Category Archives: Credit Cards

Card Review: Chase Sapphire Preferred

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Our well worn Sapphire Preferred cards (pre- chip+PIN)

Our well worn Sapphire Preferred cards (pre- chip+PIN)

Basic Stats
– Issuer: Chase
– Logo: Visa
– Points earned: Ultimate Rewards
– 1 pt per dollar on all purchases
– 2 pt per dollar on travel & dining
– 3 pt per dollar on dining (1st Friday of every month)
– Foreign transaction fee: no
– Chip + PIN: yes
– Annual fee: $95

Current sign-up bonus
– 40,000 (50,000 as of 11-17-15) bonus points after $4000 spend in 3 months
– 5,000 bonus points with addition of authorized user
– 1st year annual fee waived

The Chase Sapphire Preferred is the gold standard in premium credit cards.  It’s been around a long time and has remained a good deal for years.  Chase has a reputation for excellent customer service and Chase Ultimate Rewards (UR) are the single most valuable points out there.  Besides being incredibly versatile, UR points do not expire and they can be transferred among your accounts, any business accounts you may own, and your spouse’s account for free.  Besides the sign-up bonus and regular spending, you can also rack up UR points be using Chase’s online shopping portal, which will get you at least 1 extra point per dollar at most major online retailers.

And remember, the minimum bonus spend also counts towards regular points accrual, so by the time you get the bonus for this card, you will have earned at least 44,000 54,000 UR points.  Add an authorized user when you apply and make one purchase with the second card for another 5,000 bonus points.  Make some of those purchases at restaurants or hotels and you can get to 50k 60k quite easily.

Here are some examples of how you could use the UR points you earn from this card:

  • 3 nights at Hyatt Andaz Peninsula Papagayo Resort in Costa Rica; $1695 worth of lodging for 45k Ultimate Rewards transferred to Hyatt Gold PassportHyatt Andaz Peninsula Papagayo in Costa Rica
  • One-way business class on Canada Air 787 Dreamliner, Minneapolis to Zurich; A $5006 flight for 57.5k Ultimate Rewards transferred to United Mileage Plus

    Business class on Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner

    The lie-flat business class mini-suite in Canada Air’s 787 Dreamliner

  • Round trip from the continental U.S. to the Caribbean in economy class; 35k Ultimate Rewards transferred to United Mileage Plus
  • Depending on where and when you fly, 49k Ultimate Rewards transferred to Southwest Airlines could get you 2 round trip flights.Southwest map
  • 49k 59k from your bonuses & required spend gets you $588 $708 in travel from the Ultimate Rewards Travel Booking service
  • 49k 59k from your bonuses & required spend is also worth $490 $590 credited to your account.  This is the least efficient redemption method, but you could use it if you really want the cash.

My experience with the Chase Sapphire Preferred
This was the first “premium” credit card I applied for, way back when I was starting out and mainly focused on getting my debt on to 0% interest cards.  I figured as long as I was apping cards, I should go for one with a nice bonus and points program.  Creditkarma says the average credit score to get approved for the Sapphire Preferred is 730.  I was right around 760 and got instantly approved online.  My wife applied at the same time and was also approved online.

metalcards

The metal core of the Chase Sapphire Preferred

When we got our cards in the mail, we were pleasantly surprised at how cool they looked!  (Trust me, once you’re a full blown card fanatic you’ll care about how they look, too).  The unique thing about the Chase Sapphire Preferred is that it’s metal.  That’s right, not only will this card get you some valuable points, but it may save your life someday if you ever get shot in the wallet.  We still enjoy the comments we hear when handing the card to a cashier to pay for something.

We both hit our bonus spends and the points earned eventually funded my very first points redemption, airfare to Europe with UnitedPlus miles transferred from Ultimate Rewards.  UR points have bailed me out several times since then, with their incredible versatility (Ultimate Rewards can be transferred to 11 different partner programs.)

My wife ended up downgrading her card to the regular Chase Sapphire to avoid paying the annual fee after the first year, but I have paid the fee twice on my Sapphire Preferred (a rarity in this game).  It hasn’t left my wallet in 3 years and is still my go-to card for dining purchases.

GET THE CHASE SAPPHIRE PREFERRED
I’m not cool enough to have credit card affiliate links but I can get bonus points of my own if you apply through my referral link.  If you got some value from my review, I would appreciate it very much if you applied through the link, which has the same terms and bonus as the public offer.

Click here to apply for the Chase Sapphire Preferred!

Even if you don’t use my link, I highly recommend this card to anyone as it offers a nice pile of Ultimate Rewards, no foreign transaction fees, 2x points on travel and dining, and no annual fee for the 1st year.

Successfully Downgrading the Barclay Arrival+

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I was recently successful at downgrading my Barclaycard Arrival+ World Mastercard to avoid paying the $89 annual fee.  There are varying reports as to how Barclaycard customer service responds to cancellation requests for this card, but the consensus seems to be that Barclay is fairly stingy on waiving fees or offering additional bonus points.  There are also many reports on Barclay customer service representatives being capricious and even downright punitive to cardholders they suspect of playing the credit card game.  I don’t know how much stock I put in these reports however; internet complaints tend to originate with the angry few rather than the representative majority.

Still, I didn’t want to take any risks, so I when I called I went straight for the downgrade, and skipped asking for the fee to be waived.  The customer service representative was happy to assist me and moved the process right along.  My current points balance (which can never be 0 with this card) was retained, but I had to forfeit any points accumulated in the current billing cycle (none in my case).  She also threw in a bonus 1000 points upon the first use of the new card.

barclay_downgradeDowngrading a card to the no fee version is a common tactic for avoiding annual fees on cards that waive the fee for the first year.  This has several advantages over cancelling the card outright:

  1. You retain the credit limit extended to you by that account, maintaining your debt to credit ratio.
  2. Your length-of-credit portion of your credit score steadily increases, instead of suddenly decreasing.
  3. You end up with the no fee card and its perks, without requiring a credit check.

One disadvantage of downgrading a card is that you are usually no longer eligible for the sign-up bonus for the no fee version of that card.  In the case of the Arrival, this means missing out on a 20,000 point sign-up bonus (the Arrival+ had a 40,000 point sign-up bonus).  However, this 20,000 point promotion is so far down on my wish list that it would probably have never ended up being worth the credit pull anyway.  Aside from the sign-up bonus, the points accumulation and redemption terms are the same for the Arrival and the Arrival+.  The only other major difference is that the Arrival charges a foreign transaction fee, whereas the Arrival+ does not.

All in all, my interaction with Barclaycard for this downgrade was a positive one, and I was happy to be able to make it work for the reasons listed above.  To find out more about the Arrival+ and Arrival, and their benefits, see my review of the card.