The Chase Sapphire Preferred is still the card I hand people first.

At $95 a year it buys you into Chase Ultimate Rewards and the transfer partners that come with it, which is the entire reason this card exists. Nothing in its fee tier has taken that away in 2026.

What did change is the part most reviews still get wrong. On January 22, 2026, Chase scrapped the 48-month Sapphire cooldown and the rule that stopped you from holding the Preferred and the Reserve at the same time. Both are gone. If you are reading a Sapphire review written before that date and it tells you to pick one card and wait four years, close the tab. I covered what the new once-per-lifetime rules actually mean when the change landed, and the short version is that it reads better for you than the old system did.

Quick Summary

Best for: Someone with real dining and travel spending who wants transferable points without a premium annual fee.

Standout benefit: The Chase Ultimate Rewards transfer partners, with World of Hyatt doing most of the heavy lifting.

Biggest drawback: The 5x rate is locked to the Chase Travel portal, so you give up direct-booking flexibility to earn it.

Current offer (August 2026): 75,000 bonus points after $5,000 in purchases in the first three months.

Annual fee: $95. Credit needed: 670 and up.

What You Actually Earn

Here is the earning chart as it stands in August 2026:

  • 5x per $1 on Chase Travel purchases and qualifying Lyft rides, through September 30, 2027
  • 5x per $1 on Peloton equipment and accessory purchases over $150, through December 31, 2027
  • 3x per $1 on dining, select streaming services, and online grocery
  • 2x per $1 on travel purchases
  • 1x per $1 on everything else

Two of those have dates attached, which is unusual and easy to miss. The Lyft and Peloton multipliers expire in 2027. Do not build a long-term plan around either one.

The 3x on online grocery is narrower than it sounds. It means ordering from a supermarket's own app or site. Warehouse clubs and the big-box chains are excluded, which knocks out where a lot of people actually buy food. Check your last three statements before you count on that category.

The 3x on dining is the one that quietly carries this card. Restaurants, takeout, and delivery all land there, and most people spend more in that bucket than they think.

The Fee Math

Points redeem at 1.25 cents each through the Chase Travel portal. That is the floor, and it is the number I use when I want to be conservative about a card.

At that floor, the $95 fee is covered by 7,600 points, or about $2,500 of dining spend across a year. Use the $50 annual hotel credit and the effective fee drops to $45, which 3,600 points covers. That is roughly $1,200 of dining spend. Most people carrying this card clear it in the first quarter without trying.

Run a modest, realistic year through it. Say $500 a month on dining, $100 a month across streaming and online grocery, $2,000 of travel booked direct, $1,200 booked through the Chase Travel portal, and $8,000 of ordinary spending. That comes to about 39,600 points, worth $495 at the portal floor.

Subtract the $95 fee and you are up $400 before you touch the hotel credit, and before you transfer a single point to a partner. Transfers are where the number climbs. If you want the fee argument in more detail, our breakdown of how the Sapphire Preferred pays for its annual fee walks it step by step.

The welcome offer sits on top of all of it. 75,000 points at the 1.25 cent floor is $937, or nearly ten years of annual fees, earned in three months. Chase moves this offer between 60,000 and 75,000 through the year, so check the current Sapphire Preferred offer before you apply rather than trusting any review, including this one, on the exact number.

Where the Points Go

The portal rate is the floor, not the point. Transferring to partners is what separates this card from a flat cash-back product at the same price.

World of Hyatt is the headline and has been for years. Chase points move there at 1:1, and Hyatt's award chart still prices category nights in a range that regularly beats what the same room costs in cash. That single partner justifies most people's decision to carry a transferable-points card instead of a 2% cash-back card.

United is the workhorse for domestic flying. Air Canada Aeroplan is the one people skip and shouldn't, because its distance-based chart has real sweet spots on Star Alliance long-haul.

The rest of the partner list is fine. It is not the reason to get the card, and I would not pick this card over another one on partner count alone.

