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The End of an Era
When I was in college I opened up a Fidelity brokerage account to trade stocks. I had a Roth, some savings, and I wanted to start compounding it. One of the benefits of the account was a Fidelity American Express Gold card, fee free. Any charges that you made during the month would be withdrawn from your cash balance, and if you wanted, you could pay a fee to earn Membership Rewards on those purchases. I felt like an absolute BALLER carrying around an Amex Gold in college. In addition to that, I even upgraded the card to a Platinum for a year, downgraded it the next, but since the account number stayed the same I kept using the Amex Plat until its expiration date ( It even continued to get me into Delta lounges at the time.) Not sure that really works anymore. Flash Forward 16 years and here I am today, staring at my long held friend who is about to phased out on April 9th, 2018.
Despite opening many Amex cards since then, it’s been my Amex Fidelity Gold card that established my “member since” date of of 2002. I now wonder, what will happen to that date? It’s unclear by the FAQs on the product cancellation, but I’m hoping my records still support the 2002 date. I never use the card, but it’s brings back a lot of great memories, and was my first “premium” card that I ever had.
Here are a few of the FAQs…
Did you ever carry one of these?
Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.
Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
Welcome Offer
$300 Chase Travel℠ Credit + Earn 60,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.
Annual Fee
$95
Points Earned
Transferrable Chase Ultimate Rewards
- $300 Chase Travel℠ Credit + Earn 60,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.
- That’s worth $750 when redeemed through Chase Travel℠. Plus, get up to $300 in statement credits on Chase Travel℠ purchases within your first year
- 5x on all travel purchased through Chase Travel℠
- 3x on dining, including eligible delivery services for takeout & dining out
- 3x on select streaming services
- 3x on online grocery purchases
- (excluding Target, Walmart and wholesale clubs)
- $50 Annual Chase Travel Hotel Credit via Chase Travel℠
- The begins immediately for new cardmembers and after your account anniversary for existing cardmembers
- 2x on all other travel
- 10% Anniversary Bonus
- Every year you keep the card, your total spend will yield a 10% points bonus. If you spend $10k in a year, you’ll get 1k bonus points
- Chase Sapphire Preferred continues to redeem at 1.25c in the Chase Travel℠ and the slew of other benefits remain in tact including Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver ( primary ), purchase protections, etc.
- Points are transferrable to 14 Ultimate Rewards partners
- Redeem in Chase Travel℠ for 1.25 cents per point
- No foreign transaction fees
- Suite of Travel and Purchase Coverage
- Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver is my favorite
- Get complimentary access to DashPass which unlocks $0 delivery fees and lower service fees for a minimum of one year when you activate by December 31, 2027.
- $95 Annual Fee
We keep an up to date spreadsheet that lists the best ever offers: You can find that spreadsheet here.
Historically 80k is a very, very good offer and hit in both 2022 and 2023. In 2021, we saw the offer hit an all time high of 100k. Who knows if that will ever come back.
Main Cast:
Cards that earn flexible points and should be used on the bulk of your purchases.
Supporting Cast:
Cards that earn fixed points in the currency of the airline/hotel and can not be transferred at attractive rates. These cards yield benefits that make it worth keeping, but not necessarily worth putting a lot of your everyday spend on.
The Chase Sapphire Preferred® is exceptional starter card and offers transferrable Ultimate Rewards, and pairs well with other Chase cards.
If you carry this card alongside Chase’s cashback cards like the Chase Freedom Flex® and Chase Freedom Unlimited® or the business versions: Ink Business Cash® , Ink Business Unlimited® you can combine the points into Preferred account and transfer into hotel and airline partners
Annual fee is quite low at $95 a year + you get a 10% anniversary bonus on points + $50 hotel credit in Chase travel.
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