Well, after weeks of rumors and seeing random ads of a woman holding a hilariously large Chase Sapphire Reserve® card, the news is here: the beloved Sapphire Reserve is finally increasing its annual fee from $550 to $795.

You wouldn’t believe the number of people who texted me asking the same flavor of question: what should we do with our Sapphire Reserve? As someone who got the card back in 2022, I spent a good amount of time digesting the changes.

As of now, I actually plan on keeping the card, even after its renewal: here’s why. Do note, there’s definitely no “one size fits all” answer to this question, and it’ll be important for you to assess if your personal spending habits will align with the benefits of the new Sapphire Reserve.

What Are The Changes To The Chase Sapphire Reserve®?

I don’t intend to cover all the changes in a single section, but here are the most important ones:

• The annual fee is increasing by 45% from $550 to $795
• Authorized user annual fee is also increasing from $75 to $195
• Points earned on direct flights & hotels are increasing from 3x to 4x
• Losing the ability to redeem points through Chase Travel℠ for 1.5 cents per point in favor of Points Boost, where your points can be worth up to 2 cents each, but it’s not guaranteed
• New credits, including:
  • Up to $500 in statement credits for The Edit℠ bookings
  • Up to $300 in statement credits for Sapphire Reserve Exclusive Tables
  • Up to $300 in statement credits for StubHub and viagogo purchases
  • Complimentary subscriptions to Apple TV+* and Apple Music
  • Up to $120 in Lyft in-app credits

Thankfully, the up to $300 annual travel credit is here to stay, alongside the up to $120 Global Entry, TSA Precheck®, or NEXUS statement credit.

So yeah. A whole lot of changes to work through.

Doing Some Math: The “Easy” Credits

As someone who likes to know how their money is being spent, I first started off with the “freebie” credits that immediately fit my spending portfolio:

• The $300 travel credit should be a relative “gimme” since I choose to put most travel expenses on my Reserve as it has some of the strongest travel insurance out there. This puts my “effective” annual fee at $495
• I then use Lyft monthly, so I should be able to extract the full value out of those credits. We can put my “effective” annual fee at $375 now
• My girlfriend uses Apple TV+ (Severance?), so this would be an effective way for us to “save” on that subscription (since we already are deploying that money as it is). Apple TV+ is $100/year, so this puts the effective annual fee down to $275 now

These are the credits that already essentially match my “existing” spending patterns, so now I just need to think about how I can work with the remaining ones for the $275 leftover.

Valuing The Remaining Credits

So, this is where credit cards can most certainly get you because now you’re starting to spend in categories and areas that you don’t normally do. Definitely urge some caution here if you’re finding yourself stretched too thin to accommodate the higher annual fee!

Here’s how I’m analyzing these other credits. Let’s start with the ones that are almost completely moot for me:

• Up to $120 Global Entry, TSA Precheck®, or NEXUS statement credit: worth $0 to me since everyone in my family already has it. This would be more of a “surprise” gift for a friend at this point.
• Up to $120 Peloton credit: worth $0 to me. I don’t use Peloton
• Up to $500 credit for stays with The Edit: worth $0 to me. The requirement of a 2-night stay will basically make this credit almost impossible for me to use—I don’t think I’m in the tax bracket for Edit hotels just yet :)
• Complimentary IHG One Rewards Platinum Elite status: worth $0 to me. I have the IHG One Rewards Premier Credit Card, so not much else I can get from this status

Alright, with those out of the way, we can start evaluating the other ones:

