Chase Sapphire Reserve vs. Sapphire Preferred vs. Amex Platinum: Which One Is Worth It?

The Sapphire Reserve cost $450 when it launched in 2016, and the Amex Platinum was $450 the year before that. Today they’re $795 and $895, and the Sapphire Preferred is still $95, which tells you most of what you need to know about where this comparison is headed.

The first year is the easy part, because any of these welcome bonuses (even ones lower than best-ever offers) is worth more than the fee. The real question is whether the credits and perks you’d actually use (not the ones the banks advertise) cover the annual fee in year two and beyond, so that’s how I’ve compared them here.

1. Quick Take

• Sapphire Preferred ($95): the right card for most people as a “keep it” card. Its $100 Chase Travel hotel credit covers the fee if you book one hotel a year through Chase, and it gets you the same transfer partners as the Reserve, with primary rental car and trip coverage.
• Sapphire Reserve ($795): worth it if you value their lounges and would already spend at least $495 a year on its other credits (dining, StubHub, The Edit, DoorDash, and so on) after the easy $300 travel credit. It’s also the only Chase card left that transfers to Hyatt 1:1, and its insurance coverages are the best of the three.
• Amex Platinum ($895): the best lounge access and the only one with both Hilton and Marriott Gold, but its value is a coupon book of monthly and quarterly credits (similar to the Sapphire Reserve). Since the hotel credit now needs two-night stays, I see it as a card to get for the bonus and not keep past year one, unless you’d use $600 to $700 of its credits without changing how you spend.
• Can’t decide? Get the Preferred. You lose very little by starting there, and you can still get the Reserve’s bonus later, since Chase now gives one bonus per Sapphire card.

I don’t take affiliate or referral commissions from any bank, so nothing here changes based on which card you pick.

2. The Three Cards Side by Side

	Sapphire Preferred	Sapphire Reserve	Amex Platinum
Annual fee	$95	$795 ($195 per authorized user)	$895 ($195 per additional Platinum card)
Today’s best available offer	75,000 points after $5,000 in 3 months	100,000 points after $6,000 in 3 months	As high as 175,000 points after $12,000 in 6 months
Best offer ever	100,000 points after $5,000 in 3 months	150,000 points after $6,000 in 3 months	175,000 points after $8,000 in 6 months
Main earning	5x Chase Travel; 3x dining, gas and EV charging, select streaming, online grocery; 2x other travel	8x Chase Travel; 4x flights and hotels booked direct; 3x dining	5x flights (direct or Amex Travel, up to $500,000 a year); 5x prepaid hotels and Airbnb through Amex Travel
Everything else	1x	1x	1x
Easiest credit	$100 Chase Travel hotel credit each anniversary year	$300 travel credit each anniversary year	$15 monthly Uber Cash ($35 in December) and $25 monthly streaming credit
Lounges	None	Priority Pass and Sapphire Lounges, two guests each	Centurion, Priority Pass, 10 Delta Sky Club visits a year, and more
Hotel status	None	IHG Platinum	Hilton Gold and Marriott Gold
Rental car coverage	Primary, up to $60,000	Primary, up to $75,000	Secondary
Trip delay	Up to $500 after 12 hours	Up to $500 after 6 hours	Up to $500 after 6 hours, round trip on the card
Hyatt transfers	4:3	1:1	Not a partner
Points in the bank’s travel portal	1 cent, up to 1.75 cents with Points Boost	1 cent, up to 2 cents with Points Boost	1 cent (Pay with Points)

Every number in this table comes from my individual reviews of the Sapphire Preferred, Sapphire Reserve, and Amex Platinum, which are checked against the banks’ own pages and kept current.

3. Welcome Offers and Who Can Get Them

All three bonuses are below their best-ever levels right now, so if you’re not in a hurry, it can pay to wait. Chase has raised both Sapphire offers for a limited time several times in the last two years, and the Platinum’s 175,000 used to need $8,000 in spending instead of $12,000.

