Chase Sapphire Reserve; 100,000 points signup bonus

[Sailor Sam]

Also, if you're close the your 3-month minimum spend window, you can just
purchase additional gift cards that you'll use in months 4, 5, ... etc.

This may be a dumb question...  I keep seeing people say things like this in this thread.  Are you turning around and paying cash to avoid interest charges?  There is no intro APR period from what I recall of the terms.

Yup, I assume most people posting here pay the balance off each month, to avoid interest charges.

[Jaguar Paw]

To anyone that has been approved: have you gotten the full 300 travel credit or is it only a percentage of it because such a small portion of the year is left? Thanks!!

[TomTX]

To anyone that has been approved: have you gotten the full 300 travel credit or is it only a percentage of it because such a small portion of the year is left? Thanks!!

You should get $300 in travel credits/reimbursement for 2016 if you spend it by the end of your December statement, then ANOTHER $300 worth of travel credit for 2017.

That alone more than pays for the $450 annual fee.

Then the folks going on vacation in 2018 sign up again in (say) June 2018, pay $450 annual fee, transfer points back from the Freedom, get a $300 travel credit in 2018, then ANOTHER $300 travel credit in 2019. Cancel again before the fee hits for another year in June.

Unless Chase changes how it works by then ;)

[Rubic]

Also, if you're close the your 3-month minimum spend window, you can just
purchase additional gift cards that you'll use in months 4, 5, ... etc.

This may be a dumb question...  I keep seeing people say things like this in this thread.  Are you turning around and paying cash to avoid interest charges?  There is no intro APR period from what I recall of the terms.

Not a dumb question.  If this were any place other than an MMM forum,
it would be ladled with disclaimers about how you should always pay
off your entire credit card balance each month.  Being MMM, it's
assumed that nobody would ever pay credit card interest rates on
their balances, but it never hurts to emphasize the point.

A less emphasized, but important point, is that we should never
justify an unnecessary purchase to meet minimum bonus spend
requirements.  Again, it's assumed that people reading this forum
are intelligent, disciplined, and frugally yet attractively attired.
 

[katsiki]

Not a dumb question.  If this were any place other than an MMM forum,
it would be ladled with disclaimers about how you should always pay
off your entire credit card balance each month.  Being MMM, it's
assumed that nobody would ever pay credit card interest rates on
their balances, but it never hurts to emphasize the point.

A less emphasized, but important point, is that we should never
justify an unnecessary purchase to meet minimum bonus spend
requirements.  Again, it's assumed that people reading this forum
are intelligent, disciplined, and frugally yet attractively attired.

LOL @ frugally yet attractively attired.

Thanks for the reply.  I was curious because it sounded like some folks are pre-paying a lot of expenses (donations, months of utilities, etc).  Just wanted to be sure I wasn't missing some trick.

[ender]

Interesting benefit I didn't realize this card had from reading through the benefits online:

If you have a roadside emergency, you can call for a tow, jumpstart, tire change, locksmith or gas. You’re covered up to $50 per incident 4 times a year.2

That would have saved us $100 earlier this year...

[Jaguar Paw]

One trick we plan on using to meet the minimum spending requirement if we are close to bot meeting the minimum (we sadly met it in 2 months for the sapphire preferred) is to just prepay our church tithing. We pay in the ballpark of 700 a month for that so we could always just pay 2 months in advance if we had to without creating any additional unnecessary spending.

[johnny847]

One trick we plan on using to meet the minimum spending requirement if we are close to bot meeting the minimum (we sadly met it in 2 months for the sapphire preferred) is to just prepay our church tithing. We pay in the ballpark of 700 a month for that so we could always just pay 2 months in advance if we had to without creating any additional unnecessary spending.

For those who don't tithe or otherwise have a large prepay-able expense, a general purpose emergency manufactured spend method is just to use square cash or venmo to send money to a friend or spouse for a 3% fee (and for the former, have him/her write you a check back or something).

