With the recent changes to the Chase Sapphire Reserve which includes a fee increase of $550 for new card holders effective January 12, 2020 and for existing card holders as of April 1, 2020 and moving forward. One positive is if your annual renewal is prior to April 1, 2020 you will be able to get one more year at the $450 annual fee and still receive all the benefits they added. In this post we will look at 7 reasons to have the Chase Sapphire Reserve in 2020. We won’t be focusing in on the $300 travel credit, of the 3x multiplier on travel purchases. We will be looking at 7 ways to justify this card for 2020. For a detailed post of all the changes click here. These 5 reasons are listed in no particular order.

Do you like Airports?

If so this card comes with complimentary airport lounge access. You’ll receive a Priority Pass Select membership. Which is valued at $99. You can bring two guests with you free of charge. Each additional guest will cost $27. This Priority Pass Select Membership also allows you to use it at select restaurants inside airports towards $28 worth of food at most of the 28 or so participating restaurants, not to mention the 20 or so bars that you can use that credit. Some restaurants allow you to bring one guest and get another $28 worth of food credits, totaling $56. Which is a sweet deal. These credits can’t be applied towards a tip however, so be sure to bring a few bucks for that.

Personally I do not have this benefit as I generally don’t spend much time in airports. I usually get there in time for my flight and once I land I’m headed on to my destination. There are examples of people using this benefit at multiple participating restaurants in the same airport allowing them to use that $28 credit two or even three times. If you’re someone who travels often for work or takes international trips with layovers, this benefit could be very beneficial.

Hate Waiting in line

Are you someone who is always running late or rushing through the airport to catch your flight? Or maybe you just hate waiting in lines. Well, then this is one reason to consider the Chase Sapphire Reserve. I am talking about the Global Entry or TSA PreCheck credit that you get with this card. If you only travel domestically than all you really need is TSA Precheck. But if there is even a chance you might travel internationally within 4 years of getting this, I always recommend going for Global Entry since TSA-Precheck is included in that. If you pay the $85 for TSA PreCheck or the $100 for Global Entry with the Chase Sapphire Reserve you will receive that credited back to your account. You can use this credit once every four years. Which is about how long each membership lasts before it’s time to renew.

Who needs a car?

Do you live in a densely populated area like New York, San Francisco, or Los Angeles? Or maybe you travel for work and instead of renting a car you take a rideshare option. If so you may find yourself taking either Uber or Lyft. Now with the Chase Sapphire Reserve it might make more sense to use Lyft with these new perks.

• 10x points per dollar spent with Lyft
• Complimentary Lyft Pink Membership

With these added perks, not only will you save 15% off your rides, you will earn a higher bonus rate. Plus a few other perks that you can read about here. The 10x benefit is currently being advertised only through March 2022. It will be interesting to see if they extend it or go with a different perk. Although I suspect since American Express has a deal with Uber, Chase will stay with Lyft.

Transfer Partners

Chase has some of the best transfer partners of any of the major credit card players. If your focus is on travel, this card is hard to beat. Points are worth 1.5 cents each when redeemed towards travel through the Ultimate Rewards portal. But many times, you can extract more value by using transfer partners. Points transfer at a 1:1 ratio and sometimes chase even offers bonuses when you transfer to one of their partners.

Here are the Ultimate Rewards transfer partners:

No matter if you only need to rent a car once a year or with every monthly excursion. This benefit is hard to beat. The Sapphire Reserve offers primary collision damage waiver coverage. This basically means that you are covered for any damages that happen to your rental car, regardless of whether you carry other insurance or not. You do have to pay for the rental with this card and decline the collision insurance, for the policy to kick in. Check your cardmember agreement for full details of what type of rentals may not be covered. While thankfully I have never had to use a benefit like this. Knowing that if you use this card to pay for your car rental gives a bit of relief.  

Do you eat?

