Most people searching for a travel credit card have probably come across the Chase Sapphire Reserve®. It tops a lot of lists, and it’s easy to see why. 

It has a great rewards program with plenty of useful transfer partners, an annual $300 travel credit plus an application fee credit for Global Entry or TSA PreCheck. However, with its $550 annual fee, it’s a hard sell for many people -- myself included.

I currently have the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card, basically the Sapphire Reserve’s younger sibling. It’s only $95 annually and still has a great rewards program, but it lacks some attractive perks like the Reserve’s travel-related statement credits.

Lately, I’ve been considering making the change. But it would be my first luxury travel card, so I need to make sure its hefty fee fits into my travel budget. 

The Reserve is primarily a travel card -- and offers a $300 statement credit for travel -- so the first step is making sure I travel enough to justify a card like this.

Using the credit should be easy, considering I travel across the country to go home for the holidays every year. That essentially drops the card’s $550 annual fee to $250. But $250 is still much more than $95, so we’ll have to do some additional calculations.

I’ve spent about $5,200 in 2024 on my Sapphire Preferred, which has earned me about 70,400 points. Most of those points came from the welcome offer, but the rest was primarily dining and travel.

Chase Ultimate Rewards points are worth 1.25 cents when redeemed through Chase Travel℠, or worth 1 cent if redeemed as statement credits.

If I redeem those points for travel through Chase Travel with its 25% redemption bonus, they’d be worth $880 -- well above either card’s annual fee. But I don’t get a welcome bonus for upgrading, so I won’t get the extra boost next year.

If I spend $5,200 again next year, with most of that spending between travel and dining with the Reserve, I’d earn at a slightly higher rate because the card earns 3x points on travel instead of 2x points like the Sapphire Preferred. 

I’ve spent about $2,000 on travel and about $2,000 on dining, with the remainder spent on entertainment, groceries and incidentals. Simply focusing on the highest-earning categories, and assuming I spend roughly the same with the Reserve, I’d earn 6,000 points in both travel and dining for a total of 12,000 points.

The Sapphire Reserve has a 50% redemption bonus for travel, which means 12,000 redeemed for travel through Chase Travel would be worth $180. That would leave me on the hook for essentially a $70 annual fee with the Sapphire Reserve, $25 less than the Sapphire Preferred’s $95 annual fee.

There’s also the Global Entry or TSA PreCheck application fee credit, which could knock off up to $100 -- at least for the first year with the card.

However, the credit is available only every four years, so for my second year with the card, the Reserve would only save me $25 unless my travel and dining spending increased.

Really, it comes down to the added convenience of TSA PreCheck and airport lounge access. I do plan to travel at least a few times each year, including some international trips, so both of these could really improve my travel experience. And with more travel usually comes more spending, which means I could earn enough points to cover the remaining annual fee.

For now, I’ll likely stick with the Sapphire Preferred unless my travel and dining spending grows next year. I understand that with my current spending and the travel credit, the Reserve’s annual fee would be $25 less than the Preferred’s, but that’s only if I use the travel credit each year and redeem all of my rewards through Chase Travel.

While I could probably redeem most of my rewards for travel through Chase, there could be times when I want to book via a different service or simply redeem my rewards for statement credits.

It’s not that the features aren’t a good value. Instead, it’s a matter of which card matches my travel budget and habits better. It’s more important to have a card that I know for a fact I can benefit from with my current spending rather than a card with attractive features that I may not be able to fully take advantage of.

Plus, I’d like to try out point transfers this year with the Sapphire Preferred to see how much value I’ll get per point over standard redemption before making a final decision.

Right now, the Sapphire Reserve isn’t for me. That said, if my travel budget and redeeming habits change, then I’ll reconsider the Sapphire Reserve.