[ender]

One trick we plan on using to meet the minimum spending requirement if we are close to bot meeting the minimum (we sadly met it in 2 months for the sapphire preferred) is to just prepay our church tithing. We pay in the ballpark of 700 a month for that so we could always just pay 2 months in advance if we had to without creating any additional unnecessary spending.

We might do that too, if the property tax thing doesn't work out for us.

I was a bit torn on whether that feels sketchy but then I realized that I itemize the tithe on our taxes so I guess it's kind of already the same?

[robtown]

Yes,  mine came per-authorized.   I got it in approximately one week.    I tested it with a $3 book from Amazon,  then $600 of Costco tires.  [car is getting new brakes, cabin filter, oil gasket, etc  with free maintenance! but needs new tires after 40k miles]

I ended up calling Chase with questions about travel miles,  the $300 credit, etc.   They verified the card was active.

I must go to the Anti-Mustachian sub-forum now to confess on the 10 day cruise we just bought for 4 adults.   It amounts to another two months of work for me -- but may be the last family vacation.  It's also my first in a few years.

The CSR card came via UPS, and there's no sticker to activate.  Really?

Also, I'm not an authorized user, but I'll still probably take it to the grocery store.  I rarely buy enough to need to sign, anyway.

eta:  Already paid for our cruise, and it shows up online, so yeah, no activation.  Very odd.

There are reports that the cards coming by UPS are pre-activated.  Seems very risky to me since UPS leaves packages in many places, but apparently Chase does this normally.

[cheddarpie]

Following

[EnjoyIt]

FYI
Anyone can use plastiq.com to pay bills with their card.  They charge a 2.5% fee which is not the worst thing ever. for $4K in spend you will be paying a fee of $100.  Figure between groceries, utilities, and mortgage, $4k shouldn't be that hard to achieve.   If you are willing to, you can buy gift card for your grocery store with no fee and just pre-pay your groceries for a while.  Same for gas stations.  Bay tends to have deals $92 for $100 gift cards.

Basically there are plenty of options to spend your $4k in 3 months.  You might have to pay a little extra for it, but at the end even paying $100 in fees still makes the card an awesome deal.

[ender]

FYI
Anyone can use plastiq.com to pay bills with their card.  They charge a 2.5% fee which is not the worst thing ever. for $4K in spend you will be paying a fee of $100.  Figure between groceries, utilities, and mortgage, $4k shouldn't be that hard to achieve.   If you are willing to, you can buy gift card for your grocery store with no fee and just pre-pay your groceries for a while.  Same for gas stations.  Bay tends to have deals $92 for $100 gift cards.

Basically there are plenty of options to spend your $4k in 3 months.  You might have to pay a little extra for it, but at the end even paying $100 in fees still makes the card an awesome deal.

This is pretty much what I am planning.

Also, I should add that getting the card around now makes it a lot more likely and easier to get the full $600 travel benefit - you have the rest of 2016 for the first $300 and up through the AF redemption next year for the next $300.

[maustache]

Thought I read that the $300 travel benefit is only available for active users as of December for each year.  So you wouldn't get the additional $300 next year unless you had paid to renew next year.  Anyone see anything different? I'm going to see if I can find it.

[Scandium]

FYI
Anyone can use plastiq.com to pay bills with their card.  They charge a 2.5% fee which is not the worst thing ever. for $4K in spend you will be paying a fee of $100.  Figure between groceries, utilities, and mortgage, $4k shouldn't be that hard to achieve.   If you are willing to, you can buy gift card for your grocery store with no fee and just pre-pay your groceries for a while.  Same for gas stations.  Bay tends to have deals $92 for $100 gift cards.

Basically there are plenty of options to spend your $4k in 3 months.  You might have to pay a little extra for it, but at the end even paying $100 in fees still makes the card an awesome deal.

This is pretty much what I am planning.

Also, I should add that getting the card around now makes it a lot more likely and easier to get the full $600 travel benefit - you have the rest of 2016 for the first $300 and up through the AF redemption next year for the next $300.

