Question about Chase Sapphire Preferred Card

If things go upside down, especially with airlines, it is best to be booked directly with the company with whom you are doing business. The 5x reward points are great... until your trip gets ruined by irregular operations and its hard to find someone willing to help you, like happened to one of my buddies.

I don't think portals are like 3rd party sites.
The one I use sends me to the offical site of whatever I'm buying.

Hi Mike, first, you might want to edit your title—instead of saying 'First Travel Credit Card', call it 'Question about Chase Sapphire Preferred Card', and that will get you some responses from people that actually have the card and have used it.

I have used it, but I have only booked through the portal once. There are other people out there who are a lot more knowledgeable than I am, so I am going to refrain from answering, but I would suggest you change the title so they will see the specific card you are referring to.

And for what it's worth, I agree with Liz. I booked a flight last year through the portal, and everything went fine. All my dealings were with the airline, not the credit card company.

Pro- you'll trigger the annual $50 hotel statement credit

Con- dealing with an extra layer vs directly with the hotel if you need to change or cancel

Well, I have some bad news for you. I believe you have been deceived (in a completely legal, market-speak way, but deceived nonetheless).

For context, I have had this card for many years (decades, actually). It used to be a great card, with lots of great benefits. Last year Chase nerfed the card (and it's entire rewards program, to a great degree), and it's no longer what I would call "great." Maybe OK, maybe half-decent, maybe "good enough" for many people, but no longer a solid, no-brainer, easy-to-justify choice. To borrow a phrase from Obi-Wan Kenobi, "this is not the card you are looking for."

The cut to the Chase (pardon the expression), here's the dirty little deception that you missed:

"Earn 5X on Chase Travel*" Note that tiny little asterisk. It makes a big difference, and dashes your hopes of loading up on massive points at 5X for anything travel-related. If you had clicked on that little asterisk, or read all the fine print carefully, you would have (probably) seen that you only get 5X points on things you book through the "Chase Travel Portal." The problem there is, most of what you want to buy is either not available through the Chase Travel Portal (which I'm going to abbreviate here as "CTP" because I'm tired of typing it over and over), or if it is available via the CTP, its price there is inflated, and you would save money just buying it directly. Never mind all the (mostly valid) admonitions that folks here will share about adding a third-party in the mix (these concerns are often valid, but are not necessarily always a deal-killer...but the higher prices you'll typically pay through the CTP are a deal killer, most of the time - there are exceptions, but explaining that is complicated and will just make your head spin, so I'll skip that).

The CTP is generally not a great deal, for most people. You can almost always find the exact same thing at a lower price elsewhere, including buying direct. If you pay for something with money (not paying with points), the prices at the CTP are high. So that's a disappointment. Also, what's available through the CTP is limited: you'll find hotels and flight tickets available there, but always at an inflated (cash) price. And what's on offer will be limited to those options that Chase has hooked up to. You won't find train tickets, ferry tickets, and a thousand other "travel" things you will spend money on. Maybe that's OK, but what is on offer there can always be found cheaper elsewhere, maybe a little cheaper, maybe a LOT cheaper.

So you only earn 5X when you are spending more (and spending actual money) and you spend it there. But, you figure you will be earning lots of points just by using the card, right? Not any more. It used to work that way. Now, only 5X when spending your money through the CTP. Buying ferry tickets in Greece? No 5X. Renting a car in France? No 5X. SCUBA diving in Mexico? No 5X. All of those things (classified by Visa as "travel") used to earn 2X points. They nerfed that too. Now, you only earn bonus points when spending money at the CTP. This has destroyed the primary benefit of this card, IMHO.

Now, the points you earn are still valuable. You can still "pay" for things (via the CTP) using the currency of Chase points. And that's nice (I do that often). But the glory days of easily earning plenty o' points (by simply using the card to pay for all "travel") and getting great value for them, are in the rear view mirror.

Chase points are still valuable - though they were massively de-valued last summer. If you were sitting on a pile of vary valuable Chase points then, those have been "grandfathered" (until October 2026), but all NEW points you're eraning now are worth less.

It's highly complicated (and not happy news for you), so I'll stop here. But you need to learn a LOT more about getting and spending this kind of points (it has changed dramatically). Sorry to be the the skunk at the picnic.