• Sapphire Preferred: 75,000 points after $5,000 in 3 months on Chase’s site. It has hit 100,000 points three times, most recently from June 15 to July 30, 2026.
• Sapphire Reserve: 100,000 points after $6,000 in 3 months on Chase’s site. It was 150,000 from April 30 to June 15, 2026, and I’d hate to sign up for 100,000 knowing that.
• Amex Platinum: “as high as” 175,000 points after $12,000 in 6 months. Amex shows you your actual number before it checks your credit, and some people see less, so don’t apply until you see the figure you want.

One tip: in September, Chase showed some cardholders much bigger offers in the Chase app (175,000 on the Reserve and 125,000 on the Preferred). Those are targeted, so you can’t ask for one, but it costs nothing to look in the app before you apply.

The full history of each offer is in my welcome offer history.

The rules that decide whether you get the bonus

• Chase 5/24: Chase will deny you either Sapphire card if you’ve opened five or more personal cards from any bank in the last 24 months.
• One bonus per Sapphire card: since January 2026, Chase gives a bonus on each Sapphire card “one time per card,” and you can hold the Preferred and Reserve at the same time. Chase says you may not get a card’s bonus if you’ve held that card before, and it may look at recent openings and closings.
• Amex once per lifetime: the Platinum bonus is generally once per lifetime, and Amex shows a pop-up before the hard pull if you’re not eligible. If you also want the Amex Gold, get the Gold first, because holding the Platinum first blocks the Gold’s bonus (the reverse isn’t true).

My application rules guide has the details for every bank.

4. Earning and Using the Points

For everyday spending, the Preferred is the best earner of the three, which surprises people given the price gap. It earns 3x on dining, gas and EV charging, select streaming, and online groceries, while the Reserve’s only everyday bonus is 3x on dining, and the Platinum earns 1x on everything that isn’t a flight or a prepaid hotel.

The Reserve earns more on travel: 8x in Chase Travel and 4x on flights and hotels booked directly. The Platinum’s 5x on flights booked directly is its one standout, and it’s the main reason frequent flyers put airfare on it.

Transfers are where the value is

Chase points and Amex points are both worth 1 cent each in their own travel portals, so the real value comes from transferring them to airline and hotel partners. Both Sapphire cards transfer to the same 14 Chase partners, with one difference that matters: the Reserve still transfers to World of Hyatt at 1:1, while the Preferred dropped to 4:3 (it did so on June 15, 2026 for new cardholders and October 1, 2026 for everyone else). A 60,000-point Hyatt night now costs 80,000 Chase points from the Preferred, and that’s the change that stings most for me.

Amex has more airline partners, including ANA, Delta, and Air France-KLM, but its hotel partners are weak, so I treat Amex points as a flights currency. The full list of partners and ratios for both banks is in my transfer partners guide.

Points Boost

Chase’s Points Boost raises the value of points on selected flights and hotels in Chase Travel, to as much as 2 cents each with the Reserve and 1.75 cents with the Preferred. It’s worth a look before you transfer, since a boosted booking can beat a transfer when award space is bad, but the deals rotate and most bookings are still 1 cent.

One of my favorite uses for Points Boost is luxury hotels that aren’t easily bookable with points otherwise, like Four Seasons hotels. Rates vary obviously, but pricing with Points Boost can be close to what a top-tier Park Hyatt would cost in a similar location. Combined with “The Edit” booking (free breakfast, $100 credit, and other perks), this can sometimes be very valuable if you like nice hotels.

If you held the Reserve before its June 2025 refresh, points you earned before October 26, 2025 are worth 1.5 cents in Chase Travel until October 2027, oldest points first.

Pairing with a no-fee card

Either Sapphire turns the points from a Freedom Unlimited or Freedom Flex into transferable points, which is why the Preferred plus a Freedom card is one of the best low-cost setups in points. The Platinum’s usual partner is the Amex Gold, which earns 4x at restaurants and U.S. supermarkets, although its fee makes it marginal for many people.

5. The Credits: Real Money vs. Coupon Book

Both premium cards advertise credits worth several times their fee, and both are counting on you not using most of them, which is called breakage. I split each card’s credits by how much effort they take, because a credit you’d have to go out of your way for isn’t worth its face value.

Sapphire Preferred

• Easy: up to $100 a year on a hotel booked through Chase Travel. If you never book through Chase, it’s worth nothing to you. Frankly, I often don’t use this.
• Situational: $10 a month in DoorDash promos for non-restaurant orders, a DashPass membership, Apple TV for a year, and up to $120 for Global Entry, TSA PreCheck, or NEXUS once every four years.

