The time has finally arrived for Chase to field an entry in the ultra-premium business credit card market. Today, Chase has announced the all-new Chase Sapphire Reserve for Business. While similar in some ways to the consumer version of the Chase Sapphire Reserve card, there are some distinct differences where this card may actually fall short of its consumer counterpart.
Chase Sapphire Reserve for Business quick comparison to Chase Sapphire Reserve (consumer version)
This chart provides a good quick-reference side-by-side comparison between the consumer version (you can read even more about that card here) and the business version of the card Sapphire Reserve card.
| Consumer | Business | |
|---|---|---|
| Annual Fee | $795 | $795 |
| Additional Card Fee | $195 | $0 |
| Point Earning Rates: | ||
| Chase Travel | 8x | 8x |
| Flights & Hotels | 4x | 4x |
| Dining | 3x | 1x |
| Online Advertising | 1x | 3x |
| Lyft through 9/30/27 | 5x | 5x |
| Perks: | ||
| Points Boost (Up to 2x) | Yes | Yes |
| Point transfer to Airlines & Hotels | Yes | Yes |
| Excellent Travel Protections | Yes | Yes |
| Priority Pass w/ 2 Guests | Yes | Yes |
| Sapphire Lounge Access w/ 2 Guests | Yes | Yes |
| Authorized User Lounge Access | Yes | No |
| IHG Platinum Status thru 12/31/27 | Yes | Yes |
| Free Subscription to Apple TV+ | Yes | No |
| Free Subscription to Apple Music | Yes | No |
| Reserve Travel Designers | Yes | No |
| Sapphire Reserve Exclusive Tables | Yes | Yes |
| Credits: | ||
| Travel Credit | $300 per Membership Year | $300 per Membership Year |
| Global Entry / TSA Pre / Nexus | $120 per 4 Years | $120 per 4 Years |
| The Edit (Hotels) | $250 per 6 Months | $250 per 6 Months |
| Lyft In-App Credit | $10 per Month | $10 per Month |
| DoorDash Restaurant Promo | $5 per Month | $5 per Month |
| DoorDash Non-Restaurant Promo | $10 twice per Month | $10 twice per Month |
| Sapphire Reserve Exclusive Tables | $150 per 6 Months | $0 |
| StubHub | $150 per 6 Months | $0 |
| Peloton | $10 per Month | $0 |
| ZipRecruiter | $0 | $200 per 6 Months |
| Google Workspace | $0 | $200 per Year |
| giftcards.com/reservebusiness | $0 | $50 per 6 Months |
| Big Spend Benefits: | $75K Spend: | $120K Spend: |
| IHG One Rewards Diamond Elite Status | Yes | Yes |
| Southwest Airlines A-List Status | Yes | Yes |
| $500 Southwest Airlines credit | Yes | Yes |
| Shops at Chase credit | $250 | $500 |
Chase Sapphire Reserve for Business annual fee and earning structure
The Chase Sapphire Reserve for Business will have an annual fee of $795. Employee cards cost $0, though note that the main benefit of employee cards is the opportunity for the business owner to earn rewards on employee purchases. Employee cards do not come with lounge access, although they do get access to make restaurant reservations through Chase Sapphire Reserve Exclusive Tables.
The Sapphire Reserve for Business offers the following return on spend:
- 8x points on Chase Travel purchases
- 5x on eligible Lyft rides through 9/30/27
- 4x points on flights and hotels booked direct
- 3x on social media and search engine advertising
- 1x everywhere else (including on travel not included in the bonus categories above)
Chase Sapphire Reserve coupon credits
As is the case with the consumer version of the card, the Chase Sapphire Reserve for Business comes with a number of key coupon credits. However, this card’s coupon credits differ a bit from the consumer version:
- $300 annual travel credit. This works the same as the consumer version in that you book flights, hotels, car rentals, cruises, and more and you receive up to $300 in automatic statement credits. Note that purchases that qualify will not earn points.
