A coastal cityscape featuring a beach with turquoise waters and numerous people swimming and sunbathing. High-rise buildings and hotels line the shore, with a prominent mountain in the background. The sky is partly cloudy, and the overall scene is vibrant and tropical.
| |

Chase Sapphire Preferred: 40,000 Ultimate Rewards Points

ByThe Miles Professor

Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card:

  • Earn 40,000 bonus points when you spend $3,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening. That’s $500 in travel when you redeem through Chase Ultimate RewardsSM.
  • Earn 5,000 bonus points after you add the first authorized user and make a purchase in the first 3 months from account opening.
  • 2X points on travel and dining at restaurants & 1 point per dollar spent on all other purchases
  • No foreign transaction fees, plus Chip and Signature enabled for international travel.
  • 1:1 point transfer to leading frequent travel programs at full value – that means 1,000 Ultimate Rewards points equal 1,000 partner miles/points.
  • 24/7 direct access to dedicated customer service specialists
  • Introductory Annual Fee of $0 the first year, then $95

Transfer to Miles and Hotel Programs

Chase Ultimate Rewards points transfer 1:1 to many airline and hotel programs. The top partners are:

  • United Airlines
  • British Airways
  • Hyatt Gold Passport
  • Southwest Airlines

Chase Ultimate Rewards Mall

The Chase Sapphire Preferred Card gives you access to the Ultimate Rewards portal where you can shop online and earn bonus points for regular merchants such as drugstore.com, Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s, etc. Given how lucrative shopping through the Ultimate Rewards Mall is, I think access to the shopping portal is crucial for any miles collector who shops online.

As I point out in my post Chase Ulti­mate Rewards Mall: Earn miles for reg­u­lar shopping, I earn about 60,000 points a year by shopping through the Chase Ultimate Rewards Mall. This is enough for a roundtrip ticket to Europe or for Natalya to save $1000 flying to Grand Cayman and Cancun.

Value When Paired with Chase Freedom Card

The Chase Freedom Card gives you access to the Ultimate Rewards Mall plus quarterly rotating bonuses that let you earn 5 points per dollar up to $1500. I manage to maximize this every quarter for 7,500 points a quarter or 30,000 points a year. I also earn 60,000 points a year through the Chase Ultimate Rewards Mall.

The Chase Freedom Card alone, however, only lets you redeem Ultimate Rewards points for cash back at 1 cent each. At that rate, my 90,000 Ultimate Rewards points is only worth $900.

If you also have the Chase Sapphire Preferred card or Chase Ink Bold/Plus card, you can transfer points from your Chase Freedom account to your Chase Sapphire Preferred or Chase Ink Bold account. You can then transfer these to United, British Airways, Hyatt or other partners.

My 90,000 points can now be worth:

  • 90,000 United miles, almost enough to fly roundtrip to Europe in Business Class.
  • 90,000 Hyatt points, almost enough for 3 nights at Park Hyatt Paris Vendome.
  • 90,000 British Airways miles, enough for four roundtrip tickets to Cancun from New York on American Airlines

There are all clearly valued much more than $900!

Summary

  • The Chase Sapphire Preferred card is lucrative for a 40,000 point signup bonus, earning Ultimate Rewards points through the Ultimate Rewards Mall and transferring them 1:1 to partners such as United, British Airways and Hyatt.
  • It is a good card to get once you’ve exhausted the signup bonus for your favorite travel partners or have built up a significant points balance in your Chase Freedom account.
  • The card also has no foreign transaction fees and earns double points on dining and travel purchases.

Previous post: Card Review: Chase Freedom Card

Next post: Card Review: Chase Ink Bold and Chase Ink Plus cards