Could the Chase Sapphire Preferred Be the Best Way to Start Earning Travel Points Right Now?
Disclosure: This post contains referral links. If you choose to apply through one of my links, I may receive points at no additional cost to you.
Up until about a month ago, I was seriously considering closing my Chase Sapphire Preferred.
Not because it was a bad card.
I simply wasn’t reaching for it anymore.
My spending habits had changed, I was using other cards more frequently, and despite its relatively modest $95 annual fee, I wasn’t convinced I was getting enough value to justify keeping it.
Then Chase announced a refresh to the card.
No increase to the annual fee.
Now they had my attention.
Much of the excitement surrounding the refresh centered around the welcome offer: 100,000 Ultimate Rewards points after meeting the spending requirements, one of the strongest public offers we’ve seen on this card in quite some time.
Interested in the current offer? You can view the details here.
Unfortunately for me, I’ve already received a welcome bonus on this card and am no longer eligible for another one.
So the bonus wasn’t the reason I was paying attention.
Instead, it made me ask a different question:
If a friend or family member came to me today and asked, “I want to get started with points and miles, where should I begin?” would this be the card I’d recommend?
For the first time in a while, I think the answer might actually be yes.
In fact, if someone asked me to recommend a beginner travel credit card today, the Chase Sapphire Preferred would be near the top of my list.
Before We Talk About 100,000 Points
Let’s get one thing out of the way.
The biggest mistake people make with travel rewards cards is focusing on the bonus before they understand the spending requirement.
If a card requires you to spend $5,000 in the first few months, the goal is not to spend an extra $5,000.
The goal is to redirect spending you were already planning to make.
When I earned one of my earliest welcome bonuses, I had just moved into a new home and was purchasing furniture anyway. The spending was already happening. The credit card simply changed what I received in return.
The same principle applies to all kinds of large expenses:
- A Disney vacation
- New appliances
- Home renovations
- Wedding expenses
- A major family trip
Individually, these purchases may not seem extraordinary. But they can easily represent enough spending to earn a substantial welcome bonus.
That’s where points and miles start becoming interesting.
Not because you’re spending more money.
Because you’re earning something meaningful from money you were already planning to spend.
Why These Changes Make It More Beginner Friendly
Before looking at all the travel benefits, it’s important to understand something about travel credit cards.
Opening and keeping a travel credit card isn’t about collecting perks for the sake of collecting perks.
It’s about getting enough value from the card to justify the annual fee.
And if the value you receive exceeds the annual fee, even better.
For the Chase Sapphire Preferred, that annual fee is $95.
Whenever I evaluate a card, I like to start with the simplest possible question:
“Can I reasonably recover that $95 each year?”
With the recent refresh, Chase made that calculation much easier.
$100 Annual Chase Travel Hotel Credit
Each cardmember year, you’ll receive up to a $100 statement credit when booking eligible hotels through the Chase Travel portal.
For many people, that’s the entire annual fee right there.
If you spend at least one night in a hotel each year and would otherwise book through the Chase portal, you’ve effectively offset the card’s annual fee.
That’s where my math stops.
It’s the cleanest example I can give.
Everything else becomes additional value.
Additional Benefits
The card also includes several additional perks such as Apple TV+, DoorDash DashPass, monthly DoorDash credits, and a Global Entry/TSA PreCheck application fee credit.
They’re nice benefits to have.
But I wouldn’t use them to justify the annual fee if you weren’t already planning to use those services.
I prefer to think of them as bonus perks rather than the reason to keep the card.
Earning Points
The Chase Sapphire Preferred earns elevated points on travel, dining, online groceries, streaming services, and several other common spending categories.
The earning rates are nice.
The welcome bonus is nice.
But what really matters is what you can actually do with the points.
Why Transferable Points Matter
One of the reasons I think the Chase Sapphire Preferred is such a strong entry point into points and miles is that the points you earn aren’t tied to a single airline.
Instead, Chase allows you to transfer points to a variety of airline and hotel partners.
That flexibility gives you options.
You can leave your points in Chase until you decide where you want to travel and then transfer them to the program that best fits your trip.
That’s exactly how both of the following examples came together.
Example #1: Virgin Atlantic and Realistic Redemptions
JFK>LHR September 2026 Reward Seat Calendar
One of the reasons I continue to like Virgin Atlantic as an introductory redemption is because of how realistic many of its awards can be.
Looking at Virgin Atlantic’s award calendar for September 2026, you’ll notice something immediately:
We won’t be flying Upper Class.
