One of my favorite cards, the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card has announced some coming changes, most of which are bad, but a few improvements. Here is the skinny:
- Starting immediately new cards won’t get the 7% annual dividend on points earned. Existing cardholders won’t get this after 12/31/2015. While I appreciate the advance notice I will miss the 40,000 point bonanza like I received in 2013. This effectively makes this a 2 points/$ spent card instead of a 2.14.
- You used to be able to cash out your points via a mailed check to yourself, but won’t be able to do that any more after 9/20/14. You can still cash out your points via a statement credit or a direct deposit.
- They will no longer give you an extra point / $1 spent on airfare or hotel reservations booked through Chase.com/UltimateRewards after 12/31/2015. I had never used this benefit so it won’t be a big loss for me.
- Trip/Cancellation protection will be increasing from $5,000 to $10,000. I haven’t used this before but I guess more free coverage has to be better.
- Auto Rental Coverage has changed from secondary to primary. This relates to which coverage applies in an accident. Primary means this coverage will be the primary coverage on the rental vehicle and not just a secondary backup coverage.
- Made changes to their Ultimate Rewards Program Agreement with “details about how we will tell you about changes, what points are worth, when your use of Ultimate Rewards may be suspended, how you can lose your points, responsibilities related to the rewards you obtain, and the law applicable to the agreement.” In particular I was interested in how you can lose your points and the section is an interesting read so if you have a ton of points like I do, make sure you read it to ensure you don’t break any of their rules, such as fraudulent activity, letting your account go 30 days pas due, or by “repeatedly opening or otherwise maintaining credit card accounts for the sole purpose of generating rewards.” I’m pretty sure they will only invoke this if you do something pretty bad so be smart and you should be fine!
None of these are a game changer for me and the Chase Sapphire Preferred still remains one of my top picks because of the nice 40,000 point sign up bonus, the flexibility to be able to transfer the points to many different airlines and the Online Shopping opportunities. Click here for our full review on the Chase Sapphire Preferred.
As always, reply with any questions and follow me on Google+, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to make sure you don’t miss any great info! And don’t forget to share this article with anyone who might be interested using the handy social share buttons right below this post!
