See our Advertiser Disclosure here.
In case you haven’t heard, Chase is making some changes to its Chase Sapphire Reserve (CSR) card on January 12. The biggest change is that the annual fee will increase from $450 to $550. Ouch!
In return for the extra $100 a year, card holders get two years of DoorDash DashPass for free and a $60 annual credit. It’s unclear whether that credit will be divided into monthly chunks, or whether it will be available all at once.
Chase is also giving card holders Lyft Pink membership. This includes 15% off rides plus some other perks like priority airport pickup and 3 free cancellations per month.
Product changes are not permitted to the CSR until after January 12. You can still apply for the CSR before January 12 and get the $450 annual fee. Starting in April, all renewals will be subject to the new $550 fee. See DoC’s post for all the details.
Why I’m Not Thrilled
I just recently added up the cost of my cards’ annual fees, and the CSR is our most expensive card. On paper, paying $550 a year for a card just seems ridiculous to me. I could easily justify the $450 fee after the $300 travel credit. But I’m not sure I will get value from the additional $100 fee.
My family rarely uses DoorDash or any of the food delivery services. For a family of five, the cost of those meals really adds up. Plus, if we’re going to splurge on a restaurant, I prefer to eat in the restaurant itself for the ambiance.
We also don’t use Lyft all that much. However, we do prefer to use Lyft or Uber when we travel to bigger cities instead of renting a car. And, we do have 3 of those type of trips coming up this year.
What to Do?
We can keep the CSR and pay the $550 fee on our anniversary date in September.
Or, we could downgrade the CSR to the Chase Sapphire Preferred (CSP) card. We would only get $1.25pp value in the Chase travel portal (instead of $1.50pp value with CSR). Plus, we would no longer earn 3X on dining and travel purchases (only 2X with CSP). But, the CSP’s annual fee is $95, and we could continue to transfer points to hotels and airlines.
Another option is to cancel the CSR in September and wait a few months until my husband is eligible for the bonus on the CSP (48 months after getting the bonus on the CSR).
Since we have 9 months to make this decision, for now we will keep the card and see how much value we get from DoorDash DashPass and Lyft Pink.
Readers who currently have the CSR, what do you think of these upcoming changes? Do you plan to make any changes to your card ownership based on the increased annual fee? Is $550 a ridiculous amount?
CLICK HERE TO VIEW VARIOUS CREDIT CARDS AND AVAILABLE SIGN-UP BONUSES
Opinions expressed here are author’s alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, hotel, airline, or other entity. This content has not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of the entities included within the post.
Author: Nancy
Nancy lives near Dallas, Texas, with her husband and three kids. Her favorite vacations include the beach, cruising and everything Disney.
If you’re looking to downgrade or cancel, to me, the Chase Ink Preferred seems to offer a better value prop than the Sapphire Preferred for earning and redeeming Ultimate Rewards . I use the Amex Gold at 4 MRP per dollar so I’m not too worried about dining spend.
@Michael The Chase Ink Preferred is definitely on my wish list for when I go under 5/24 this summer! I really want the bonus.
I am the luckiest person with annual fee due on April 2nd 🙁 trying to move my due date to avoid the $100 increase this year. For my family, the difference of $55-155 between CSP and CSR is worth paying if I signed up for a business card and cashed in the 1.5x instead of 1.25x. It has to be on my husband’s name because he is the one driving the rental car. Other benefit was just a bonus because it is getting harder to use the priority pass.
@Agnes Oh man, April 2! Ugh.
My wife doesn’t drive, and is currently working and in school. I spend about $100 on Uber every month buying her GCs to use for her school commute. So while this doesn’t apply to everybody, the new Lyft benefits will help me specifically. So for the next 10 months (which is how long my wife has left in school), that $1000 in rideshare spend will move from Uber to Lyft. With Lyft Pink i’d save $150 off the top, and then make an additional ~6000 URs (which most value at $90-120) on the remaining spend (unless Chase will apply points prior to the 15% discount, in which case its an additional ~7000 URs or $105-140). The new Lyft perks will save me anywhere between $240-290, and that’s before the Doordash credits.
I converted from CSP to CSR in November 2019, so i’ll get to take advantage of the new perks before deciding if i’m willing to pay $550 for the card in November 2020.
@Norman The Lyft perk sounds perfect for your family!
I’m disappointed with the changes. I don’t think I’ll use the new benefits so it will be really hard to justify the fee. I’ll probably downgrade to the CSP. I just hope they don’t increase the fee on that one too.
@Jennifer Let’s hope not!
Why isn’t anybody talking about just downgrading from CSR to Freedom (or FU), then waiting a month and applying outright for a CSP? If you’re under 5/24 and haven’t received a Sapphire welcome bonus within the last 48 months, I can’t see why this strategy wouldn’t work.
@Slidellian That strategy could definitely work! Not for me, since I’m not yet under 5/24 or within 48 months. 🙁
I think I have until September to figure out what we’re going to do. Doordash is a complete waste of money…absolutely no value to my family. Not sure how much I’ll use Lyft or get any benefit out of it, but I better figure it out by renewal time. This is so annoying!
@Stephanie Yes, it’s very annoying for sure! I blame Amex for starting the $550 fees.
Another option is to cancel the CSR in September and wait a few months until my husband is eligible for the bonus on the CSP (48 months after getting the bonus on the CSR).
I plan to do just that….but I hate giving up PP, primary rental, and the 3x
@Steve Yes! I also have a hard time giving up those things. Ugh.
Not happy either but realistically I should pretty much recoup the add’l cost. While I don’t currently really use doordash, it will be no problem to at least order enough to use up the $60 credit. I don’t value the pass at anything as all that does is “save” me extra fees that I wouldn’t have incurred anyway. But $60 is $60 making it really only $40 more. And while I’ll likely get the last $40 from Lyft discounts, since most of my Lyft use is reimbursable travel, my employer will likely benefit from that more than we would. Luckily – my renewal is March so I’ll get over a year to decide since the benefits kick in now and my first $550 renewal is March 2021. With about $50,000 of travel/dining spend on the Reserve each year (and a lot of pooled points), it’s still best option for me. But yeah – I’ve now got 3 of the $450+ annual fee cards – I definitely get more than the value of the fee in benefits each year, but it hurts when it comes due . . .
@David You’re lucky that you have until March 2021 to make a decision. We will definitely use the $60 credit, but it’s not normally something we’d spend so I have a hard time justifying its value.
I’m not thrilled. We have 2, one for myself and my husband and up until now, the math has been favorable. I *think* I will be able to combine points across accounts, do you know if that’s possible/easy?
Our AF hits in March, so I’ll need to see if we have the old rate or the new. I should be able to use my $300 travel credits for both before then, so I can downgrade at least one card.
Will need to decide if I keep one CSR, or do a CSP (I really value the primary rental car insurance!) and maybe just have the other one of us be an AU. I dunno.
Kacie – unless you’re both spending a lot on bonus categories on each CSR, you can easily cancel one. Keep the card that has the most bonus spend. If for example, you downgraded to a preferred or freedom unlimited, you could still earn your points, transfer them to your husband, and he could redeem them at the full CSR value. That’s what we do. Once we got the sign up on my wife’s we downgraded the following year as she didn’t have enough spend to justify keeping two. But we pool ALL of our UR points into my CSR account and use them at the 1.5 redemption rate. Very easy to do right on the website and instantaneous transfers.
@Kacie You will have until March 2021 until the higher fee hits. You should be able to combine points easily–it’s a menu item on the left side once you’re in the rewards section.