Chase Sapphire Reserve

Rewards by category

Our take

The Chase Sapphire Reserve is a card for people whose biggest spending line is airfare. It sits at the top of our flights ranking: 8x Chase Ultimate Rewards points on everything booked through Chase Travel — flights, hotels, cars, cruises, activities, 4x on flights and hotels booked directly with the airline or hotel, plus 3x at restaurants with no listed caveats. It runs on the Visa network. If most of your budget goes elsewhere, this structure does little for you.

The honest tradeoff is the $795 annual fee against a fairly narrow earning map. Outside travel and dining, everything earns the 1x base rate, and our rankings value each Chase Ultimate Rewards point at a conservative one cent rather than assuming outsized redemptions. That math favors households that reliably concentrate spending on those two categories and can book airfare through Chase Travel without friction.

In a small wallet, treat the Reserve as a specialist, not a daily driver. Hand it over for travel — through Chase Travel when the portal price is right, direct when it is not — and restaurant bills, and route groceries, gas, and everything else to a flat-rate card, because 1x is a weak floor at this fee level. If you would not use the flights rate at least monthly, a cheaper dining card likely serves you better.

The math

Run $250 a month of flights through this card and you're earning about $240 a year at our conservative valuations. Against the $795 annual fee, that top rate needs roughly $1,125 a month of flights spend before it beats a no-fee flat 2% card.

Where it lands in our rankings: #1 for flights · #5 for hotels · #5 for other travel

Store bonuses

• Lyft5x

Key benefits

• Up to $10 in monthly in-app Lyft ride credits (up to $120/yr, unused amounts forfeit monthly) through September 30, 2027

Common questions

Does Chase Sapphire Reserve have an annual fee?

Yes — $795 per year.

What does Chase Sapphire Reserve earn on flights?

8x on flights (book via chase travel).

What rewards does Chase Sapphire Reserve earn on everything else?

1x on all other purchases, in Chase Ultimate Rewards.

Is the Chase Sapphire Reserve worth $795 a year?

Only if travel and restaurant spending are already large, recurring expenses in your household. The 8x portal rate, 4x direct flights-and-hotels rate, and 3x dining rate are strong, and the 100,000-point bonus (after $6,000 in 3 months) softens the first year — but everything else earns 1x. Run the numbers on those categories before you commit.

Do I have to book through Chase Travel to earn 8x on flights?

For the 8x, yes — that rate applies only to bookings made through Chase Travel. But booking direct no longer drops you to base: a ticket bought straight from an airline, or a room booked directly with a hotel, earns 4x. Compare the portal price, book wherever it is better, and you stay at 4x or above either way.

Related reading

• How we value points and miles (and why our numbers are lower than everyone else's)SwipeCaddy ranks cards by reward rate × a conservative cash value per point: 1¢ for cash back and transferable points (Chase, Amex, Citi, Capital One, Bilt), 1.1–1.3¢ for airline miles, 0.4–1.4¢ for hotel points, and 0.8–0.9¢ for store currencies. Optimistic transfer values are recorded for context but never ranked, because most people never achieve them.