If Hyatt nights are what you are after, the Chase Sapphire Preferred is the cheapest way to start earning the currency that books them.

Protections You Are Probably Not Thinking About

The insurance package on this card gets ignored in most reviews, and it is a real part of what you are buying. The Sapphire Preferred carries primary rental car coverage, which means a scuffed rental gets filed with Chase instead of your own auto policy and your personal rates stay where they are. It also includes trip cancellation and interruption coverage, trip delay coverage, and baggage delay reimbursement.

Those benefits are the kind of thing you forget about for two years and then use once in a way that pays for a decade of annual fees. Coverage limits and exclusions live in Chase's guide to benefits, and they do change, so read the current version before you rely on a specific dollar figure.

Pros and Cons

Pros

  • Transfer partners at a $95 fee, which is the lowest price of admission to Ultimate Rewards
  • $50 annual hotel credit through Chase Travel that posts automatically
  • No foreign transaction fees, which matters more than most people expect
  • A welcome offer with a $5,000 spending requirement that is reachable without manufacturing spend

Cons

  • The best rate, 5x, requires booking through the Chase Travel portal
  • Earning rates sit below what the Sapphire Reserve offers
  • Several competitors earn 4x on dining for a similar or lower annual fee
  • Two of the 5x categories expire in 2027

The Rules That Actually Gate You

The 5/24 rule still applies and still catches people. If you have opened five or more personal credit cards from any issuer in the past 24 months, Chase will decline you. Authorized-user cards usually count. Check your dates first, because this is the single most common reason a reader tells me they got denied.

Past that, the January 2026 change did most of the work for you. Each Sapphire card's welcome bonus is now once per lifetime, tracked per card. You can hold the Preferred and the Reserve together and earn each bonus once. The old four-year wait is not a thing anymore.

If you are under 5/24 and have never earned this particular bonus, the Sapphire Preferred application is a clean slot to fill before you start adding cards that do not have these gates.

How It Compares

Against the Sapphire Reserve. The Reserve earns more and comes with lounge access and a larger credit package, at a $795 annual fee. That is $700 more per year, and the break-even sits well above what most people spend on travel. If you fly often enough to use lounges on most trips, read our full Sapphire Reserve review and run your own numbers. If you do not, the Preferred captures most of the redemption power for a fraction of the cost. When readers write in asking which of the two to take, the Preferred is the answer far more often than not.

Against the Capital One Venture. Same $95 fee, flat 2x on everything. If your spending is genuinely even across categories with no dining or travel concentration, the Venture's simplicity wins and I would tell you to take it. If dining is a real line item in your budget, the Preferred's 3x pulls ahead. We put the two head to head on real spending profiles if you want to see where the line falls.

Against a no-fee Chase card. The Chase Freedom Unlimited earns 1.5x on everything at no annual fee and pools its points into the same Ultimate Rewards account. It is not a competitor so much as a partner. Put your non-bonused spending there and your dining and travel on the Preferred.

Who Should Skip It

Anyone over 5/24, because the application will not go through. Anyone who has already earned the Preferred bonus, since that is now once per lifetime. And anyone whose spending has no dining, travel, streaming, or online grocery concentration at all, because a flat-rate card will out-earn this one on a genuinely even spending pattern.

If you have decided you will never learn transfer partners and just want cash back, that is a legitimate choice and this card is not the right fit. Take a flat 2% card and keep your $95.

Final Verdict

The Sapphire Preferred did not get better this year. Its context did. The Reserve moved to $795, the Sapphire bonus rules loosened, and the cheapest door into Chase transfer partners is still this one at $95. For anyone crossing over from cash back into points, it is the first card I would put in your hand, and it has been for a while. If that is you, apply for the Sapphire Preferred while the 75,000-point offer is live, or browse the rest of the sub-$100 travel cards if you want to compare before you commit.

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