completely agree. As a traveler in rural America the original CSR was a card that ‘fit’ me. The new ‘Chase urban card’ forgets that many of Chase customers live more than 100+ miles from a major city offering a Chase Exclusive Tables restaurant. I currently have a full portfolio of Chase cards and am finding that my point earning cards are now, not my CSR but. the other cards. I do not mind using the portal but most of my points earning was on cruises so they are requiring me to change travel agents to earn points. I just renewed at the $795 and will try it for 1 year but fully expect that I will begin exiting the Chase card family in the next 12 months.
I have been looking at other cards and – don’t laugh – but if Costco would add a card with travel insurance/protections that would likely be my cardvana.
With the new credits i am going to be able to cover the higher AF. However, I now put minimal spend on it. Because 1x for travel, it’s not a daily carry for me anymore. I find the Bilt card decent. 2x on car renta, with protection,l and 3x on dining. For transit I use the Citi Strata card for 3x. CSR is only for flights and Lyft now.
The loss of the 1.5 cents value per point is a major loss for me, and why I might only keep the CSR card for a year while I see how it works for me. I don’t want to, but might finally jump to another eco system, Amex or citi etc.
I’ve had the Reserve since its introduction and its features were fine. I plan to downgrade to Preferred on my next anniversary. The “additions” are meaningless for me.
You make an excellent point, and I’m surprised Chase didn’t change the travel credit to a travel deduction. That how Capital One Venture X does it. We take a lot of cruises so now earning 1x on those makes no sense. Removing 3x on all travel was a huge negative change and hopefully they bring that back. Nobody should ever get 1x on anything because CapOne has 2x on everything so non-bonused spending always goes on that card. Chase has done a good job with premium experiences such as lounges and Art Basel Miami separate entrance and lounge to justify it for me.
I really wonder what will happen if the card keeps flopping, will they just try to keep adding more coupons, or would they just lower the price? Clearly the demand is not there at the current level and I think the price has a lot to do with it.