• Up to $300 annually in statement credits when you dine with Sapphire Reserve Exclusive Tables: So the main problem I have with this credit is that it’s awarded semiannually where you can get up to $150 in statement credits from January through June and again from July through December for a maximum of $300 annually. Furthermore, while I live in San Francisco and frequent NYC, Boston, and other major cities, a lot of the restaurants on the list are pretty expensive. I think this credit’s expected value is 50% of the max, so $150
• Up to $300 annually in monthly DoorDash promos: The DoorDash credits are awarded pretty sporadically as well. The problem I’ve noticed with the two $10 non-restaurant promo credits each month is that the markup for items can sometimes be drastically high. Like, compared to Costco, it’s hard to find a reasonable deal here. So, I think I’d say I would probably just get about $100 out of this over the year
  • “Get up to $25 each month to spend on DoorDash, which includes a $5 monthly promo to spend on restaurant orders and two $10 promos each month to save on groceries, retail orders and more”
• Get up to $300 in annual statement credits on concert & event tickets purchased on StubHub and viagogo: I don’t really purchase tickets via either platform, but I could probably ask my brother to use this. Furthermore, the credits are also split up semiannually. Realistically, it would be a pretty gamble to say I could get the full value of these credits, so I’d probably put this at $100

Anyways, putting these other credits together gets me an additional expected value of about $350. Combining with the “easy” credits, this puts me breakeven for the card (great!)

Notably, I would also gift the Apple Music subscription to my parents since they don’t pay for Spotify or anything right now.

Travel Insurance Benefits

My favorite benefit about the Sapphire Reserve has always been the travel insurance.

Trip Cancellation and Interruption Insurance

Emergency Evacuation and Transportation

Roadside Assistance

Auto Rental Coverage: This benefit saved me $11,000+ in a car accident

Trip delay reimbursement

Baggage delay insurance: This benefit has covered my delayed checked bags several times at this point

As always, check your Guide to Benefits for the most up-to-date information here.

Lounge Access

Now, we haven’t even gotten to the juicy part.

One of the key benefits of the Sapphire Reserve is lounge access. With the card, you can access the following lounges:

• Chase Sapphire Lounge by The Club with up to two guests
• 1,300+ Priority Pass airport lounges worldwide
• Select Air Canada Maple Leaf Lounges and Air Canada Cafés in the U.S., Canada, and Europe

If you’ve never been to the Sapphire Lounge, they’re pretty cool. Chase has been significantly investing in its lounges, and there’s a lot to show for it. Sapphire Lounges are currently located at:

• Boston Logan International Airport, near gate B40
• LaGuardia Airport, Terminal B
• John F. Kennedy International Airport, Terminal 4
• Philadelphia International Airport, Terminal D/E Connector
• Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, Terminal 4
• San Diego International Airport, Terminal 2
• Hong Kong International Airport, Terminal 1

I’ve been to pretty much all the US ones (except Phoenix), and I can pretty confidently say that they are some fantastic experiences. Differentiators are the free facials, solid food, cool amenities, call rooms, and more.

For Cardmembers Prior To June 23, 2025

If you got the card prior to June 23, 2025 (like me), there are some things to think about. Most importantly, your annual fee will be $795 on your anniversary date, adjusted from $550. That means if you got the card prior to June 23, 2025, you won’t be charged anything else until your anniversary date.

• Starting June 23, 2025: You’ll get access to Points Boost on Chase Travel to maximize the value of your rewards. Chase will automatically select the best value for your points (1.5 to 2 cents per point)
• Starting October 26, 2025: Your card will essentially be converted to the “new” version of the card, where you’ll get access to all the new benefits of the card
• Through October 26, 2027: For points earned prior to October 26, 2025, you will automatically get the best offer available, whether it’s Points Boost or 1.5x on Chase Travel, maximizing the value of your rewards for the next two years. After October 26, 2025, your points will only be subject to Points Boost

Why this is also crucial to my plans for keeping the card is the unique timeframe. Since I got the card before June 23, 2025, I will be able to keep the 1.5x on Chase Travel until October 26, 2027 (over 2 years away from the date of this post).

If you redeem via the travel portal at all, this “floor” will be incredibly useful to maintain. Combining it with Points Boost could make it a pretty strong limited-time “perk” to hold onto.

Future Plans

As of right now, based on my analysis of the new Sapphire Reserve, it fits well into my lifestyle. While some of the new credits are worth nothing to me, others do plug in well and help me recoup my annual fee outside of the other benefits like travel insurance, lounge access, and the ability to keep the 1.5x on Chase Travel for the time being.

As you can probably tell, deciding if this card is for you is a highly personal question, but there’s always a way to arrive at a strong analysis here.