- $120 Global Entry, TSA Precheck or Nexus credit every four years.
- $500 annual The Edit credit. The Edit is a curated list of high-end hotels and resorts similar to Amex Fine Hotels & Resorts. When you book through The Edit, you get benefits like $100 property credit, daily breakfast for two, room upgrades, etc. With the new Sapphire Reserve for Business card, you can get up to $250 in statement credits twice per year (up to $250 from January through June and up to $250 again from July through December) for prepaid bookings made with The Edit. Two-night minimum. Purchases that qualify will not earn points.
- $400 ZipRecruiter credit: Cardmembers can earn up to $200 in statement credits on purchases made directly with ZipRecruiter from January through June and again from July through December).
- $200 Google Workspace credit: Earn up to $200 in annual statement credits on purchases made directly on Google Workspace
- $100 Giftcards.com credit: Earn up to $50 in statement credits from January to June and again from July to December when purchasing gift cards from a curated collection of notable brands on giftcards.com/reservebusiness.
- DashPass + Monthly DoorDash benefits: Cardholders get complimentary DashPass membership for 12 months when activated by 12/31/27 and access to one monthly $5 restaurant promo and two $10 promos for non-restaurant orders. These coupons must be applied at checkout when placing an order and require using your Sapphire Reserve for Business card and that it is enrolled in DashPass. Monthly promos expire each month if unused.
- Lyft $10 discount per month: This works as a coupon in your Lyft account that offers $10 off a ride once per month when using your Sapphire Reserve for Business to pay for that ride.
Additional Chase Sapphire Reserve for Business benefits
The Sapphire Reserve for Business card comes with several other key benefits that are important to understand:
- Like the consumer version, the Sapphire Reserve for Business will have best-in-class travel protections, including primary CDW insurance (though note that Chase has made this coverage secondary for New York State residents), and trip cancellation/interruption protection.
- Points Boost: When booking qualifying travel through Chase Travel, you’ll get 1 cent per point value with most travel, or up to 2 cents per point value for travel with Points Boost offers. We’ve been told that all hotels available through The Edit will have 2x Points Boosts. Read more about Points Boosts in this comprehensive post.
- Complimentary IHG One Rewards Platinum Elite Status.
- Access to the Chase Sapphire Lounge by The Club network of airport lounges and Priority Pass Select membership. The primary Chase Sapphire Reserve for Business cardmember can also bring two guests per visit. Note that employee cards do not get lounge access except as the qualifying guest of a primary cardholder.
- Access to Chase Sapphire Reserve Exclusive Tables on OpenTable for both primary and employee cards.
- Cardmembers can access two credit lines: a Pay in Full line, which requires the balance to be fully paid each month, and Flex for Business, which allows for payments over time with interest.
Big spend bonuses
After spending $120,000 each calendar year, Chase Sapphire Reserve for Business cardmembers will unlock the following benefits:
- IHG One Rewards Diamond Elite Status
- Southwest Airlines A-List Status and a $500 Southwest Airlines credit when booked through Chase Travel
- $500 credit to The Shops at Chase, a new online shopping experience designed exclusively for cardmembers allowing them to shop for brands including Dyson, Sony, Therabody and Tumi, with rotating promotions, using their ultimate rewards points or their card to pay.
My thoughts
The Sapphire Reserve for Business has a surprisingly narrow appeal. The card will be an OK fit for some, but I don’t expect that it will excite many small business owners.
On the surface, if you’ll easily use the $300 annual travel credit and the $500 credit for The Edit hotel bookings, it may be easy enough to justify the $795 annual fee with a view of the other benefits as being “icing on the cake”.
However, I find even that situation tenuous at best.
