What is The Edit by Chase Travel℠?

The new Chase Sapphire Reserve® and Sapphire Reserve for Business℠ both include an annual up to $500 credit for hotel stays with The Edit by Chase Travel. If you’ve never heard of The Edit before, you might be wondering if the credit will even serve you any benefit or use.

Depending on your personal lifestyle and spending habits, The Edit credit could be very useful, making either Reserve card a potentially strategic addition to your wallet. On the other hand, you may find it difficult to make use of The Edit credit, subsequently devaluing the Reserve cards. You may want to think twice before deciding if the credit for The Edit is worth it for you.

Quick Overview

Before we dive into what The Edit is, a superficial overview of the program is that it is a luxury hotel booking program that allows eligible Chase cardholders to book stays at a select collection of hotels and resorts worldwide.

Booking hotel stays through The Edit allows cardholders to take advantage of a number of benefits that are included with their stay, such as daily breakfast for two people, $100 property credit, room upgrade at check-in (subject to availability), early check-in/late check-out (subject to availability), etc.

The $500 annual credit for the Edit that comes with the Sapphire Reserve and the Sapphire Reserve for Business is split into two semiannual credits, where you can get up to $250 in statement credits from January to June, and up to $250 in credits from July to December.

The Catch: Staying at Luxury Properties

The biggest deciding factor regarding whether or not The Edit credit is worth it for you is if you can afford to stay at luxury hotel properties. The curated collection of properties that you can book through The Edit is mostly hotels that are on the higher end, meaning that they can cost hundreds if not thousands of dollars a night for a stay.

For example, one of the properties available for booking through The Edit is the Ritz Paris, which is a 5-star luxury hotel in central Paris that is situated right next to the Place Vendôme in the city’s 1st arrondissement.

Staying at the Ritz Paris can run you almost $3,000 a night, which highlights how expensive these luxury properties can get. It is highly unlikely that people in the most common tax brackets will be able to afford staying in hotels like these.

Additionally, in order for your statement credits to apply, you must book a minimum two-night stay at an Edit property. Since you can only use one of your $250 semiannual credits on a stay (unless it traverses the months of June and July), you would only be able to cover roughly 4.5% of the cost of staying at the Ritz Paris for two nights in the example above.

More Affordable Properties are Available

The Edit does include a handful of properties that have a much lower price tag than the Ritz Paris, and are more affordable for most people to stay at.

For example, you could book a stay at the Sofitel Legend Metropole Hanoi, which is a 5-star luxury hotel located in the heart of Hanoi, right near the Hanoi Opera House and the Ngoc Son Temple. Staying at the Sofitel Legend Metropole Hanoi would only run you about $300 a night, which is much cheaper than the $3,000 a night rate for the Ritz Paris.

Using one of your $250 semiannual credits to cover a two-night stay at this hotel would cover about 40% of your stay, which is a much better use and return of value for the credit.

Comparisons to Other Rates

The Edit by Chase Travel can be viewed as similar to other luxury hotel booking programs, such as American Express’s Fine Hotels + Resorts® program.

There are hotels that are available through both the Edit program and the Fine Hotels + Resorts program, such as the Sofitel Legend Metropole Hanoi.

Booking the Sofitel Legend Metropole Hanoi through Amex’s Fine Hotels + Resorts program costs nearly the same cash price as booking through Chase’s The Edit program, as shown here:

The Edit and Fine Hotels + Resorts include very similar benefits, as they both come with daily breakfast for two people, $100 property credit, early check-in when available, and a room upgrade when available.

A slight advantage that Fine Hotels + Resorts has over The Edit is that Fine Hotels + Resorts provides you with a guaranteed 4 pm check-out. The Edit only provides you with a late check-out, subject to availability.

Chase Points Boost Program

You can take advantage of Chase’s new Points Boost program when booking hotels available on The Edit through Chase Travel. With the Sapphire Reserve or Sapphire Reserve for Business, your points can be worth up to 2x on select hotel and flight bookings.

As seen in the example with the Sofitel Legend Metropole Hanoi, you can book a two-night stay worth $624 in cash for 31,185 points using your Sapphire Reserve or Sapphire Reserve for Business card, yielding a value of 2 cents per point.

This is a prominent advantage that Chase has over Amex, as you would need about 54,000 points to book a two-night stay worth $612 in cash, yielding a value of about 1.1 cents per point.

On the downside, you won’t be able to use one of your $250 semiannual credits for The Edit if you book your hotel stay with points. To receive the statement credits, you must book your stay with cash for at least two nights, and you must book it through the Chase Travel platform.

Final Remarks

The up to $500 annual credit for The Edit by Chase Travel℠ can offer excellent value, but only if you can realistically take advantage of it. While some of the hotels in the collection are ultra-luxurious and may be out of reach for many cardholders, other options make it more accessible to travelers with a moderate budget.

Additionally, when paired with the Chase Points Boost program, your rewards points can stretch further than they might with competing travel programs, such as Amex Fine Hotels + Resorts®. However, it’s important to remember that you can’t use the Edit credit on points bookings, but only on cash bookings made through Chase Travel.

Ultimately, whether the Edit credit is worth it depends on your travel style. If you enjoy booking luxury stays and plan to use the credit semiannually, the Sapphire Reserve or Sapphire Reserve for Business may be a strong fit for your wallet.