My plan, unless I sudden have a work trip the require a hotel/airfare, was just to buy $300 worth of Southwest gift cards, or amtrak. Probably just give it to my MIL so she can travel to her kids/grandkids.

[Tetsuya Hondo]

How does the $300 travel credit work? Do you have to ask for charges to be reimbursed or do they just automatically give you a credit for travel related items?

[andy85]

How does the $300 travel credit work? Do you have to ask for charges to be reimbursed or do they just automatically give you a credit for travel related items?

they automatically reimburse you when you buy something coded as travel related. it happens pretty much immediately i think.
thats nice bc a lot of other companies you have to contact to get that travel credit.

[JoJo]

I was approved last Tuesday morning and it arrived sometime yesterday via UPS (they left at the door, no signature needed).

I'm actually thinking about making this my regular card.  There appears to be superior travel benefits with this card for the $150 you pay (450 minus the $300 back) that totally seem worth it as I'm planning on starting full time travel next year - full coverage for rental cars, baggage delay, trip cancellation, etc not to mention the free entry into airline lounges.  Plus the 3x points for travel expenses - most of my expenditures will be travel, I could see myself charging $10,000+ in travel expenses in the upcoming years.

[trailrated]

I just got mine in the mail yesterday. Can confirm it came activated. Not sure if it's lucky... or facepunchworthy but the repairs on my Jeep including an engine rebuild should hit the 4k spend pretty quickly. Was waiting till a good cc miles offer came through to pull the trigger.

[Rubic]

How does the $300 travel credit work? Do you have to ask for charges to be reimbursed or do they just automatically give you a credit for travel related items?

they automatically reimburse you when you buy something coded as travel related. it happens pretty much immediately i think.
thats nice bc a lot of other companies you have to contact to get that travel credit.

I mentioned this up-thread, but it's worth mentioning again ...

If you haven't used your $300 travel credit by December, you can
purchase yourself gift cards from your favorite airline.  I usually do
this in $100 increments, purchased directly from the airline's
web site.

You don't want travel credits to expired unused.

[Jaguar Paw]

Awwww yeah!!! Approved for 35k in 5 minutes online. Bless the American banking system that screws so many people (silly people). Wife and I each already churned the sapphire preferred a few months ago and now are doing this... Will use the 300 to pay for Boston trip before Christmas and then the 250,000 points that we accumulated to pay for a sweet Alaska trip next summer... And then Cancel everything... America!!

[Tetsuya Hondo]

How does the $300 travel credit work? Do you have to ask for charges to be reimbursed or do they just automatically give you a credit for travel related items?

they automatically reimburse you when you buy something coded as travel related. it happens pretty much immediately i think.
thats nice bc a lot of other companies you have to contact to get that travel credit.

Sweet! Thanks for the info. I am definitely doing this.

[thd7t]

Well, I went for it and was instantly approved. Low spend limit, compared to others here, but I didn't get this card to be able to spend more.

I was curious whether Chase has some way to track your progress toward the 4k spend.

[EnjoyIt]

Got denied by the 5/24 rule even though I am a chase private client.  This is very unfortunate.

[ender]

Well, I went for it and was instantly approved. Low spend limit, compared to others here, but I didn't get this card to be able to spend more.

I was curious whether Chase has some way to track your progress toward the 4k spend.

I think they only gave me something like 18k.

Which is... about 14k more than we care about, lol.

[HAPPYINAZ]

I signed up years ago for the free version of UPS My Choice so I get an email the day before a package arrives.  Very handy.

That's cool!  thanks for the tip....I signed up just now and it shows an amazon shipment arriving today....but no Chase CC yet showing :(

[chesebert]

Got denied by the 5/24 rule even though I am a chase private client.  This is very unfortunate.

I would get someone from your banking team to call the CC folks. Could help.

[thedayisbrave]

I love Chase.

Got the Reserve in the mail yesterday.  Yes, UPS dropped the non-descript package at my door and I spent 10 minutes looking through the paperwork looking for the activation line before realizing there wasn't one...

