Gary at View from the Wing took exception to my proposal for fixing the Chase Sapphire Reserve® Card. He argued that the card, as is, meets Chase’s goals of saving money and increasing revenue (by driving cardholders to book travel and buy merchandise through Chase). He also noted that the card works very well for some, including himself. My issue with the Sapphire Reserve card isn’t whether it works for me (more on that later), but rather whether I can still recommend it to the average frequent traveler. I cannot.
The new Sapphire Reserve card is great… for some. In fact, it seems to have been custom-built for Gary. Gary lives in Austin and travels often to DC. One of the new Sapphire Reserve coupons is $150 back on Sapphire Reserve® Exclusive Tables every six months. Gary is a foodie, and he’s blessed with twelve qualifying restaurants in Austin and ten in DC. This is free money for Gary. Where I live, Ann Arbor, there are no qualifying restaurants. In fact, there are only four in Michigan, and none in nearby Ohio or Indiana. Gary is also a big spender who highly values getting $500 in Southwest Airlines credit after spending $75,000 on the card. I doubt there are many people like that.
To be fair, Gary admits that the changes are controversial because the new card doesn’t work for everyone. I think that it has become a poor fit for most people. I used to recommend the card to everyone I knew outside of the points and miles hobby who had a decent income and who traveled often. Now, my go-to recommendations for that same crowd are for cards from Amex and Capital One:
- Capital One Venture X and Venture X Business: These twin cards are easy to recommend to almost anyone. The card pays back its $395 annual fee as long as you travel enough to use the card’s $300 travel credits and 10,000-point yearly bonus. And, the card offers solid and simple value: earn 2x everywhere. On top of that, you get enhanced earnings through Capital One’s travel portal, access to Capital One’s highly rated airport lounges, and Priority Pass.
- American Express Platinum Card®: The Platinum cards are great, not for spend, but for their perks. Compared to competitors, Platinum cards offer the best collection of airport lounge access, by far. Additionally, even though Platinum cards have an outrageously high annual fee ($895), most of their coupons/rebates are way easier to use than Chase’s. The number of restaurants and hotels that qualify for Platinum card credits puts Chase’s corresponding credits to shame.
The reason I’ve stopped recommending the Sapphire Reserve card is that I can no longer assume that most people will get good value from it. Most people I know who are not heavily into this hobby are unlikely to plan trips around Sapphire Reserve coupons (see my hypothetical Chicago trip here). They won’t think to reach for one card for airfare and hotel purchases, and a separate card for other travel. And they certainly won’t wait for the right opportunity to use Points Boosts.
Then there’s me…
On paper, the card is an excellent fit for me. I spend a decent amount on hotels and airfare, so I value the ability to earn 4x. And, I especially value the card’s best-in-class travel protections that kick in automatically when I make these purchases. Like Gary, I don’t redeem Chase points for 1.5 cents per point through Chase Travel℠, but I’m excited about the ability to do so at 2 cents per point when Points Boosts are available. I will go out of my way to use the card’s many coupons so that I’ll probably earn more back each year than I pay for the annual fee.
For all of the above reasons, the Sapphire Reserve is a keeper for me… but I don’t like it! I dislike having to make a decision every time I book “other” travel to determine whether to use the Sapphire Reserve card for its travel protections or another card to earn better rewards. I dislike the fact that even when booking flights and hotels, I have to consider where I’m booking them. I recently booked a hotel via Hotels.com and, of course, I didn’t earn 4x because it coded as an online travel agency, not a hotel. And, I really dislike how much effort I have to put into finding opportunities to use the card’s coupons so that I can justify keeping it.
Gary argued that the Sapphire Reserve card doesn’t need fixing because Chase achieved what they set out to do. The new structure saves them money and increases their revenue. So, it made the accountants happy. Cool. However, I believe Chase’s primary goal should be to make their customers happy, especially with their flagship card! I want to like my Sapphire Reserve card again, and I want to be able to recommend it to others.
My specific proposals for fixing the Sapphire Reserve card (specifically, bringing back 3x for all travel and 1.5x for point redemptions) may indeed be too expensive. That’s fine. There are many other ways to resolve these issues. The first step, though, is to admit that there is a problem.
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Haha. This is why I don’t read View from the Wing. It’s elitist nonsense. It’s written by wealthy person for a wealthy person. You are 100% correct here.
