Annual fee winner
Chase Sapphire Preferred
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At $95, the Chase Sapphire Preferred’s annual fee is $455 less than the Sapphire Reserve’s $550 fee. Unless you’re able to offset that cost through added spending or by maximizing all of the credits offered annually, the Preferred card wins here.
That said, don’t overlook annual credit opportunities and additional perks when assessing the value of an annual fee. For Reserve, the $300 annual travel credit offsets the annual fee to $250.
Figure in the Priority Pass Select membership (a $299 value), and you’ve completely offset the annual fee. That, of course, assumes you would have paid for a Priority Pass membership on your own if the card didn’t offer it.
On the other hand, Sapphire Preferred cardholders enjoy an up to $50 annual credit for a hotel stay booked through Chase Travel, which effectively reduces that card’s annual fee to just $45, an easy figure to offset with minimal rewards earning and redemptions.