Sapphire Reserve

• Easy: up to $300 a year on almost any travel purchase, applied automatically. This is the one credit nearly everyone uses in full.
• Takes some effort: up to $250 per prepaid stay of two or more nights at The Edit hotels through Chase Travel (up to $500 a year); $150 each half-year at Exclusive Tables restaurants booked on OpenTable; $150 each half-year at StubHub or viagogo (through 2027); and $15 a month on any DoorDash order, plus two $10 monthly non-restaurant promos.
• Niche: up to $10 a month at Lyft (through September 2027), $10 a month toward Peloton (through 2027), Apple TV and Apple Music, and up to $120 for Global Entry, TSA PreCheck, or NEXUS once every four years.

Several of these end in 2027, so the Reserve’s value on paper will shrink unless Chase replaces them.

Amex Platinum

• Easy, if you already use them: $15 a month in Uber Cash ($35 in December) and $25 a month toward streaming and news subscriptions like Disney+, Hulu, Peacock, YouTube Premium, and The New York Times.
• Takes some effort: two $300 lodging credits, one each half-year, on prepaid Fine Hotels + Resorts, The Hotel Collection, or Airbnb Luxe stays booked through Amex Travel; $100 a quarter at Resy restaurants; up to $200 a year in incidental fees on one airline you pick; and up to $120 a year for Uber One.
• Niche: $75 a quarter at lululemon, up to $300 a year at Equinox, up to $200 a year for an Oura Ring, up to $219 a year for CLEAR+, up to $12.95 a month for Walmart+, a $250 Airbnb Experiences credit that only unlocks after an Airbnb Luxe stay, and up to $120 for Global Entry every four years.

The lodging credits used to be the Platinum’s best feature in my mind, because one-night Fine Hotels + Resorts stays counted. From January 1, 2027, those stays need two nights, which pushes most people toward spending $600 or more per half-year to use a $300 credit. I wrote more about that in my post on the Platinum’s hotel credit change. My closet is already bursting with Lululemon ABC pants.

The credits calendar shows when each of these resets.

6. Lounges, Hotel Status, and Travel Protections

Lounges

The Platinum wins this easily. It gets you into Centurion Lounges, Priority Pass lounges, and 10 Delta Sky Club visits a year when you fly Delta, along with a long list of partner lounges. The catch is guests: Centurion guests cost $50 per adult and $30 per child unless you spend $75,000 on the card in a calendar year, and at U.S. Centurion Lounges your guests now have to be on your flight.

The Reserve gets you Priority Pass and Chase’s own Sapphire Lounges, with two free guests at both, plus select Air Canada lounges with an eligible boarding pass. Sapphire Lounges are good but only exist at a handful of airports, so for most people this comes down to Priority Pass. The Preferred has no lounge access at all.

Hotel status

The Platinum gives you Hilton Gold and Marriott Gold, which is useful mainly for Hilton’s daily food and beverage credit at many U.S. hotels. The Reserve gives you IHG Platinum through 2027, and spending $75,000 in a calendar year adds Hyatt Explorist and IHG Diamond, but that’s a lot of spending for mid-tier status. The Preferred gives you no status. Platinum wins this easy (mainly for the Hilton Gold status).

Travel protections

This is where the Chase cards pull ahead, and it’s the part most comparisons gloss over.

• Rental cars: both Sapphire cards give you primary coverage (up to $75,000 on the Reserve and $60,000 on the Preferred), so you don’t have to go through your own auto insurance first. The Platinum’s coverage is secondary.
• Trip delay: the Reserve and Platinum both pay up to $500 after a 6-hour delay, and the Preferred pays the same after 12 hours. The Platinum only covers a round trip charged to the card, while Chase covers one-way and award tickets when any part of the cost, even the award taxes, is paid with the card or points.
• Trip cancellation: all three cover up to $10,000 per trip (Chase’s limit is per traveler), with the same round-trip rule on the Platinum.
• Baggage: the Chase cards pay up to $100 a day for delayed bags after 6 hours and up to $3,000 per traveler for lost bags. The Platinum has no delayed-bag coverage and covers lost bags only when the whole fare is on the card.
• The Platinum’s extra: cell phone protection, up to $800 per claim, when you pay your phone bill with the card. Neither Sapphire card has it.