One of the new changes to this card involves DoorDash. The Sapphire Reserve offers a 1-year DashPass membership. With this service you pay $0 delivery fees when ordering at least $12 from participating restaurants.

You also get $120 of DoorDash credit. This is broken up over two years. You will receive $60 of credit in 2020 and another $60 of credit in 2021. Not a bad benefit overall and one that just about every card holder should be able to take advantage of.

We don’t need no stinking fees!

This card is advertised as a travel card. As such you wouldn’t expect a travel card to have any foreign transaction fees. The Sapphire Reserve doesn’t disappoint. This is an excellent card for purchases made internationally while traveling or even from merchants who may be based in other countries. Say goodbye to those 3% fees.

Those are just 7 reasons why the Chase Sapphire Reserve is still a great option to have in your wallet. Is there a reason that I didn’t include that is a reason you keep this card? We’d love to know. Drop us a comment below, on YouTube, or one of our social media accounts.

The post 7 Reasons to keep the Chase Sapphire Reserve in 2020 appeared first on My Credit Card IQ.

With the recent updates announced to the Chase Sapphire Reserve. A lot of credit card enthusiasts have been talking about changes. One of which involves Chase teaming up with Lyft. In this article we will look at how you can earn more on Lyft Rides with Chase. Particularly 10X ultimate rewards points per dollar spent beginning January 12, 2020.

I just found out by doing some reading on lyft.com that this perk is currently slated to last until March of 2022. But I also read about some other exciting information that applies across multiple Chase credit cards.

Chase Credit Cards that earn more with Lyft

Chase Sapphire Reserve: 

        10x total points on Lyft Rides 

        1 year of complimentary Lyft Pink membership per account (business profile is not eligible)

Chase Sapphire Preferred, Sapphire, Ink Preferred, and Ink Plus: 

        5x total points on Lyft Rides 

Chase Freedom, Student, and Unlimited: 

        5% total cash back on Lyft rides 

Chase Ink, Cash, Business, and Unlimited:

        5% total cash back on Lyft rides 

How to earn

Getting started is a breeze.

Step 1: Make sure you have the latest version of the Lyft app downloaded.

Step 2: Set your eligible Chase card as your default payment method.

Step 3: Earn on rides through March 2022.

Please note starting on Jan 12, you’ll be able to activate the Lyft Pink membership. Set your Chase Sapphire Reserve card as the default payment method in the Lyft app (not available for business profiles) by March 2022 and in-app messaging will guide eligible cardmembers through the complimentary enrollment.

How each Chase card earns with lyft

Without taking into consideration other benefits and only looking at the lyft multiplier we will do the math and see where the breakeven point is.

• Chase Sapphire Reserve

With the Chase Sapphire Reserve, you will earn 10X points which can be worth up to a 20% return. Since this benefit is only being added for Chase to up the annual fee by $100. We will use that amount as the breakeven point. You’d have to spend $500 on lyft each year to cover the cost of the $100 fee increase.

$500 X 20% = $100

• Chase Sapphire Preferred, Sapphire, Ink Preferred, and Ink Plus

With the Chase Sapphire Preferred, Sapphire, Ink Preferred, and Ink Plus cards all having a $95 annual fee and earning 5X points which can be worth up to a 10% return. You’d have to spend $950 on lyft each year to cover the cost of the $95 annual fee.

$950 x 10% = $95

• Chase Freedom, Student, and Unlimited and the Chase Ink, Cash, Business, and Unlimited

With the Chase Freedom, Student, and Unlimited cards and the Chase Ink, Cash, Business, and Unlimited cards you earn a flat 5% back. These cards have no annual fee. So there is no break even point here as you have no annual fee to cover. 

What is the best Chase Credit Card to use for lyft?

If you already have the Chase Sapphire Reserve and use Lyft on a regular basis you will probably benefit from keeping it to pay for your Lyft rides.

I think the sweet spot will be to use one of the credit cards with a $95 annual fee. The Chase Sapphire Preferred, Sapphire, Ink Preferred, and Ink Plus as these cards had no increase of the annual fee as of the writing of this article. 