Those award rates are astronomical, and after recent changes to Virgin Atlantic’s award chart, so are the taxes and fees.
Instead, look at the Economy and Premium Economy pricing.
Many September dates show:
- Economy from just 6,000 points one-way
- Premium Economy from as little as 10,500 points one-way
The taxes and fees are also significantly lower:
- Economy: approximately $164
- Premium Economy: approximately $298
- Upper Class: approximately $700
What Could 100,000 Points Get You?
- Family of four roundtrip in Economy: 48,000 points
- Solo traveler roundtrip in Premium Economy: 21,000 points
- Family of four roundtrip in Premium Economy: 84,000 points
But here’s where things get even more interesting.
Chase and other transferable points programs frequently run transfer bonuses with their travel partners.
When those promotions happen to align with a trip you’re already considering, that’s when the stars really start to align.
At the time of writing, Chase is offering a 30% transfer bonus to Virgin Atlantic through July 7th.
That means every 1,000 Chase points transferred becomes 1,300 Virgin Atlantic points.
Using the same examples above:
- Family of four roundtrip in Economy: approximately 37,000 Chase points
- Solo traveler roundtrip in Premium Economy: approximately 17,000 Chase points
- Family of four roundtrip in Premium Economy: approximately 65,000 Chase points
Suddenly that 100,000-point welcome bonus stretches much further.
Of course, I wouldn’t transfer points simply because a promotion exists. Transfer bonuses are most valuable when they line up with a trip you’re already planning.
You’ve just landed in Europe with only taxes and fees coming out of pocket.
Points and miles doesn’t mean $0 travel. The better comparison is what you would have paid in cash.
Would you have paid cash for Premium Economy? Would you have paid cash to fly a family of four across the Atlantic?
That’s where points become powerful.
For many travelers, points don’t create trips.
They enhance trips that were already going to happen.
But I’ve Already Been To London
That’s fair.
The point isn’t necessarily London.
The point is getting yourself to Europe.
One of the biggest mindset shifts in points and miles is learning to think in regions rather than specific destinations.
The travelers who get the most value from their points are often the ones willing to let availability influence their plans.
That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have a destination in mind.
It just means that a little flexibility can unlock opportunities you may not have considered otherwise.
Think of this redemption less as a flight to London and more as your ticket to Europe.
Example #2: Flying Blue and the Reality of Changed Plans
One of my favorite uses of Chase points is Flying Blue, the loyalty program of Air France and KLM. But rather than talk about a perfect redemption, I’d rather share a real-world example.
Originally, I had booked Business Class flights to Munich for Christmas Market season. Then life happened and the trip wasn’t going to happen.
Flying Blue currently charges a 70-euro redeposit fee to cancel an award ticket and have your miles returned. And yes, that fee is charged per ticket. Ouch.
The good news is that you receive your miles back and your taxes and fees are refunded as well, less the cancellation fee.
After canceling the trip, I suddenly found myself sitting on nearly 250,000 Flying Blue miles. That led to another important lesson in points and miles:
Once points are transferred to a partner program, they stay there.
Your Chase points can sit safely in your Chase account while you decide where and when to travel. Once they’re transferred to Flying Blue, they become Flying Blue miles. There is no transfer button that sends them back.
So instead of letting those miles sit unused, I started looking for ways to use them. That’s how they ended up helping fund our family trip to Spain.
Our flights looked like this:
- JFK → Paris → Madrid
- Barcelona → Paris → JFK
The flights cost:
- 80,000 Flying Blue miles per person roundtrip
- Approximately $400 in taxes and fees per person
And importantly, these were Premium Economy seats.
Would I have paid cash for four Premium Economy tickets to Spain? Probably not.
But that’s one of the things points and miles can do exceptionally well. They don’t just reduce the cost of trips.
They can enhance trips you were already planning to take.
So, Is the Chase Sapphire Preferred Worth It?
A month ago, I was preparing to cancel this card.
Today, I’m writing an article about why it has my attention again.
Not because it’s the best card for everyone.
But because it may be one of the strongest beginner travel credit card options available today and one of the simplest ways to start learning points and miles.
If you’re still trying to figure out where you fit into this hobby, that’s completely normal.
In my next post, I’ll introduce a framework I use to think about points and miles:
Understanding which phase you’re in may be more important than deciding which card to open.
And if after reading this article you think the Chase Sapphire Preferred might be a good fit for your situation, you can view the current offer here.