Chase Sapphire Reserve Changes
Those who have the Chase Sapphire Reserve card and those who have been planning to apply, need to check out the upcoming changes. There’s a big fee increase coming in a few days and a few new benefits being added. Let’s take a look.
Annual Fee
The annual fee on the Chase Sapphire Reserve card is going up buy $100. Currently the fee is $450. Starting on January 12, 2020, all new applicants will have to pay the increased fee of $550.
Existing cardholders will pay the $550 for renewals on or after April 1, 2020.
Chase is also putting a stop to upgrades to CSR for now. If you want to upgrade your Chase card, you will have to wait until January 12, when the fee is already at $550.
DoorDash Benefit
If you check your account you should already see a new benefit for DoorDash. You will get the DashPass for free for two years. The service costs $9.99 per month. It gives free delivery on orders over $12, plus lower service fees. Subscribers save an average of $4-$5 per order. This benefit is also being added to Chase Sapphire Preferred. Cardholders of the Chase Freedom and Slate cards also get it but for 3 months only.
On top of that, Chase Sapphire Reserve cardholders also get $60 in DoorDash credit for 2020 and 2021. I’m not sure how this will be given out. A one time credit of $60 would be a great benefit that can offset the fee increase.
Lyft Pink Benefit
There is a new Lyft benefit being added to the card on 1/12/2020, the same day the fee increase kicks in. Lyft Pink costs 19.99/month regularly. Some of the benefits are:
- 15% off unlimited car rides
- Priority airport pickups
- Relaxed cancellations. Three waived cancel fees per month if you rebook within 15 minutes.
- Surprise offers. Get seasonal discounts and exclusive savings.
- Waived lost and found fees.
- Bikes and scooters. Enjoy 3 free 30-min. bike or scooter rides per month (in select markets).
Conclusion
The DoorDash credit would be the only benefit that would give me some value personally. And that is only if it is given all at once. That number though, $60, looks more like a monthly $5 credit. That would be completely useless.
Some people might find the DashPass and Lyft Pink memberships useful. For me it is not enough to offset the fee increase. Maybe we’ll see some more additions when the official news comes out. This seems like a rip off of the Amex Platinum playbook, jack up the fee and hope for breakage from semi useless credits.
The Chase Sapphire Reserve is already a great card that offers tons of perks such as $300 in travel credit and 1.5c value for Ultimate Rewards points when using the travel portal. The question is should you apply before the changes kick in to lock in the lower rate for the first year?
Let us know what you think.
HT: Doctor of Credit
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Everyone tweet to Chase how unsatisfied you are and that you will most likely drop the card when your annual fee comes due since these benefits are mostly meaningless to you. I tweeted to Chase and if many people do hopefully it will make them reconsider or at least start offering regular retention offers on the account. These new “benefits” suck!!!!!
Lyft and DD aren’t present where I live so those are useless to me (hey Chase – not everyone lives in the city!). I do sometimes use rideshares on trips but never Lyft – certainly I won’t keep the card just in case I might use it once a year. And even if I had DD, if it is indeed $5 a month then why bother?
Two new benefits do me no good. Not worth the $100 increase. Would much prefer increasing 2x on all other purchases… or adding 2x groceries…
Sorry to see a great card’s stellar reputation get degraded by this change. If you’re increasing an already high annual fee, for heaven’s sake, make the added benefits WORTH IT!
If [these rumored CSR changes are] true, boo.
This might just kill my CSR. Justifying a $150 AF (after the travel credits) was tolerable, not sure it’ll be worth $250 now. If they add additional benefits that are worthwhile to me (Lyft, DoorDash are very useless to me) then I’ll consider it…time to cancel and apply for the CSP!
If they don’t increase earning rates to at least 4x it is simply not worth it for me. Was looking to upgrade my CSP to the CSR next month, but if I don’t receive a good retention offer I might just end up cancelling or downgrading it and stay with my Freedom and FU as well as all three Ink cards on which I do a good chunk of spending and earning the most UR.
I put up with the annoying Amex credits for the 4x and 5x. I’m glad I’ve got the Ink Preferred.
This is horrible. Also, the DoorDash credit and free delivery is only for 2 years, after which, I expect it to disappear just like the Amex WeWork benefit did for the Plat card this year with no corresponding decrease in the annual fee.