While I might actually be interested in a credit toward bookings through The Edit, triggering the credits isn’t so simple. To take full advantage of the statement credits for The Edit bookings, you need to make a minimum of two two-night bookings each year and one of those two-night bookings must occur between January and June and the other between July and December. I imagine that many business owners have a busy travel season and a less busy season, but they’ll need to take time and focus away from business to make sure that they’ve remembered to plan travel during separate six-month windows in order to use the credit. That increases hassle and decreases appeal.
Let me also re-emphasize a point that I’ve made before: “The Edit” is a silly name for a luxury hotel booking platform. It tells me nothing about what it is. Naming it “The Edit” only means that Amex gets free advertising every time I mention The Edit because in order to explain what The Edit is, I need to say that it is like Amex Fine Hotels & Resorts. I wish Chase would rename it “The Golden Key for Hotels” or “Chase Stays” or “Reserve Rooms” or one of like a million things other than The Edit. /rant
Moving beyond the two marquee benefits, things get a bit more niche yet.
I imagine that few small businesses are both hiring new people every six months and doing it by advertising specifically through ZipRecruiter, so the twice-annual credit for that seems like a once-in-a-while thing at best, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it goes entirely unused by many businesses. Google Workspace credit is probably useful for a lot of people, though you’ll need to be on the Business Plus or Enterprise plan to get the full $200 out of it. We don’t yet know which gift cards will be eligible for the twice-annual Giftcards.com credits, but since it is a “curated” list, there’s a good chance that the included brands will be ones that are frequently available at a discount elsewhere.
The big spend bonus benefits on this card require $45,000 more in annual spend than the consumer version of the card and the only incremental benefit is another $250 in credit toward The Shops, which is likely to have somewhat inflated prices versus what you could pay elsewhere, particularly when considering stacking opportunities like shopping portals and card-linked offers.
I just don’t see this card as offering a compelling value proposition for many folks. I’m pretty surprised that the card offers no dining bonus category, which makes this a tough choice as a single-card solution for any business that spends a ton on travel since most businesses that spend a lot of travel likely also spend a lot on dining.
I think this card could be fairly appealing for a business that books a lot of travel through Chase, particularly a lot of flights through Chase Travel since earning 8x on flights could make for a good return. That said, when things go wrong, you’ll need to manage things through Chase Travel rather than directly through the airline or hotel. Still, if you prefer to book directly, earning 4x on direct airline and hotel bookings is good. And some businesses spend a lot of money on social media / search engine advertising (I see the same businesses advertised again and again and again in my Facebook feed, which tells me that some businesses must spend a lot there).
But in order for this card to be better than other others in those categories, you’ll really need to make use of a lot of the coupon credits. Consider that, at least for now, the Chase Ink Business Preferred offers both 3x on all travel and 3x on advertising on social media sites (on up to $150K per year) and its annual fee is only $95. It would be hard to justify an additional $700 on the Chase Sapphire Reserve for Business unless you can really make use of many of the coupon credits.
If you can do that, this card might pay for itself. Personally, I’d not find this one to be worth the effort on an ongoing basis. That said, with a strong enough welcome offer, I might be tempted to try it out for a year.
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Thank you for the comparison chart! Would love for you to add the Sapphire Preferred for those of us considering downgrading our Reserve and adding the business card. I’m just starting my business so I’ve been waiting for this announcement to decide on my card strategy for my business. There’s no reason to keep the Reserve and add the business card IMO, at least not for me! The huge increase to the authorized user is killer but if they add the global entry credit to that I could maybe see it still being worth it still. My husband uses it as his business travel card as my authorized user but his company isn’t paying the fee (but they should!). Lots to digest here that’s for sure. Mainly disappointed in the sure devaluation of the points from 1.5x to this points boost nonsense. There’s no way that’s beneficial to us. Maybe time to use all my points and switch to AMEX once they announce their changes.
The only thing that matters to me is it a new product so that I qualify for the signing bonus if I already got certain Ink bonuses
“The Edit” is a silly name indeed.