OK, a bit more...

Maybe this is less of a disaster (to you) than I think it is. Before you spend ANY money through the CTP, compare apples-to-apples what the exact same thing would cost you if you bought it elsewhere. Maybe you will find bargains through the CTP (I don't think so, but you should check), and it'll be great - and yeah, you get 5X there, so party on.

The value in the Chase system (I think) is not in collecting 5X points when you spend money through the CTP, in fact, it's not in spending money through the CTP at all. The greatest value is in transferring Chase points to a partner airline, and using the points to book flights directly from the partner airline. But that's harder to do (and much harder to get good value from).

Dirty little secret in the cards-and-points game: getting the points is the easy part.

Using the points you've amassed – and getting a good value for them with a redemption you actually want – that's the hard part.

Finally: Don't trust anything you read on the countless "miles and points blogs" you have seen. They're not trying to help you. YOU are the product they are monetizing...for themselves.

Sorry for the buzzkill. I hope something I've said above is useful. Be careful, be skeptical...and watch for those asterisks.

Ha! Thank you for that very detailed look into this card. I was already aware of only getting 5x points in the portal but it sounds like I missed out on the heyday of this card. That's ok, I still got the 75k bonus points, I'm sure I can find a use for them. :-)

I have this card and just use it for the travel insurance.

I always book directly with the airline and hotels.

My sister and brother-in-law play the game of credit cards and points and it is such a hassle. But it does save them some money. I value my time more.

@Carrie Yes the travel insurance is a nice option. Hopefully I don't need to use it!

We have had the card for a number of years and yes, they made a bunch of changes but we do use it for the point refunds and travel insurance and it’s been worth it for that. Several years ago I caught Covid on a RS tour and the card paid the difference in the tour interruption that RS did not cover. We do not book thru the card but directly with hotels and airlines. Last year when a Scotland trip had to be cancelled due to medical reasons not anticipated, Chase paid for the BA flights because they were dragging their feet for months and paid for the hotel room deposits because they would not refund. There might be something better out there but so far no one has stated what but I would be truly interested in hearing what…..

Mike, Carrie is correct about the travel insurance and it sounds like you do know about it. It really is a good deal. Just make sure you use your card to pay for any services that might be affected like hotels and car rentals.

I will say they’re very good to deal with when you’ve had a problem. In 2024, I rented a car and use my Chase Sapphire card to pay for it. At some point during the 2 1/2 weeks that I had the car, I got a tiny little ding on one side, and had to pay a £1000 deductible to the car rental agency. After I got home, I contacted Chase and got them all the paperwork. About 4 to 5 weeks later, I received a refund for that deductible. They were very pleasant and easy to work with.

That is a very reassuring example, Mardee !

Thanks for asking this question Mike, I have been thinking about getting this card myself. Thanks to those who have it who have responded with great info.

I got my Chase card for the insurance--rental car, purchase protection and cancellation due to illness.

I make very limited use of the portal. I did use it to use all the points I got for acquiring the card. I booked 5 days of hotel in Melbourne. I also used it to take advantage of the hotel credit. That said, be very careful, I've noticed that prices on the portal are usually more than from the hotel directly or booking.com. For Melbourne, the hotel I chose had some kind of extra discount on the Chase portal. To use the hotel credit, I had to do a lot of searching to use it where it even made sense. I elected to use the credit on a very short stay, one or two days, so I get the credit, and didn't have to pay the inflated price for a longer stay.

Even Delta airline's portal has better hotel prices than Chase, or at least on my searches.

Its a bit of an art of deciding what credit card to use for a transaction. I use Chase for rental cars and items that I want purchase protection. I use Delta AMEX for Delta purchases, restaurants and groceries, and enough just to get me to the lowest level of status. I use Costco at Costco and when I buy gas at nonCostco stations. I use a cash back card for pretty much anything else. I also have an REI Mastercard, that we use for REI and then when we are traveling and we can't get other cards to work. And so on. .

I got the same card last summer, and agree with what’s already been said here. I am using the card to book direct and to pay for my RS tour. Although you aren’t really getting any bargains on flight, hotel, car, there’s plenty else you can get. I am using my Chase points to pay for all my extra excursions, like a Vatican tour.