Technology
Chase Sapphire 2025 OVERHAUL: Is the $795 Reserve Card Worth It?
In this episode of Points for Normal People, host Katie discusses the significant updates to the Chase Sapphire cards as of Fall 2025, focusing on the $795 Reserve Card and its new benefits. She provi...
Chase Sapphire 2025 OVERHAUL: Is the $795 Reserve Card Worth It?
Technology •
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Interactive Transcript
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Today I'm diving into the important updates you need to know about Chase Sapphire cards
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as of Fall 2025.
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One of my pet peeves is bloggers and creators who act like chicken little every time things
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change on favorite cards and in favorite points programs.
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Here's the thing.
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Changes are inevitable and the sky is not actually falling.
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In fact, in this case the cards added some new unique benefits that you might not even
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know about yet.
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Welcome back to Points for Normal People.
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I'm Katie and I'm here because I know that travel costs add up, especially for a family.
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But I believe travel isn't just for the rich.
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That's why on Points for Normal People I share the tips and tricks that my family has been
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using for over a decade to help you use your everyday expenses and credit card welcome
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offers to supercharge your travel points so that you can pay for entire vacations every
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year.
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The first thing I want to emphasize in this episode is that change is inevitable.
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Credit cards, banks, hotels, airlines, all of these businesses are for profits that are
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going to do their darness to make more money.
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Any time you see something that seems like it has an outsized value, in my experience,
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it's not going to last.
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And it can be really frustrating to be saving up for a specific redemption and find the
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value has dropped significantly.
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That's tough.
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It can be frustrating to feel like you're just getting into points and you're just behind
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the curve and it feels like you missed all the good deals by a few months or a few years.
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It's frustrating to have to take more mental energy to pivot your strategy to accommodate
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for changes.
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Let me tell you as a podcaster and a blogger, it's frustrating for me to have to go back
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and update a whole bunch of older content to make sure it stays up to date.
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But as someone who has been all in on this hobby for 14 years, I can tell you that in
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those 14 years, I have seen many a deal or sweet spot leave us forever.
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And so am I still a little sad about?
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I'm tempted to go into the details, but I'm stopping myself because I hate when bloggers
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or podcasters reminisce about the good old days because it just makes newcomers feel like
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they missed out.
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But what I've seen time and again is that new deals and new sweet spots emerge.
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This is even true of points usage in general.
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A lot of people are constantly bemoaning points devaluations.
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What they mean is that the cost of something specific in points is increasing.
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I really think this is an inaccurate way to talk about it overall.
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Yes, over the past 14 years, I have seen hotels and flights cost more over time.
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But do you know it's also increased?
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Earning potential for points.
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And I actually think that the earning potential has increased more dramatically
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than the points prices.
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As one simple example, for years and years, the Chase Sapphire preferred card had a standard
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welcome offer of 50,000 points.
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The standard offer on that card has now been raised to 75,000 points if you spend $5,000 in
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the first three months.
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The annual fee is even the same, but now you can earn 50% more points.
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Incards, like the Inc Business Cash credit card, used to top off their offers with $500
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or 50,000 points.
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But now we've seen at times they're up to $900 or 90,000 points, even on these no annual fee cards.
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So that's my long preface to say, don't be discouraged.
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It's going to be okay.
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And we'll walk through these updates and how to pivot strategy together.
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Today, I'll dive into the 2025 changes to the Sapphire cards.
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And a few fun new little perks on these cards you might not know about.
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Next episode, we'll talk about changes to the Chase Business cards that earn ultimate rewards.
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Most of these changes took place in summer 2025.
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First up is the changes to the Chase Sapphire preferred card.
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This card has an updated standard offer, as I just mentioned.
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Right before this, the standard offer was 60,000 points.
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It's now 75,000 points.
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And that's great.
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One tough change, though, is that the minimum spend requirement is now $5,000 in three months.
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And that's tough for a lot of families.
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If you don't normally spend $5,000 on a credit card in three months,
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you might need to be strategic about when you open this card.
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I'd suggest aligning when you open it with a month or two when you have bigger purchases.
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Maybe when your car insurance needs to be paid or when you have home projects or kid summer camp
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to pay for.
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Eligibility criteria has changed also, and it's a little unclear if this is positive or negative yet.
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It used to be that you could only apply for a Sapphire preferred if it had been 48 months or more
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since you had received a bonus on any Sapphire product, Sapphire preferred or Chase Sapphire reserve.