You left out:
“Your Ultimate Rewards Points have now lost 1/3 of their value” – marketed as “PointsBoost” – Yes, you get this same “benefit” on both cards.
Another downside would be if this card has no options for product changes, which I imagine it won’t. I’ve taken advantage of strategic conversions on the personal card to Sapphire Preferred and Freedom, and between the Ink cards as well—and it’s great to have no fee options and keep the account. If there’s no other option for the Reserve Biz but to cancel the account, it makes it even worse.
Why do you think it won’t still be downgradeable to the Freedom line?
Can you downgrade a business card to a personal card? Or are their business Freedom cards?
No, there are no business Freedom cards.
Jay is right — with the Sapphire Reserve for Business having Sapphire branding and the rest of the business card lineup having Ink branding, that does suggest that there won’t be product changes.
That said, I still think we will more likely than not see things get rebranded around on the business side.
Well, I guess on the consumer side they let Sapphire cardholders downgrade to the Freedom line, so maybe it’s not out of line to think that it will be possible to downgrade to Ink cards.
I’m delighted with this card! Why? Because just like the FM team, I was convinced that we wouldn’t get a Business version of the Sapphire Reserve and, instead, that we’d see Chase destroy the Ink Preferred (which I love).
The Ink Preferred lives to fight another day and that’s the big news for me 🙂
As a business owner I’m not inclined to go for this. There are just too many coupons that I’m unlikely to use and I’d really expected much better earnings for restaurants. Another negative is that authorized users don’t get any lounge access.
I’m sure that some businesses owners can make a compelling case that there’s good value in the new card but unless I’m missing something big I’ll likely pass on this one.
Just going to echo this makes little sense on Chase’s part at targeting business customers. Compared to AMEX Platinum Ziprecruiter is not as useful as Indeed for real businesses, and the Dell and Adobe credits are I think more useful as well compared to Google Workspace. Giftcards.com is also a bit of a “huh?” Just do more office store credits like AMEX has all over.
The big head scratcher is the focus on nice hotel stays with the Edit. For a real business customer they are only putting business spend on the card to keep things clean for accounting and tax/liability purposes. How many businesses want to book two two-night stays a year in expensive hotels for work travel? There’s a reason the FHR credit isn’t on the AMEX Business Platinum. It’s like Chase is directly saying “actually ignore that bit about not using Business cards for Personal expenses”.
This is pretty bad. I have the Amex business. Ziprecruiter is not nearly as good as the Amex business Indeed credits. I max those but noone uses Zip. I will pass.
In the intrepid words of Randy Jackson: it’s gonna be a no from me, dawg
Ditto!
Just Pathetic. And I’m a business owner with a lot of spend. What a freakin dud.
Completely agree with you. Very disappointing.
It will be interesting to see if you can book in a 6 month time frame and then edit the dates into the future but keep the credit like with Amex FHR (to combine the credits). I have found that when you cancel an Amex fhr reservation they no longer claw back the $200 credit now
SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! Keep that last bit to yourself.
I have no personal experience with the Amex-Fine-Hotels -and-Resorts-like the Edit benefit, but in another one of today’s Sapphire-related posts someone mentioned that their rates are generally much higher than booking direct, so much so that you don’t even break even on the breakfast / amenity benefits. If so, those credits are worth nothing close to face value.
That would be terrible to be true. AMEX FHR is actually close enough that it usually is a benefit (pay $50 more for $100s of extra in food credits and upgrades).
I have a business that currently spends ~500k per year on my CIU and CIP. There is zero reason for me to get this outside of churning. If the ad 3x is unlimited, that will be huge for some. But the credits do nothing for me. I don’t get it.
You’re absolutely right, There is almost nothing worthwhile that would make this a better card to hold than the consumer CSR. At most I’ll consider picking it up for a SUB and then dropping it unless the can give a compelling reason to keep it in the future. But as it sits, it’s a pretty terrible value for most businesses and consumers.