Our Take

The Chase Sapphire Reserve is widely regarded as the best premium travel credit card on the market thanks to its generous signup bonus and incredible perks. It’s got a lot of moving parts though so let’s take a look at how they work.

Let’s start with the bad news. It has a $550 annual fee that is not waived for the first year. Plan on it being charged to your card in the first month or so. Most people don’t get past that fee. But read on…that fee gets you a ton of amazing perks.

For starters, you get 50,000 bonus Chase Ultimate Rewards points after spending $4,000 in the first 3 months. See above for an overview of how these points work (they’re amazing).

Having Sapphire Reserve also makes your Chase points worth 1.5 cents each when redeemed via the Chase Ultimate Rewards portal to book travel, meaning your 50,000 point bonus is worth $750 of travel.

Next, you get a $300 annual travel credit that is good for any sort of travel expense. Even paid tickets. So unless you are spending less than $300 on travel per year (in which case, why are you reading this website?) the annual fee becomes more manageable.

Finally, your Sapphire Reserves comes with complimentary membership to Priority Pass. Allowing you to access more than 900+ airport lounges worldwide.

The Chase Sapphire Reserve also gives you a $100 credit every four years to cover your application fees for TSA PreCheck or Global Entry, as well as some of the best trip interruption and rental car insurance coverage on the market. Personally, I think that TSA Precheck is the best $100 I have ever spent.

The fee is certainly not cheap but in this case it is absolutely worth it.

10xT Writer Caroline Lupini wrote a fantastic review of all things Chase Sapphire Reserve, check it out here. And here is an overview of how each 10xT Team Member would spend these points.

Note that Chase has imposed new restrictions on the Chase Sapphire cards that limit your ability to get multiple versions of them. [More details on that here].