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And it had to be that you held no other Sapphire product at that time.
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So even if you had a very old no annual fee Sapphire card, which hasn't been available for a long time,
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you had to cancel or change that into a freedom card before you could apply for a Sapphire
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preferred card and receive a bonus on it.
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Now the terms are a lot more vague.
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It now says the new card member bonus may not be available to you if you currently have any other
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personal Sapphire cards open, previously held this card or received a new card member bonus for
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this card. When people first started reading these terms, they worried that this meant you would
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only be able to get a bonus on this card once ever. But so far what we've seen in data points
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were collecting is that in fact, it's just inconsistent. In some cases, more people are eligible
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than before and in some cases it seems like fewer. As of fall 2025, we honestly don't know exactly
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what this language will mean long term. One more change that I think is positive overall is that
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when you fill out an application and click apply, if Chase looks at your previous Sapphire cards with
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and your overall credit history and decides that indeed you don't qualify for this bonus,
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they will give you a pop-up that says something like, you aren't eligible for this bonus,
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do you want to proceed with the application anyway? This is very similar to the way American express
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runs. Now if you really wanted the card just for the benefits, you could proceed and forego the bonus.
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But they do this before they check your credit. So there's no ding to your credit just for seeing if
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you might be eligible for a Sapphire bonus. I will add that even though the terms seem vague enough
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that you might be able to apply for a Sapphire preferred while already holding a Sapphire reserve,
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we aren't seeing many people or any people approved for this very commonly. There's also a change
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to the way that you can redeem points via Chase Travel with a new program called Points Boost.
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I'm going to wait and talk about this a little bit later in the episode because this changed on
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the Sapphire reserve and ink preferred cards as well. Overall the changes to the Sapphire preferred
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aren't huge and they're fairly easy to grasp. I'd consider them overall somewhat neutral.
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The Sapphire reserve on the other hand has been totally refreshed. This means that they changed a lot
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and I'm going to go over these changes here but it's a lot to take in. In the show notes you could
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find my detailed article on all the new benefits so you can go over them yourself. Overall this has
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become a giant coupon book at a big price point. The price point, the annual fee is now $795.
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It's a lot. It is one of the highest annual fees of any publicly available card in the US.
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But this is one of those things where changes aren't always bad. So we were a family that opened a
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Sapphire reserve right when it was released in 2016. The annual fee was just $450 at that time and the
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card had a $300 annual travel credit that was so easy to use. So for us it felt like it had a net
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fee of $150 plus it gave us lounge benefits and a better rate via chase travel. Spending $450 a year
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on a card felt crazy to me at the time but the math made sense so we did it. Then in 2020 the annual
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fee raised to $550 and by then the math didn't work in our favor. The Sapphire reserve lounge
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benefits had dwindled down from when we first got it. It would have cost us $75 to add another
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authorized user to get enough lounge access for our family. So we product changed that into a
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freedom card instead. Now it's five years later and this summer with the refresh the card went
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up to $795 and the funny thing to me was that even at that crazy price point for us the math
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actually worked in our favor. So now we got it again. So I personally got it by upgrading a freedom
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card when chase kept putting out social media posts that the card was going to be refreshed.
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Sometimes with a refresh you get advanced info and in this case chase did release the details
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in advance. So I decided to upgrade my freedom card because it was a way I could lock in the $550
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annual fee for a year and because Mike and I already both had Sapphire preferred cards I know I
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probably wouldn't be eligible for a new card member bonus anyway. The math might not work in your
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favor just because it works in my favor I don't want you to ever feel pressure or phomo to think
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it should work for you. I'm just sharing this as a specific example that things change and you do
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have to do your own calculations. We've tried to make these calculations even easier for you
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with a new benefits calculator we added to our blog post for this card. This allows you to assign a
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value to each of the benefits according to what you think the value is to help you see if it really
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makes sense for you or not. So let's get into the changes and I will share as I go how I value each
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of these benefits personally. My values aren't meant to be prescriptive it's just a personal descriptive
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example. As I said the annual fee is now up by $245 it was $550 and now it's $7.95 even worse the cost
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to add an authorized user is now $195 where it used to be $75 so I personally did not add mica
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as an authorized user. The only reason to add him would be for him to get his own lounge access
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but he has that through other cards. $795 is a big out of pocket cost to make up. This is an
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incredibly hefty annual fee and that fee alone will mean a lot of people will pass this card up.
