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That’s over $100 a month in fees, but what do I get in return?
I carry the Chase Sapphire Reserve ($450), Citi Prestige($350), and Amex Business Platinum ($450) at the same time. Some of the benefits of these cards cross over, but even with the redundancy I am net positive when it comes to the value of benefits I use for the year. A lot of people cancel cards when the annual fees come due, and I’m certainly not advocating keeping a card that isn’t valuable, but your analysis shouldn’t be based on the fee, but rather the “value” of the card. I’ll walk you through my thinking and how I end up turning a “profit” on $1250 a year in fees.
The biggest crossover benefit between the 3 cards is the Priority Pass membership.
So let’s just pro-rate that across 3 cards. A normal membership cost $450 a year, but we’d never pay retail. Let’s value that benefit at $150, or $50 per card.
The Chase Sapphire Reserve:
I unfortunately missed out on the 100k sign up, but was able to lock in a 50k offer a couple of weeks ago. In addition to that I applied after the annual fee credit changed from calendar year to cardmember year. This means that instead of earning $600 in travel credit my first cardmember year like those who signed up earlier, I’ll earn just $300.
The annual fee is $450.
- 50k = $750 in travel redemptions thru the Chase Travel.
- $300 travel credit
- $50 for Priority Pass membership
- 3x points on all dining, 1 point more than Sapphire Preferred
- If I spend $300 a month on dining that is 3600 a year more in points. Or $54 in redemptions thru Chase Travel
The first year of the card I will earn $1154 in benefits. Ongoing I’d earn roughly $405 a year knocking the fee down to just $44. That is $50 less than I’d pay to keep a Sapphire Preferred open. A no-brainer. Now that you can only carry a Reserve or a Preferred it doesn’t make sense keeping anything but the Reserve at this moment.
Citi Prestige
I have Citi Priority which knocks my annual fee down to $350 from $450 which helps with the value proposition.
- Annual $250 airline credit. ( the first year I received $500 because I straddled years. 2nd year will earn $250. So that’s $750 over 24 months of card ownership)
- $50 Pro-rated Priority Pass
- Free 4th night on 4 night+ stays.
In order to end up ahead the 4th night free benefit only has to be worth $50. I know in the next year I’ll be able to take advantage of this benefit and extract value over $50. In addition to this, I have to keep in mind the Citi 24 month rule. If I were to close this card I would reset the clock on getting a sign up bonus again. The opportunity cost then is another sign up bonus on either the Citi Premier or Prestige in July of 2018.
I did an analysis of why I was keeping the Citi Prestige for another year if you’d like to read more on it.
Amex Business Platinum
I maintain an Amex Business Platinum which still has a $450 annual fee. Hopefully this won’t pop up to $550, like the personal versions, before my annual fee hits in December.
- Airline fee Reimbursement – $200 a year fee reimbursement on incidentals.
- 10 GoGo free wifi passes – $200
- ( I value these at $10 each. Usually the pass is much more than this, but we’ll be conservative)
- Referrals – over the last 12 months I’ve received 100k in referral points
- Priority Pass – $50
Taking the referral points out of it, which are worth $1500 ( valuing Amex points at 1.5 cents – the valuation with a 35% bonus refund when booking revenue tickets through Amex travel) I’m still breaking even on the card. This is without taking into consideration Amex FHR, Centurion Lounge access, or Amex offers.
If Amex continues to incentivize ownerships with Baller referrals I’d be silly to ever get rid of this card. I will say that the spend requirement on the current offer has deterred everyone I know that would have otherwise been interested. 20k spend in 3 months is hefty.
Annual fees are hard to swallow, and always request a retention offer, but paying one may end up earning you more in value than you’re spending upfront.
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
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
- 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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