Called up Chase customer service today to see what my options were as far as downgrading, since I also have the CSP and now that I have the Reserve, I don't need both.  She provided my options, I decided to downgrade to Freedom Unlimited, and when I mentioned the annual fee that had posted to my account earlier this month she said "oh you'll see it as a refund on the next billing cycle".  I was prepared to ask them to waive it but I didn't even have to ask.

Did I mention I love Chase!?

[Catbert]

Well, I went for it and was instantly approved. Low spend limit, compared to others here, but I didn't get this card to be able to spend more.

I was curious whether Chase has some way to track your progress toward the 4k spend.

Chase instantly know what you spend on your card because, well, they are the credit card company. lol  You can track it also on line.  Charges will show as pending for a couple of days, but you will still see them instantly

[thd7t]

Well, I went for it and was instantly approved. Low spend limit, compared to others here, but I didn't get this card to be able to spend more.

I was curious whether Chase has some way to track your progress toward the 4k spend.

Chase instantly know what you spend on your card because, well, they are the credit card company. lol  You can track it also on line.  Charges will show as pending for a couple of days, but you will still see them instantly

I guess I should have been more specific. I want to know if there is clear tracking that I can see. I am hoping to make large daycare payments on the card and am concerned that they may be processed as something other than purchases. I will monitor the card, but am concerned that it will be unclear whether the payments count toward the initial spend.

Chase doesn't have much incentive to make it clear, but they may do so in the name of customer service. Ho easy do they make tracking, Mary W?

[mathlete]

The $300 travel cash back is per calendar year.  The first year you have the card you could get $300 offset n 2016 and another $300 in 2017.

I've never had a card with an annual fee before. Is the fee charged at the start of a new calendar year, or at the start of a new membership year, (i.e. on your cardholder anniversary)?

Thanks,

[andy85]

Well, I went for it and was instantly approved. Low spend limit, compared to others here, but I didn't get this card to be able to spend more.

I was curious whether Chase has some way to track your progress toward the 4k spend.

Chase instantly know what you spend on your card because, well, they are the credit card company. lol  You can track it also on line.  Charges will show as pending for a couple of days, but you will still see them instantly

I guess I should have been more specific. I want to know if there is clear tracking that I can see. I am hoping to make large daycare payments on the card and am concerned that they may be processed as something other than purchases. I will monitor the card, but am concerned that it will be unclear whether the payments count toward the initial spend.

Chase doesn't have much incentive to make it clear, but they may do so in the name of customer service. Ho easy do they make tracking, Mary W?

I'm not sure what you are finding so unclear. The only things that don't count as purchases are the annual fee, rollover balances, and things of that nature. But a purchase is a purchase. If you have spent $1500 per billing cycle for the first 2 billing cycles ($3k total), then you know you need to spend $1000 more before the next cycle closes. Do you have an online chase account? If not then signup and you can see your spending pretty clearly.

If i missed the point i apologize.

[JLee]

I would definitely apply for this if I wasn't over 5/24.

I just started saving points about a year ago and we've amassed enough so that I can bring my wife and kids to a conference I'm going to in Hawaii and stay for at least an extra week.

It's pretty amazing to be able to get so much free stuff just for being able to pay your bills on time.

I am over that as well, but I have no idea when the last one is going to drop off...

[Sailor Sam]

Well, I went for it and was instantly approved. Low spend limit, compared to others here, but I didn't get this card to be able to spend more.

I was curious whether Chase has some way to track your progress toward the 4k spend.

Chase instantly know what you spend on your card because, well, they are the credit card company. lol  You can track it also on line.  Charges will show as pending for a couple of days, but you will still see them instantly

I guess I should have been more specific. I want to know if there is clear tracking that I can see. I am hoping to make large daycare payments on the card and am concerned that they may be processed as something other than purchases. I will monitor the card, but am concerned that it will be unclear whether the payments count toward the initial spend.