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It's not a beginner friendly card at this price point but some people will see that astronomical fee
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and look at the annual credits and decide that surprisingly it makes sense for them. It all depends
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on how you already do your spending if this card provides true value to you. Now this card already
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had some premium benefits and those aren't changing at all. I won't go over those in detail but I
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will mention them briefly here. Those include it has a very easy to use $300 travel credit.
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It is the easiest travel credit of any premium card. If you pay for anything that codes as travel
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you will get a statement credit for those purchases until you reach $300 even parking counts.
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It also has access to sapphire lounges and priority pass lounges for the card holder and two guests.
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If you're flying on a star alliance airline you can also get into select air canada maple lounges
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It has two $10 a month door dash credits for non restaurants and another $5 a month door dash credit
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you can use anywhere. So it already had those it still has those but now it has more benefits and
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credits hence the coupon book aspect of it. It now has added through June 2027 a free subscription
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to Apple TV plus and Apple music. Normally Apple TV plus cost $9.99 a month and Apple music costs
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$10.99 a month. So this is useful if you already pay for these or if you're willing to switch from
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another music service like Spotify to save. There are even services that help you transfer all your
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playlists if you're switching over. Personally I value this at about $100 a year. We have Apple TV
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plus most of the year but not all. There's another new perk if you're a Peloton user of earning 10
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x points and up to $10 per month. If you already have a subscription with Peloton this is a true credit.
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If not it might be a fun perk or it might be worthless to you. The cheapest option is a
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subscription to the strength plus app which costs $9.99 a month. This credit should cover that in full
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but note that you have to activate this benefit at a specific website before you'll start getting
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that credit. I personally valued this for me as $0 because I don't use it. A bigger credit that
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was more exciting to me is that you get a total of $300 statement credit per year for StubHub
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or via GoGo. This is broken into two credits. You get $150 statement credit for purchases twice a year.
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One of the $150 will be good from January 1st to June 30th and then between July 1st and December 31st
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you get another credit to use. Now this credit is good through June 27th, 2027 as of now.
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Like the Peloton credit, this requires a one time activation before it will work.
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And note that events in the UK for some reason will not work. You have to tread somewhat
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cautiously if you're coming up to the date of the cutoffs too. I'm not sure yet if it will code
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properly based on when you made the purchase. So I'd recommend using it at least a few days before
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those deadlines before June 30th and December 31st each year. For us this is a great credit as we
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actually use StubHub regularly to buy tickets to sports events. Yeah, Go Cubs and theatre
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productions in Chicago. We particularly like using StubHub for last minute tickets like when we
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saw Hamilton for $50. But as with all the credits you need to value it according to how you actually
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spend your money. For us this is worth a full $300 a year but it might be worth nothing for you.
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You also get a similar credit for restaurants but only particular restaurants. The list is linked
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in my Sapphire Reserve Guide. If you dine in at these restaurants a statement credit will be
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automatically applied. You can get a maximum of $150 in statement credits from January 1st through
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June 30th. Then it resets and you can get up to another $150 from July 1st through December 31st.
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For a total maximum accumulation of $300 in statement credits each calendar year.
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The fine print says to make sure you pay with a physical card as Apple Pay and Digital Wallets
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may not code properly for the statement credit. And as of September 20th for 25 there are some
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problems for people getting this to code properly at some restaurants even when paying with their
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physical card so you definitely want to check up on this one. I think this is a fun new benefit
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if you live in one of the cities with these restaurants or you'll travel to them. Some of the
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restaurants are pretty high end and some have more medium priced meals in the $20 to $30 range.
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So for us this means we could probably get three to four dates a year out of using this benefit
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and that's fun or maybe two fancy dates but it's easy for us to use because we live in the suburbs
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of Chicago. It might not be easy for you. So personally I'd value this at probably about $250.
