I originally started writing this a few weeks ago, but life got in the way. That might have ended up working out, because it’s as topical as ever this week.
While the community is focused on another, much higher profile nerf, there’s another one worth acknowledging that is more like death by a thousand cuts.
Unless you live under a churning news related rock, you are aware that the sign up bonus on the Chase Sapphire Reserve is now up to 150k URs.
At face value, it’s kind of interesting, especially since Chase has long been reluctant to follow Amex into the giga-offers that have accompanied the large increases in annual fees on both issuers’ flagship cards. To me, it feels like too little, too late, and I’m really struggling to see where Chase fits into my plans.
For ages, Chase was the darling of the churning world. They had a suite of transfer partners that were especially easy to use in the US, it wasn’t difficult to use the credits associated with Chase cards, and most importantly, they had the 5/24 rule.
By ensuring that they were the first issuer that the vast majority of us started with in deference to said rule, Chase was assured the most prominent spot in many a credit card YouTuber’s thumbnail.
Pictured: the only YouTube thumbnail worth sharing
And for a long time, they deserved that top of mind spot. Whether you were chasing SUBs or one of the biggest whales out there, Chase had an interesting angle for you.
On the award travel side of the house, Chase had quite a bit to offer. They were the key to earning the legendary Southwest companion pass (I openly admit that was one of my first big wins) and was the only way to top up your WN balance to continue utilizing it.
They had a very unique and useful transfer partner in Korean Air Skypass. They had a very solid Star Alliance partner for both domestic and international redemptions in United. And perhaps most importantly, they had the most vaunted transfer partner of them all – World of Hyatt.
And on the shenanigan-y side of things, they also had a lot of unique opportunities that provided outsize value for whales over the years. Whether that was partnerships with other brands, generous liquidation options during the pandemic, or the recently lucrative Points Boost, there was lots of room for cetacean maximizers to do what they do best.
But times have changed – quite a bit. Elliott Management ensured that the things that made Southwest unique fell by the wayside in the name of shareholder value. Chase lost Korean Air as a partner in 2018 and utterly failed to replace them with an exclusive partner of similar value. United has hacked their award chart to shreds over the last few years.
Perhaps most timely is Hyatt’s across the board award devaluation, but I don’t even see it as wildly consequential in the grand scheme of things. After all, Hyatt isn’t exclusive to Chase anymore. Neither is United.
For what it’s worth, I’m not even angry at Hyatt. They held out way longer than anybody expected, and with reimbursement rates for award bookings going through the roof, I’d imagine it wasn’t wildly sustainable.
On the MS side of things, things aren’t much better. Most of the aforementioned opportunities are dead for being too fun, and their most recent interesting addition is essentially dead on arrival as well.
It’s especially tricky because Chase’s whole justification for axing the longstanding differentiator of 1.5x redemption in the UR portal via the CSR was adding Points Boost. If you decide mere months in to nerf the benefit, fine.
But there’s a lot of $795 fees that are going to be hard to justify now that we shifted from easy 1.5cpp redemptions and advantageous United fares to cheap cash fares on…Turkish?
While Chase is taking all these steps in the name of the enshittification of their card portfolio, their competitors are actively getting better. Wells Fargo is adding transfer partners. Bilt is adding transfer partners. Capital One is adding transfer partners. Even MS institutions are adding transfer partners (and some interesting, unique ones at that). Meanwhile, Chase is too busy adding coupons and axing truly useful features to worry about that.
This isn’t to say that there is no use for Chase. There’s some level of value, but it’s much harder to extract. On the bright side, I’m excited to potentially have less competition at the Blackhawk rack at my local Staples, I guess?
For me, this is yet another nudge towards a focus on cashback. With less outsized redemptions available, it’s easier to focus on the exact property you want, regardless of award affiliation or redemption chart.
Personally, I’m kind of looking forward to being freed from defaulting to Hyatt due to a psychological need to get a good deal. There’s a lot of other interesting hotel points programs out there, and that’s before just…paying cash.
I’m grateful for all the good times I had with Chase. Those SW companion pass redemptions are some of my favorites. So was booking the legendary Andaz Papagayo for 15k UR/night. But those times are long since in the rearview at this point, and we’re better off focusing on what’s ahead.
Рақмет!
Pictured: Another great redemption into Almaty