Chase doesn't have much incentive to make it clear, but they may do so in the name of customer service. Ho easy do they make tracking, Mary W?

Some background, because I'm not sure if you've delved into MCC codes. When a merchant first starts accepting credit cards, each CC company gives the merchant a Merchant Category Code (MCC). It probably started pretty innocently as metrics tracking, but like Social Security numbers, the role of MCCs grew. The credit card companies are turning around and using the MCCs to track reward points. Which is why my gum and Redbull from the corner store are coded as 'fuel' and get me extra points.

The MCC can make getting specific rewards points difficult, but I think it would be very unusual for a purchase from an actual merchant to code as anything besides a legitimate payment. Churners sometimes get hosed when prepaid card loads are coded as cash advance, instead of purchase. I don't think this would apply to you.

All that being had, if you're paying through a 3rd party website, all bets might be off. Here are some options for double checking:

1. If you've previously paid the daycare using a CC, log into your account, and see what information shows up with the transaction. If it says anything along the lines of 'sale', then the MCC is coded as a merchant.

2. Call the daycare, and ask for their MCC. Call Chase, and check how they would catagorize the MCC

3. Just pay it, wait for it to show up online, and check that the transaction says 'sale.

[Rubic]

Well, I went for it and was instantly approved. Low spend limit, compared to others here, but I didn't get this card to be able to spend more.

I was curious whether Chase has some way to track your progress toward the 4k spend.

Chase instantly know what you spend on your card because, well, they are the credit card company. lol  You can track it also on line.  Charges will show as pending for a couple of days, but you will still see them instantly

I guess I should have been more specific. I want to know if there is clear tracking that I can see. I am hoping to make large daycare payments on the card and am concerned that they may be processed as something other than purchases. I will monitor the card, but am concerned that it will be unclear whether the payments count toward the initial spend.

Chase doesn't have much incentive to make it clear, but they may do so in the name of customer service. Ho easy do they make tracking, Mary W?

Your daycare payments should be fine and will likely code as a purchase.  If
you're really paranoid you can have your cash advance limit lowered to $100.
Then any transactions > $100 that might be coded as a cash advance will
be refused.  If you or then vendor is being charged a transaction fee, it's
being coded as a purchase.

The only time I've ever had to worry about possible cash advances was when
I was using my credit cards to fund bank accounts in $10-20K amounts -- back
when it was still possible.

[Rubic]

I am over that as well, but I have no idea when the last one is going to drop off...

Sign up for a free account on CreditKarma.com and you can easily track your
credit cards.

[Rubic]

I've never had a card with an annual fee before. Is the fee charged at the start of a new calendar year, or at the start of a new membership year, (i.e. on your cardholder anniversary)?

For this particular card, the fee is charged in the first billing cycle, then every
year afterward.  In some cases, there are AF cards with annual fees that are
waived the first year.

[Rubic]

Will use the 300 to pay for Boston trip before Christmas and then the 250,000 points that we accumulated to pay for a sweet Alaska trip next summer...

If flying to Alaska, you might consider Bank of America's Alaska Air VISA card.  I've
gotten a couple of these in the past year.  The $75 annual fee isn't waived, but I got
a $100 statement credit + 30K miles after $1K spend.

[Catbert]

Well, I went for it and was instantly approved. Low spend limit, compared to others here, but I didn't get this card to be able to spend more.

I was curious whether Chase has some way to track your progress toward the 4k spend.

Chase instantly know what you spend on your card because, well, they are the credit card company. lol  You can track it also on line.  Charges will show as pending for a couple of days, but you will still see them instantly

I guess I should have been more specific. I want to know if there is clear tracking that I can see. I am hoping to make large daycare payments on the card and am concerned that they may be processed as something other than purchases. I will monitor the card, but am concerned that it will be unclear whether the payments count toward the initial spend.

Chase doesn't have much incentive to make it clear, but they may do so in the name of customer service. Ho easy do they make tracking, Mary W?

If you're concerned that it will process as a cash advance (that's the only problem I could envision) then call customer service and ask that your cash advance limit be dropped to zero or $100. 

