The Sapphire Reserve was one of the cards on which I charged the most expenses in 2023. I always have the card in my wallet, but it gets used most when traveling, to pay for restaurants and transit. It’s also the card I use to pay for our travel expenses like airfare, hotels and rental cars, because of the excellent coverage it provides.
So why am I thinking about ditching the card?
The Case For The Sapphire Reserve
I’ve reviewed the Sapphire Reserve, explaining what you’ll get for the $550 annual fee. While it’s in the top tier of luxury travel cards, it doesn’t offer a ton of bonus perks to offset the fee, as you’ll get with the American Express Platinum. The only statement credit you’ll get is the $300 annual travel credit which effectively brings down the fee to $250. You’ll get a $100 credit for Global Entry, NEXUS, or TSA Precheck every 4 years, which only works out to $20 – $25 per year.
There’s also a monthly DoorDash credit and free Lyft Pink, but those are ancillary benefits and don’t bring much value to the table
Where the Sapphire Reserve shines is with the coverage you get. The card has some of the best trip delay coverage available. It also provides primary rental car coverage, emergency evacuation, luggage delay, lost luggage, trip cancellation, travel accident, purchase protection, return protection, and extended warranty coverage.
The Case Against The Sapphire Reserve
One of the biggest arguments against the Sapphire Reserve is that it isn’t much better than the Sapphire Preferred. When I compared the two cards, there wasn’t much difference between them.
The things you’ll get with the Reserve are:
- Priority Pass Membership
- Global Entry, NEXUS or TSA Precheck reimbursement
- Extra value primary rental car coverage
- Trip Delay coverage starts at six hours
- $100,000 Emergency medical evacuation coverage
- $10,000 per item purchase protection coverage
- Return Protection
- Earn an extra point per dollar on travel and dining
- Points worth 1.5 cents on Chase Travel Portal
For these benefits, you’re paying an additional $155 in annual fees. Until now, I’ve been paying up to keep the Sapphire Reserve. It was a questionable choice, but I liked the better trip delay coverage, and the Priority Pass Select membership was better than the ones offered by AMEX and Capital One.
The Final Straw
If nothing else changed, why am I willing to remove the Chase Sapphire Reserve from my card lineup? We now have a card that offers almost identical benefits: the Ritz Carlton Card.
Both the Sapphire Reserve and Ritz Carlton Card are Visa Infinite cards and have very similar benefits. The Ritz Carlton Card has a lower $450 annual fee but offsets that with a $300 air travel credit and a free night certificate good for rooms up to 85,000 Marriott Bonvoy points. IMHO, that means it’s reasonably easy to break even with the Ritz-Carlton Card before using any of the perks while you need to find $250 worth of benefit to break even with the Sapphire Reserve.
What’s A Reasonable Strategy?
I previously said that the Sapphire Reserve was one of my most used cards last year. So where would I move that spending? For my restaurant expenses, I could use the Sapphire Preferred or the Freedom Unlimited instead and still earn 3X points. I could also move to a different point ecosystem. Here are several cards we have that earn 3X on dining expenses:
- Citi Premier
- Green Card
- Bilt Rewards
For travel expenses, I’d have to use the Ritz-Carlton card for when I’d want to keep the travel protections. Fortunately, many of those expenses are small. For example, when we book a domestic flight with points, we only have to pay $5.60 in taxes with the card to get the travel coverage. The downside would be that I’d earn Marriott Bonvoy points instead of a transferrable point. Since we tend to stay at Marriotts often, I’ll easily find a use for the points.
For larger travel expenses, where I care about earning points, I’d probably use the Sapphire Preferred and earn 2X points, or if it’s a business trip, I could use the Ink Preferred and earn 3X points.
One thing to think about is that by closing the Sapphire Reserve, I’ll have to do something with the Ultimate Rewards in my account. In my case, I can transfer them to my Ink Preferred card, or I can transfer them to Sharon’s Sapphire Preferred account. Either of these options will keep the points alive and allow me to transfer them to any of Chase’s Ultimate Rewards partners.
Final Thought
To be honest, I didn’t even think about the Ritz Carlton Card being the final piece in the puzzle that would make the Sapphire Reserve lose its value. However, the two cards overlap in so many categories that it doesn’t make sense to keep them both. And since the Ritz Carlton Card provides more benefits and has a lower annual fee, it’s not a difficult decision.
This is why you have to continually review your cards and see if they are still providing value. Just 24 hours ago, I was sure that the Sapphire Reserve was one of the most important cards in my wallet, and now it’s probably going to be canceled at the next renewal. I am aware that I can downgrade it, but I’ve had it for several years, and canceling means that I’ll soon be able to apply for another signup bonus.
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