Chase Sapphire Reserve Perks: Reminders For The New Year
A new year often means a refresh on card perks for many credit cards. While some card perks are based on cardmember year, a lot of them focus on calendar year. Then when you throw in all of these short term offers revolving around the pandemic and it can be tough keeping up. One such card that has all of the above is the Chase Sapphire Reserve card. I figured it would be worthwhile to go over some Chase Sapphire Reserve perks reminders for the new year to be sure you max them out.
Credits, Increased Redemptions & Spending Offers Currently Available For The Sapphire Reserve
There are quite a few things going on with one of the more popular cards in the hobby so let’s take a look at all of them.
DoorDash Credits
When Chase increased the annual fee on the Chase Sapphire Reserve card they added some less than meaningful perks to the card. One of these perks was a DoorDash credit. The credit is for $60 per year and it was only guaranteed for 2020 and 2021. It remains to be seen if this will be extended or not but your credit reset on 1/1 so you have $60 once again available to you.
$300 Travel Credit On Gas & Groceries
Last year Chase also made a short term change to the $300 travel credit that comes with the card. Instead of it only working towards travel they opened it up to groceries, gas and restaurant purchases as well. This made the credit super easy for everyone to use. That was supposed to end in 2020 but they extended it for gas and groceries it until June 30, 2021.
Remember that this credit is based on cardmember year so you are not automatically eligible for it on 1/1 each year. But, if your anniversary date is before June 30th, and you have already maxed out your statement credit for this cardmember year, then you will still get to take advantage of it. If yours is after June 30th, like mine, then it will likely be business as usual.
If you upgraded to the Sapphire Reserve to take advantage of Pay Yourself Back then remember that your anniversary date and annual fee date will not be the same. Make sure you are aware of when this resets and don’t just wait for your annual fee to post.
A Potential Triple Dip
I should alert you to a nice triple dip with this credit. Normally when you use the travel credit on travel you do not earn points on the $300 in charges. But with the grocery purchases you still earn points (even at the increased rate mentioned below). Even though the charge is credited on your account, because of the travel credit, you can use the Pay Yourself Back feature on it to “erase” the charge again. So you get the credit, earn 3X on the purchase AND can make the charge negative by paying yourself back.
Do remember that your next $300 in travel purchases will earn 0 points because of this. That should reset the next time your travel credit resets.
3X Earning on Groceries
Remember that the grocery bonus on the Chase Sapphire Reserve carried over into the new year as well. You can now earn 3x total points on up to $1,000 in grocery store purchases per month from November 1–April 30, 2021, including pickup and eligible grocery store delivery services. So be sure to max that out every month if you can!
Pay Yourself Back
Chase’s Pay Yourself Back program has been a favorite of mine since it launched. If you remember, they extended this until April 30th, 2021. It remains to be seen if they extend it again, it wouldn’t surprise me if they did, but that is the date for now. While other cards have the offer as well the Sapphire Reserve offers the highest payout opportunity. Be aware of this cutoff date in case you wanted to cash in some last minute points.
With the increased grocery payouts until then you should have a lot of eligible charges for the redemptions.
Peloton Credits
You have until the end of the year to use your $120 in Peloton credits, if you haven’t already. This works for their app and classes even without the bike. If one of your New Years resolutions was to get in shape then this could help you achieve your goals.
Chase Sapphire Reserve Perks – Final Thoughts
With a new year comes a reset of some of the Chase Sapphire Reserve perks. Since Chase runs some of these based on cardmember year and some on calendar year it can get a little confusing. Hopefully this helps get things lined up for you and is a good reminder of what you can take advantage of and when.
Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card is the old king of travel rewards cards. Right now
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Mark,
I have AMEX Gold and a new CFU earning 4 and 5x at grocery. For someone like me who is not heavy into GC purchases and typically uses those cards for actual grocery, do you see any benefit to using the 3x from the CSR?
Thanks man!
Gman58
If you don’t think you would max out the Amex Gold later in the year then I would skip the 3X on the CSR.
I am not getting the 2021 travel credit on restaurant spend, but I am on groceries. I called and the rep said the restaurant travel credit did not carry over to 2021. Please explain.
I’ll update – thanks. Looks like Gas and Groceries should work.
For those of us who did upgrade from Sapphire Preferred to Sapphire Reserved…how do you check your anniversary date and annual fee date? If the anniversary date is earlier, can you use the $300 credit again before paying another annual fee?
Yes you can. The credit will reset on the anniversary date. I would reach out to Chase via secure message and they can give you both dates.