Also, maybe it increased their revenue over all (we don’t know that whatever Gary claims), but it also certainly decreased the number of card holders they’ll have by this time next year. Call me crazy, but I doubt very much that was Chase’s goal. So yes, it very much needs to be fixed.
If Chase is under the illusion that a bump in card members right after a launch is going to be permanent after changes of this nature, and people with their annual fee posting at all different times of year… they are not very good at their job lol.
My renewal was coming up on Nov. 25th. I just called and downgraded to the Sapphire Preferred mainly to keep my credit history and huge credit limit I had on the Reserve. The Amex Platinum refresh is so much better for me and as a Delta flyer getting access to their lounges is an added bonus! Was sad with the CSR refresh as it was my first premium card and I loved it. Would have probably kept it if they kept the perks where they were and the annual fee where it was!
Imagine being the Chase employee who imagined this dreadful refresh. That poor devil is probably seeking gainful employment as we speak.
You have nailed the core issue here: Chase is having an identity crisis. They are trying to thread the needle between Platinum and Centurion but ended up in no man’s land. The Reserve refresh feels like a committee decision where nobody wanted to commit real resources, so we got half-measures across the board.
Your point about the generational shift is particularly sharp. The original Reserve launch in 2016 captured millennials perfectly with its timing and value proposition. This refresh alienates that same crowd who are now in their prime earning years, which is baffling from a business standpoint.
The “fix it later” approach you are outlining (broader Edit hotels, expanded Sapphire Tables reach) would help, but that just highlights how undercooked this launch was. Why not get those partnerships locked down before the refresh? The Apple credit being tacked on feels especially rushed, almost like they realized the math was not working and needed something, anything, to pad the benefits.
What concerns me most is that Chase may have permanently damaged the Reserve’s brand positioning. Even if they course correct over the next year, the perception of “they do not get it anymore” might stick. Greg’s hesitation to recommend it speaks volumes, because this used to be the default premium card suggestion.
The Preferred refresh will be telling. If Chase doubles down on this older, higher-spending demographic strategy, fine, but then the Preferred needs a complete rethink for the mass affluent market. Half measures will not cut it there either.
I have both the Altitude Reserve and Sapphire Reserve cards. Since both are Visa infinity cards the insurance should be similar. Switching “other travel” spend to the Altitude Reserve should still yield 3%.
It does not, in the sense that US Bank cards have a narrower definition of “other travel” than the CSR used to, compared to the BoA PR/PRE, Amex Green and WF Autograph.
The insurance coverage isn’t as similar as you’d expect. You can find a comparison here: https://frequentmiler.com/ultra-premium-credit-card-travel-insurance/
Prior to this Year of Encouponifcation, I used AMEX platinum for perks, Citi Strata Premier and Venture X for points, and USBAR for 4.5% cashback on everything to refund travel. This year I got the CSR before price bump and Citi Strata Elite to try them all out. Next year when renewals come due I’ll have AMEX platinum, Citi Premier and Double Cash, and probably a lot more cash in my pocket from not paying annual fees.
I’m very happy with the new Amex Plat. I’m very unhappy with my new CSR. Guess which one I will be dumping at renewal? Saying that the fixes I want are: get rid of the 2-night minimum stay for The Edit credit, expand The Edit portfolio to more hotels in $300-$400 range and bring more value to The Edit (I get a lot of value from Amex FHR, why can’t Chase do the same), expand the dining credit to the much larger Visa Dining restaurants. If these things happen, I’ll get value from the CSR and will keep it.
Yes this would be a good idea. I like the idea of rolling back some of the changes — if we got 3x spending category, and 1.5c redemptions back, I’d be keeping the card.
But as of right now, even this huge coupon book is incredibly difficult for me to use. I’m not even going to be able to use all the stuff before my AF renews next year, because it’s so hard to find hotels that aren’t so expensive I might as well stay elsewhere and not use the credit, and there aren’t nearby restaurants in their program.
Though for me, changing these latter things wouldn’t make me keep the card, because it’s not worth the time and energy to use the coupons, if I don’t have the original benefits on earning and spending that I kept the card for in the first place.
I will be canceling my CSR in January mainly because of no longer 3x on all travel. It was my main travel card for that reason. Almost none of the coupon added features are useful for me and fall far short for me to justify the card with the increase annual fee.
Chase redesigned the card to encourage me to no longer carry it in my wallet. I will use it (until next Oct) to book airfare and hotels, but that is about it.