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Side note if you live in Denver and get this card I will give a shout out to Teverna which is on
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the list and my sister told me it is their favorite restaurant in Denver and my sister and her
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husband own a restaurant so she would know what a good restaurant is. The next credit is one that
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I think for most people listening might go unused. Remember that it's okay to leave a benefit
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unused if it will cost you more to redeem it than you want to spend. This has a little bit more of
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a complicated calculation and this is a hotel credit. Specifically it is marketed as a $500
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credit for stays with the edit collection but it's not as good as it sounds because like the credits
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above it comes in two credits. Now when this was first released each credit came for exactly half
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the year. Now it's been updated and as of January 1st 2026 you'll instead get two of the $250
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credits each calendar year so it's more flexible than it initially was. You don't have to wait till
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July to get your second credit. To get the credit you're required to book a two night minimums day
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and it has to be booked through Chase Travel and you have to book one of these the edit collection
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hotels. So I initially scoffed at this edit credit because at first glance it seemed to me that
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most of the edit collection hotels were very expensive and on my first skin through some of these
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hotels also seem to be priced much higher via Chase Travel than Booking Direct. But I've changed my
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tune a little bit about doing a little bit more digging into the possibilities here. So I want to
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briefly go through what I think some of the sweet spots are that I've found. When you book a hotel
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through Chase's edit collection you get a few more perks so this includes a 100 to 200 dollar
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property credit daily breakfast for two and a possible room upgrade. Going back to the benefits
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calculator now I personally still don't assign this a value because if I can use it I consider it
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just an extra perk. But I'll go through some sweet spots and some places that I think it could be
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used usefully. In fact my first example of a sweet spot is my own use. Mike and I in fact use this
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back in August. We had a chance to take a very quick two-night getaway trip. Our first one ever
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since having kids. And I was browsing hotels in the Kenkun area because that's a very easy non-stop
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flight for us. I realized that the impression Mokshe by Secrets which is also under the world of
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Hayet umbrella and it's a hotel that I'd considered before was part of this edit collection.
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And I realized that by using my edit collection credit and booking via Chase Travel and then
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paying the rest with points directly in Chase Travel it was actually going to be cheaper than by
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booking if I were to transfer my Chase points to World of Hayet and book that way. And we got
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some extra perks too. So here's how that worked. Impression Mokshe for my dates would have cost 50,000
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high-end points per night if I'd booked directly through Hayet or 100,000 points for a two-night
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stay. That's a lot. If you've been listening to this podcast you know that transferring ultimate
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rewards to Hayet and booking high-end hotels is one of our favorite ways to use our points.
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But in this case we found a better option via the edit collection credits. So the price for our
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hotel on Hayet.com was $837 per night with the total coming out to just over $1,600.
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It's usually going to be a little cheaper on Hayet.com because they often have a cheaper
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member's rate. On Chase Travel for our dates the hotel cost $1,800 for the same room. So it was
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about $200 more and at first glance that might seem like the $250 that we were getting from the
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edit collection is pretty much a wash. But you do get one more perk booking via the edit collection
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which is a $200 property credit. So that does add some theoretical value back. With some of the
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edit properties including this one you still get to earn elite night credits too. So we knew we'd
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earn those whether we were booking through Chase Travel or directly through Hayet. But here's the
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last part that made it cheaper for us to book via Chase Travel. Edit properties are part of the new
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points boost pricing with Chase Travel. So overall points boost and I'll go into this in a minute
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is hit or miss because the new standard redemption rate is lower. It's one cent per point. But if a
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property is on points boost it's higher than it used to be. In this case and I've since learned
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that all edit collection properties are the same. It was on points boost with a redemption rate of
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two cents per point. This is much higher than the rate ever used to be with a Sapphire Reserve.
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So remember how it cost $1,800 for my two nights? Here's how it actually broke down. I brought up
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the reservation via Chase Travel and I chose to pay with cash plus points. I wanted to use
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$250 in cash and the rest in points. So it started at $1,800 and I paid $250 knowing it would be
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reimbursed. That meant I needed points to cover the remaining $1,500 and 50 cost. Because the rate
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was two cents per point it cost me $77,500 points to book or about 39,000 points per night. That was
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11,000 points cheaper per night than booking directly with Hayet. I still got my elite night credits
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for my Hayet status and we got a $200 property credit as well. Another perk I really liked of
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booking this way was that if you book with Hayet points you can only select the base level room.
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But if you book with Chase Travel you have more room options so you can choose a specific room
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with a view or with other perks. In our case nothing else was available because I was booking
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about two weeks before our trip. But on other dates when I was researching for instance, I saw
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rooms with a swim out pool which is not typically bookable with points. I will also take a moment to
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say that this hotel was incredible. Of course we had such a relaxing stay since it was our first
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kid free getaway in 13 years. But the service was amazing. As a mom I take care of little things
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all the time and this was such a treat to feel so taken care of. Like when we arrived at the pool
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they brought us to a chair and gave us towels and tucked our towels in around our seats.
