Chase Sapphire Reserve, Redeem Points for Annual Fee with 50% Bonus
Chase recently devalued some categories for its Pay Yourself Back program. This has been a very popular option to redeem points so far, but negative changes are coming. But some of these changes have gone into effect earlier than expected.
If you have the Chase Sapphire Reserve card and try to redeem your Ultimate Rewards points for your Annual Membership Fee, you’ll see a bonus of 25% only. This bonus was supposed to be 50% through the end of the year.
Apparently this is an error from Chase, as they meant to make tis change starting on January first. This confirms the upcoming devaluation. But Chase also says that you can still redeem points towards your annual fee with a 50% bonus until December 31.
The information comes from DansDeals that quotes the bank as saying:
The 25% rate was updated earlier than anticipated, but Chase will be honoring all annual membership fee redemptions through 12/31/22 at the original 50% rate. This will be made whole for cardmembers in Q1 2023. The 25% rate will begin on January 1, 2023.
Chase is not making this easy though. You need to redeem with a 25% bonus now, and then wait for Chase to refund points in 2023 based on a valuation of f 1.5 cents per point.
As we noted on our previous article, if you look at eligible purchases for a redemption bonus, grocery store purchases are also listed. But these charges only show a 25% bonus as well, instead of 50%. This is another indication of upcoming changes.
We should learn all the details on January 1st.
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I’ve used the 50% bonus on some items… Air BnB and AF, but only when I had no better option at the time. Unfortunately for me, I am unlike the professional bloggers I read (and many of their followers). I am not in a position to continually sign up for more cards and pay the minimum spends in order to get those big jackpots of points. Although I try to maximize my purchases and take advantage of card offers, I earn points at a MUCH slower pace.
So while it’s disappointing to see this change, it only confirms I should not give away my hard earned points at 1.5 or 1.25 cpp when I can get a biz class seat to Europe at a better cpp rate.
I called and it was confirmed by rep and manager, they told me to wait bc they don’t know how to refund me. Im thinking I should redeem before jan 1 and tell them to refund me. I think your right.
Be aware I called chase about this. Spoke to a representative, then her manager and then the manager’s manager…all knew nothing about the additional 25 percent and all denied that it existed.
Waiting for more shoes to drop.