If you have never used lyft before, you can get a free $5.00 credit by clicking here. 

Overall Thoughts

Chase teaming up with Lyft makes sense as a way to add perks that the competitor has.  American Express and Uber have teamed up a while back now. However for those with the Sapphire Preferred in their wallets, this change is pretty lackluster for most. For those with any of the other Chase credit cards mentioned, they will probably receive the most benefit since there is no extra charge attached. 

The post Chase Teaming up with Lyft | Earn with these cards appeared first on My Credit Card IQ.

This amount is up from the $450 annual fee that many of the cards loyal supporters have grown comfortable with and for good reason. As this credit card offered some amazing perks, especially the initial sign-up bonus of 100,000 chase ultimate reward points.

What’s New?

Well, besides the obvious bad news of the $100 annual fee increase. Let’s look at what your new $550 annual fee will get you. The annual fee increase takes effect on January 12, 2020 for new card holders. If you currently have the Chase Sapphire Reserve you will be locked into the $450 annual fee if your anniversary date is prior to April 1, 2020. The below benefits however will go into effect on January 12, 2020 for current and new card holders alike.

• 10x points on Lyft rides — up from the current 3x rate for Lyft rides and all other travel purchases

• Complimentary Lyft Pink membership — you can activate a year for free. Lyft charges $19.99 per month for this service. This will get you access to 15% off car rides, priority airport pickups, surprise offers, relaxed cancellation policies, and up to three free 30-minute bike and scooter rides (including with Citi Bike) per month in certain metropolitan areas

• Up to $120 in DoorDash credits for food delivery — in addition to offering Sapphire Reserve cardmembers a complimentary year of DashPass membership with DoorDash for waived delivery fees and more. DoorDash charges $9.99 per month for this service. Chase is also adding statement credits for the food-delivery service DoorDash. You’ll get up to $60 in 2020, and up to $60 in 2021.

Do these new benefits justify the new annual fee?

Is Chase Sapphire Reserve annual fee increasing to $550 worth the price? It’s a simple question that has more than one answer. It really boils down to if you already use these services that are being added. One year of Lyft Pink membership is valued at $239. One year of DashPass membership is valued at $119. The two years of DoorDash credits you will get is a value of $120. That’s a value of $418 in the first year alone. If Chase decides not to extend the Lyft Pink membership or the DashPass membership you are still receiving $478 in value in the first two years alone.

But, that is only real value if you already use these services and value them as such. If you only start using these services because you have the Chase Sapphire Reserve, you aren’t saving money. The DashPass membership and DoorDash credit will most likely be easier to use and justify. Many people love their cars and rarely use rideshare services unless it’s for a ride to the airport or you live in a metropolitan area.

If you use Lyft regularly, I’d say 2-3 times per week. Getting 10X chase points per dollar now will be extremely exciting and will more than cover the $100 annual fee increase.

Is Chase Removing Any Benefits?

The Chase Sapphire Reserve will still include the same benefits you have come used to relying on, including:

• $300 in annual statement credits towards travel
• Priority Pass select membership for airport lounge access
• 3X points on travel and dining
• No foreign transaction fees
• Trip delay and cancellation coverage

It would have been nice to see an increase in the travel and dining multiplier or an added earning category like gasoline or groceries. However, at least we can breathe a sigh of relief knowing that they haven’t taken any benefits away.

The Verdict

Ultimately it will come down to your spending habits and if you find value in these new added benefits. The value provided can come in handy and save you some serious green. Sadly, if you won’t use these credits it is going to be hard to justify keeping this card in your wallet for that steep $550 annual fee. Thankfully, instead of cancelling the card you have plenty of downgrade options.

Check back for more updates soon as we will be diving into plenty of information on the Chase Sapphire Reserve card and many other great credit cards. If you like earning 5X points check out the ABOC Platinum Rewards Mastercard.

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