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And one night we were asking our butler because we even had a butler if there were any pools or
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hot tubs open later than 6 p.m. which there aren't. But she replied back via WhatsApp that she could
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fill up the hot tub on our balcony for us. And when we got back up to the room she had set out
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towels and slippers and incense and robes for us. The property credit was less useful because it's
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already a very fancy all inclusive and to be honest $200 won't go very far in the spa. We ended
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up using our credit on an upgraded dining taco experience which was a private dinner with a chef
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and it was a lot of fun. I wouldn't have paid $200 for it but for free it was delightful.
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The math really worked out on this one because we were going in somewhat of an off season.
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And that's where you're often going to find sweet spots with those edit credits.
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That's because the value is always going to be tied to the price in cash.
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So if you can find a cheaper cash price your credit and your points will stretch further.
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I also saw some good at pricing on edit collection hotels for Chicago in December which is a time
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we actually love to go to Chicago. Or one of my friends booked a staycation for herself in Scottsdale
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with her credit in the heat of summer which is off season there. Starting in 2026 you could even
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use your credits back to back to cover four nights at the same property. But if you do that just
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know that you can't double zip on those on property benefits those on property credits you'll just
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get them one time. And then just for 2026 there was announced one more hotel credit for a list of
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hotel brands. Most notably iHG hotels and resorts are included. This is a one time $250
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statement credit for booking these hotels via chase travel. This could be pretty useful I think
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because there are so many good iHG hotels. Now this does have a two-night minimum as well.
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Now what we can't test yet because the credit isn't live as I prepared this episode
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is if this will stack with the edit credit. I actually suspect it will stack because when I
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booked the impression mokche it gave me the edit credit and then it also gave me $250 of my annual
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travel credit. So I think that if you found an iHG hotel that was also part of the edit collection
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you could get both of those credits for the same hotel in 2026. I'm not 100% sure but I suspect it
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might work. So that's a lot right? The Sapphire Reserve is truly what I call a full-brainer card now.
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You really have to take time to understand the benefits and the perks and do some math on it.
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If you just listen to me rattle off those credits and you feel tired just listening to it
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this card is probably not for you and that's okay. Not every card is for every person.
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But I did want to be sure to go over these details for anyone who's interested or wants to
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understand the new benefits. Again we have a really easy calculator on the Sapphire Reserve guide
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that will make this easy to figure out if it's worth it for you. I briefly mentioned points
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boost and even though the Sapphire episode is getting long I want to go back to that because it is
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a change of how points work via chase travel. This affects the Sapphire Preferred, the Sapphire
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Reserve and the ink preferred. The Sapphire Preferred and the ink preferred used to have a standard
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redemption rate via chase travel of 1.25 cents per point. That meant if you redeemed 10,000 points it
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would cover $125 of value and the Sapphire Reserve was slightly better. It was 1.5 cents per point.
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If you redeemed 10,000 points it would cover $150 of value. Now all of these cards will sometimes
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be better than that and sometimes be worse. But the most important thing for you to understand
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is that you might now want to just take the extra step of comparing your options if you're booking a
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hotel. The new standard redemption rate is 1 cent per point. That means that if you redeemed 10,000
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points you'd get $100 of travel. So this is the exact same as caching out for a statement credit.
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So if you're only getting 1 cent per point, I'd usually recommend that you book directly with
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the hotel and then just take cash back off your card to mentally cover it. But sometimes hotels and
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flights will be under points boost. On the Sapphire Preferred and the ink preferred card,
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a points boost will mean that your points can be worth up to 1.5 cents per point.
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Occasionally for premium cabins on select airlines it says it will be up to 1.75 cents per point.
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So those higher rates can lead to some opportunities where you can use fewer points for hotels and
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flights. On the Sapphire Reserve and the new Sapphire Reserve for business points can be worth up to
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2 cents per point. As I explained with my example from the Edit Hotel Collection, those edit
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hotels are always at 2 cents per point is my understanding. But other hotels are too.
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Hiyetsiva cancun for instance, which is our family's favorite all-inclusive, is not on the
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Edit Collection but is still on points boost. And this has a huge potential savings over
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booking directly with Hiyets for many dates. With Hiyets it would cost me 50,000 points per night
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plus another $125 per kid per night. Or more maybe now that my kids are teens. So it would cost
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at least 50,000 points plus $250 per night. With my Sapphire Reserve I found dates that would
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cost about 47,000 points per night, which sounds similar but that already includes the kids.