[robtown]

Jaguar Paw    Be sure to transfer the 250k points from sapphire preferred  to the reserve card.    The preferred spends at approx 1.2x face value but the reserved spends at 1.5x.    That's 75k more value

Awwww yeah!!! Approved for 35k in 5 minutes online. Bless the American banking system that screws so many people (silly people). Wife and I each already churned the sapphire preferred a few months ago and now are doing this... Will use the 300 to pay for Boston trip before Christmas and then the 250,000 points that we accumulated to pay for a sweet Alaska trip next summer... And then Cancel everything... America!!

[mathlete]

I've never had a card with an annual fee before. Is the fee charged at the start of a new calendar year, or at the start of a new membership year, (i.e. on your cardholder anniversary)?

For this particular card, the fee is charged in the first billing cycle, then every
year afterward.  In some cases, there are AF cards with annual fees that are
waived the first year.

Thanks

[bacchi]

Chase doesn't have much incentive to make it clear, but they may do so in the name of customer service. Ho easy do they make tracking, Mary W?

Only Citi has a tracker. For Chase and others, download all of the activity as a csv, remove the ineligible lines, and see where you are.

Also, returns can cause a points clawback. If there's a chance you'll be returning something bought with the card, and you're close to the minimum spend and close to the end date, keep on charging.

[SKL-HOU]

Would paying my rent via paypal count towards the 4k?

[Jaguar Paw]

Jaguar Paw    Be sure to transfer the 250k points from sapphire preferred  to the reserve card.    The preferred spends at approx 1.2x face value but the reserved spends at 1.5x.    That's 75k more value

Awwww yeah!!! Approved for 35k in 5 minutes online. Bless the American banking system that screws so many people (silly people). Wife and I each already churned the sapphire preferred a few months ago and now are doing this... Will use the 300 to pay for Boston trip before Christmas and then the 250,000 points that we accumulated to pay for a sweet Alaska trip next summer... And then Cancel everything... America!!

Awesome, thanks for the tip!!

[chesebert]

Is anyone doing CSR and JPM Reserve at the same time? 200,000 signup bonus! Repeat that with your SO, that's 400k points between two people. The downside is that spending $16,000 in 3 months might be a bit hard without some super hardcore MS.

[JLee]

Would paying my rent via paypal count towards the 4k?

It should.

[thd7t]

Well, I went for it and was instantly approved. Low spend limit, compared to others here, but I didn't get this card to be able to spend more.

I was curious whether Chase has some way to track your progress toward the 4k spend.

Chase instantly know what you spend on your card because, well, they are the credit card company. lol  You can track it also on line.  Charges will show as pending for a couple of days, but you will still see them instantly

I guess I should have been more specific. I want to know if there is clear tracking that I can see. I am hoping to make large daycare payments on the card and am concerned that they may be processed as something other than purchases. I will monitor the card, but am concerned that it will be unclear whether the payments count toward the initial spend.

Chase doesn't have much incentive to make it clear, but they may do so in the name of customer service. Ho easy do they make tracking, Mary W?

If you're concerned that it will process as a cash advance (that's the only problem I could envision) then call customer service and ask that your cash advance limit be dropped to zero or $100.

Thanks for the help. It was exactly my concern. I signed up for the card today and haven't even logged into the account, yet. I will probably check with the daycare and then lower the cash advance limit. Thanks again.

[hope2retire]

Does anyone know if we can get cash back on the 100,000 bonus points instead of using for travel? Please let me know.

Thanks
H2R

[TomTX]

Does anyone know if we can get cash back on the 100,000 bonus points instead of using for travel? Please let me know.

Thanks
H2R

You can, though with the 1.5x multiplier on points spent toward travel (making your 100k points behave like 150k), it is awfully appealing to use it on travel.

If you travel ;)

[hope2retire]

Thanks Tom. Yeah, may not travel as much. and anyway the $300 and $300 credit is there that should suffice for travel part.

H2R