If insurance matters to you, the Reserve is the best of the three, and the Preferred is close behind for a fraction of the cost. My travel benefits guide compares these against other cards.

7. The Math: What Each Card Costs You After Year One

Here’s what each card costs if you only use the credits most people use without changing their habits. Everything beyond this column only counts if you’d spend that money anyway.

	Annual fee	Easy credits	What it really costs you
Sapphire Preferred	$95	$100 Chase Travel hotel credit	About $0, if you book one hotel a year through Chase
Sapphire Reserve	$795	$300 travel credit	About $495
Amex Platinum	$895	$15 monthly Uber Cash ($35 in December) and $25 monthly streaming credit, $500 a year in all	About $395, if you already use Uber and a covered streaming service

So the question for the Reserve is whether $495 of dining, StubHub, The Edit, DoorDash, and lounge access is worth it to you over the Preferred, which gets you most of the same points value and nearly the same insurance. For the Platinum, the question is whether the lounges, the 5x on flights, and the Resy, airline, and lodging credits are worth $395 a year, knowing the lodging credits now need two-night stays.

For most people, I think the honest answer to both is no, but your spending decides it. The calculator in the next section lets you tick only the credits you’d really use and shows what each card costs you.

8. Which Card Is Right for You

• Get the Sapphire Preferred if you’re new to points, want one travel card that pays for itself, or want Chase’s transfer partners without a big fee. If you have a Freedom card, it’s the obvious one to pair with it.
• Get the Sapphire Reserve if you travel often enough to use Priority Pass, you transfer to Hyatt (it’s the last Chase card at 1:1), you care about the best rental car and trip delay coverage, and you’d already use a good chunk of the dining, StubHub, The Edit, and DoorDash credits.
• Get the Amex Platinum if you fly several times a year, use Centurion or Delta Sky Club lounges, put a lot of airfare on a card, and would use at least $600 to $700 of its credits without changing your spending. Otherwise, get it for the bonus and plan to cancel or downgrade before the second fee.
• Skip the Reserve and Platinum if you’d be buying things just to use the credits. That isn’t saving money, it’s spending it.

What would each card cost you?

Tick the credits and perks you’d use without changing how you spend, and the calculator shows each card’s fee minus what you’d actually get back. Points you earn from spending aren’t counted, and perks without a price tag (lounges, status) start at $0 so you can put your own value on them.

Can you have more than one?

Yes. Chase lets you hold the Preferred and Reserve at the same time and gives a bonus on each, but there’s little reason to keep both long-term, since the Reserve does everything the Preferred does except earn 3x on gas, streaming, and online groceries. A more common setup is one Sapphire card for Chase’s partners plus the Platinum for lounges if you value that (or love Lululemon), but that’s $990 to $1,690 a year in fees, so it only makes sense if you’re using both.

9. Canceling or Downgrading

If a card isn’t earning its fee anymore, you don’t have to just cancel it.

• Ask for a retention offer first. Call the number on the card and say you’re thinking of closing it. In late 2025 and early 2026, some Reserve cardholders were offered a $400 statement credit, and Amex makes Platinum offers too, though they vary a lot. Chase reps have told cardholders offers are only available before the annual fee posts.
• Downgrade instead of closing. Chase lets you product change after the card has been open 12 months: the Reserve to the Preferred, or either one to a no-fee Freedom card. You have to call, it doesn’t need a credit check, and your points stay with you. Amex lets you move the Platinum to the Gold or Green, but doing so uses up your chance at that card’s bonus later.
• Keep your points. Before you close a Sapphire card, move your points to another Ultimate Rewards card or transfer them out, because closing the card forfeits any points left on it. Do the same with Amex points if the Platinum is your only Membership Rewards card.
• Watch the refund window. Chase refunds the annual fee if you close or downgrade within 30 days of the statement it posts on.

The reports of what each bank has offered recently are in my downgrades and retention offers guide.

10. Quick Answers

Last checked: October 25, 2026.