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So I'm saving $250 per night booking this way. I can't earn elite night credits via Hiyets in
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this particular redemption but it's still a big savings. With the Sapphire Preferred you're getting
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1.5 cents per point on this hotel so you won't see the same rate of savings but it still might save
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you money versus transferring points to Hiyets. And remember that the Sapphire Preferred has a $50 per
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year hotel credit so leave at least $50 paid in cash so that you can get that credit as a statement
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credit later. I also saw on points boost at least one of the hotels at Universal that gives free
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express passes and those are so great for making a Universal trip easier. So again overall there will
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be some better deals and some worse deals and you need to make sure you're looking at Chase
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Travel and you're comparing the price to booking directly with the hotel in an airline to make
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sure you're getting the best deal for you. Look at the cash price. Maybe it's the best use for
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you to just book direct and then cash out some points for a statement credit or maybe it will make
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sense for you to transfer points or miles to that hotel or airline loyalty program and book that
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way or maybe points boost is your best deal. I get it the extra step is annoying. You don't have
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to do it but it shouldn't take more than a few minutes to compare the new pricing with Chase
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and then compare that to the price of booking directly. I'm about to close out but first I wanted
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to talk about a fun little perk that I recently learned about that both the Sapphire Preferred
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and Reserve have. It's not directly a benefit through Chase but it's one associated with these
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being Visa cards and that's that you can get one free eSIM card per year through Gig Sky.
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Now this is actually true for any Visa Signature or Visa Infinite card. If you're not sure if your
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card is a Visa Signature or an Infinite card you can just look at your card and it will say
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Signature or Infinite below the Visa logo. If you have multiple of these you can stack the benefits
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for multiple eSIM cards in a year. I personally loaded up three cards to my Gig Sky account.
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So even though my team mobile plan includes international data I often find that it's pretty slow
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but other US carriers sometimes charge you $10 per day for this. If you have a newer phone
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it probably has the capability to add an eSIM like this for data when you travel and it's often
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faster and could be cheaper than what your US carrier offers you. You do need to have your phone
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unlocked though to make this work. I'll leave a link in the show notes on how you can activate this.
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You can just download the Gig Sky app and you'll see it has a pretty prominent button when you
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log on inviting you to check for your Visa card benefits. Again keep in mind your phone does need to
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be unlocked for this to work but they also include info on their FAQ page when all the different
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carriers will let you unlock your phone for free. So personally I've been using AeroLow for eSIMs
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which has always worked but plan to try this out for free on our next trip. The next episode will
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be another update to season one that focuses on changes to the Chase Business cards that earn
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ultimate rewards. Just a few action steps for you today. If you have a Sapphire Reserve I'm going
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to recommend you review our post on all the changes to make sure you really understand all the new
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benefits. You can find that link in the show notes. If you have a trip you've been planning but
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haven't yet booked the hotels I encourage you not just Sapphire Reserve customers but just Chase
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customers to take a minute to try out Chase Travel and Points Boost and see if you find any savings
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there. And finally download the Gig Sky app if you want to try it out for your next trip. You can
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add your cards in advance of a trip but then you wait to activate the benefit until you're about to
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begin. As a quick side note I know the podcast was off for a long time before coming back for this
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episode. To be honest we had a lot of stuff going on in our personal life that made it hard for me
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to make new episodes. Going forward at least for the next few months I plan to release episodes
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every other week instead of every week to see if that helps me to gain a better habit and a better
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routine as far as getting them out consistently. Thank you so much for your patience as I have
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taken a long time to get back to it. I really appreciate all the emails and support and just
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everyone. Even people checking in to see if I was okay. I do intend to continue the podcast but
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sometimes it does take me a while to get back to it with other things that we have going on in
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our life. We had a lot of work this summer also with updating and editing old podcast episodes
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and YouTube videos and the website for a lot of changes that rolled out so thank you so much
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for your patience. If you are not on my newsletter list I will just give a quick plug for that as well
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because that is the place that we send that out every Saturday without fail and always do include
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the latest most important news that you need. We really try to curate it to keep it important
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news and we also include in that like if there's any great offers those will always be in there
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as well as we include any new resources that we've added to our site. There's a sign up
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link for the newsletter in the show notes and that is the best place to make sure you're consistently
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getting the most up-to-date information. Thanks so much for being with me today and I can't wait to
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see you next time where we will continue unlocking these secrets of travel points together.