Chase used to have a card that a lot of “upper class people” used every day which created a positive association with its brand. Chase no longer has that card.
Chase may have been “losing money” with the CSR (losing so much money that they, uh, doubled their market cap over the last three years), but branch banking is not especially vibrant anymore, and the way that most people interact with Chase on a day to day basis is through seeing a Chase credit card on Apple Pay, with occasional use of the app.
If Chase wants to change that, that’s fine! It’s their bank, their brand. But they should be clear about what their goals are and have an even clearer understanding about what they just did to their brand in the premium marketplace.
In the meantime, Greg is 100% correct – one cannot recommend the CSR anymore for most people. And if you are going to have one “premium lounge travel non-everyday spend” card and are choosing between the Amex Platinum and the CSR, it’s not even close – Amex wins hands down.
I think the biggest difference between your opinions of the card is that Greg wants them to target mass market and Gary thinks they are targeting a narrower upscale market. While Greg would like to be able to recommend a card for most people, if not everybody, I don’t think that that is what Chase is going for with this card. I think they always planned for it to be for a relatively upmarket set, with the preferred being their mass market card. They made it too generous and not sufficiently targeted when they introduced it and it ended up being adopted by too many people and cannibalizing the preferred market. I agree with Gary that they have now better positioned the card for what they meant it to do. Yes, it is not going to appeal to all of the people who already had it and I am sure that they expected considerably run off of cardholders who were not profitable. If you are losing money on each account, you aren’t going to make it up in volume!.
Chase wasn’t prepared for the huge group of Americans who do make more than $250k and want an easy to use and earn credit card product. I do not agree with Gary Leff. Chase is shooting themselves because these very same people who will need an investment bank in the next decade or so. On the other hand, Chase is very corporate and is all about the bean counters. I had a very bad experience with their Private Client group. They think their customers are stupid and not smart enough to know when they are being conned! I think this time they will learn the hard way!
Exactly, Gary is looking at it from a business perspective and Greg D-K is looking at it from a credit card salesman perspective. That’s why the two opinions vary so much.
I have too many coupons and vouchers from credit cards. It’s definitely possible for me to recoup the cost of the AF but it’s turning into a part-time job. CSR is probably the card I will cut first (after being a no brainer for the past 10 years). Plus The Edit really bugs me.
I think Chase’s biggest mistake was that it so clearly designed the refreshed CSR to copy the Amex Platinum instead of focusing on the CSR’s unique value proposition. They took away important elements that set the card apart and replaced them with obvious imitations of Amex Platinum benefits that, at least for now, fall short (fewer restaurants, fewer hotels). I think they would have been more successful if they had kept the focus on being a travel card rather than trying to become a lifestyle card, which is, essentially, what Greg was suggesting. I don’t know what the specifics of that look like, if the existing benefits weren’t cost effective for Chase, but trying to copy a competitor doesn’t seem to have had the effect they were hoping for.
Does the card fulfill Chase’s objectives? People can opine all they want. The card needs to be structured so as to be profitable AND there needs to be enough takers. While the structure might be profitable, Chase’s ACTIONS suggest that the card doesn’t have enough takers. In that context, the card would seem to not fulfill Chase’s objectives. While it seems Chase was less than fully in touch with its target cardholders when it structured the card and needs to do something, I’m not going to presume to tell Chase what it needs to do. For me, it doesn’t work and I’ve moved on.
I don’t think it is meeting Chase’s objectives or they wouldn’t be upping the SUB or changing the coupons for 2026. I’m not sure what Chase’s objectives were but bad press definitely needs wasn’t one of them. Chase definitely fumbled this roll out.
I mostly agree with Greg with one exception, the Cap1 Venture C Business is a terrible card, requiring a ridiculous amount (for most people not running a business with high expenses) of spend. If you can generate that much spend you are much better off doing it across multiple 100/200K offers.
I used to respect Gary as one of the earliest and most insightful bloggers but with 5 posts in what seems like 5 weeks (I have not formally counted) pimping the Citi Strata Elite card (the value of which he convinced me of with the first post) he’s beginning to look more and more like The Points Pimp (TM), without the army of staffers and corporate backing.
Yeah, his card pimping is ridiculous, but honestly ever single one of these bloggers have so much pimping going on these days that it’s ridiculous. I can’t believe people don’t just go the referral route for every card and get way more, instead of clicking thru the pimps links.