I'm definitely keeping it. We travel a few times a year & dine out a fair amount, so it's been an awesome card for us.
Travel/dining spend combined with being able to transfer bonus category points from Freedom makes it crazy for us
to even think about cancelling it. I would probably agree with the previous poster who said if they could only have one card, this would be it.
Chase Sapphire Reserve $30,000 | Amex BCP $30,000 | Discover It $30,000 | Citi Simp $16,500 | NFCU Cash Rewards $14,400 | Citi DC $9,800 | Chase Freedom $9,000 | VS $4,100 | Kohl's $3,000 | Loft $3,000
@Noctilum wrote:If you still aren't sure about renewing your CSR, remember the break-even points for spend to meet the $150 annual fee after the $300 travel credit. Even if you do not travel a lot, just a once or twice a year can still be well worth keeping it.
https://thepointsguy.com/2016/10/break-even-point-chase-sapphire-reserve/
Travel and Dining (direct redemption):
Points earned per dollar: 3
Value per point: 1.5 cents
Total rewards per dollar spent: 4.5 cents$150 / $0.045 = $3,333.33
Non-bonus spending (direct redemption):
Points earned per dollar: 1
Value per dollar spent: 1.5 cents$150 / $0.015 = $10,000
It is even easier to reach the break-even point if you pair with the Freedom and Freedom Unlimited, since CSR enhances the points earned on those two non-fee cards once transferred to it.
I appreciate the math he is doing, but the story is a little different if you actually do the calculations in relation to card that might beat it in reward's redemption. I'll just compare Travel/Dining spending against the USAA Limitless. Whereas his analysis is a break even point for the CSR, with the Limitless since their is no AF you get a huge head start, there is no break even, it's straight free. And I actually did some other math recently on the CSR redemptions, and its really not 4.5%, it's closer to 4.3% because to get the good redemption rate you have to use the points for travel, in which case you won't get points on that travel spend. We'll just keep it at 4.5% though for ease of example.
The reward redemption difference is 2%; you get 2% more back on Travel/Dining with the CSR as opposed to the Limitless. So at what point of spend on Travel/Dining does 2% become $150 (the difference in AF between the Limitless and CSR)?
150 / .02 = 7500
or
7500 x .02 = 150
So the point at which the CSR annual cost is equal to the Limitless is actually $7500 dollars per year spend in Travel/Dining. That's $625 a month in just those 2 categories.
CSR does have an insane amount of trip insurance, though, like all freaking kinds and very large policies, and lounge access, and TSA paid for. I don't really make use enough of the lounges, most are not open 24 hours and I like to book direct flights if possible, I would never pay for it out of pocket for a yearly membership. Same with TSA, it's a nice perk, but I don't travel internationally enough to really care about it and wouldn't pay for it myself out of pocket.
Limitless actually does have travel insurance, just not as comprehensive. Both have no FTF.
I try to eat out less and less lately, so the 4.5% redemption in that category is nice, but not one that I really want to be taking advantage of regularly.
I won't have to try and use the $300 travel credit every year if I don't feel like it.
If you had the Chase Trifecta it would be a little different, the 2.5% of the Limitless is still better than the 2.25% of the Freedom Unilimited, but the 7.5x cash back for the regular Freedom would be kind of a curve ball because it would really depend on whether you could spend up to the limit in the categories through out the year. They had some pretty good categories in 2017, gas, goceries, restaurant......groceries would probably max at 1500 easily and that would be worth about 112 alone.... OK so with the CSR and the regular old Freedom it becomes a no brainer, and would pay for itself in annual cash back comparison including AF to almost any other card (if you include $300 travel credit). They were rumoring about changing the rewards redemption value for Freedom to CSR recently, though...
I might have to rething my idea of closing the CSR and instead just get a Freedom, too =D
