Not sure if my math is right but I think $6000 in annual travel/dining spending (NOT including the stuff you book with points) would be the break-even point with this card over a 2% cash-back card. Doable for some folks, but a pretty small slice of the population.
With the caveat that you need to actually be using the points for travel through the Chase portal, here is what I think is the optimal strategy to using Chase cards and avoiding any annual fee except the CSR:
Chase Freedom: 7.5% on rotating categories
Ink: 7.5% on office stores, phone, internet and such
Chase Sapphire Reserve: 4.5% on travel and dining
Ink: 3% on gas
Chase Freedom Unlimited: 2.25% on everything else.
Note, this is the "effective" return rate by using the points for travel via Chase, and presuming that you transfer all points to CSR for redemption to give the 1.5x multiplier.
Thanks for this. Makes me think about actually holding onto this card.
Our travel dates are not all that flexible (we both work), so doing frequent flyer miles generally won't work for us.
If we do some light churning, we could also get an extra 50-100k points a year between the two of us, to be redeemed at 1.5x through Chase's portal.
For those with more flexible travel plans who won't be using Chase's portal, it looks like $7500 a year in travel/dining is the threshhold for making the card worth holding onto, assuming you would get 1x points on freebie card. ($150/0.02 = $7500)
I'm even thinking about paying the extra $75 for a second user, for the convenience and
to get Global Reentry x2. Doesn't appear authorized users get this.