Here is my suggestion. I’m assuming cash back to make it simple. If you value the other benefits offered by cards, you need to factor those in.

At the moment, you are probably only making $400 per year on the sapphire card. That assumes $11,000 at 3% for travel and $107,000 points at 1% minus $1000 annual fee.

If you do not do any overseas travel, just get the Wells Fargo active cash card for its 2% cash back and no fee. You will make $2,360.

If you do international travel, you will need a second Visa card (Visa is more accepted than Amex) that does not charge extra for overseas transactions. You could use the Wells Fargo active cash card for all costs that are not overseas, restaurants or travel. You could get the Wells Fargo autograph card (3%, no fee) for overseas, travel and restaurants. If you assume $105,000 at 2% and $13,000 at 3%, you make $2,490.

If you are up for a bit more work to earn a sign up bonus, your second card could be the Wells Fargo autograph journey card which charges an annual fee of $95 but comes with 5% on hotels, 4% on airlines, 3% restaurants, a $50 annual hotel credit , and a signup bonus of 60,000 points which can be cashed out for $600. You could downgrade at the end of the first year to the no fee card. If you do that, your first year savings could be about $3,165 (est $2,565 + $600 cash back).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Looking at 2% cash back cards now, and it doesn’t look like Chase has one exactly. I cashed in most of my points last month using pay yourself back. So right now I’m thinking of downgrading Chase to a no annual fee option and getting Wells Fargo active cash and make that our regular card. Does that make sense?

Yes the Wells Fargo card is a solid 2% cash back card, one nice thing is it's a Visa and has no foreign transaction fee, so it's good to use while traveling outside the US as well.

Not sure why you would hold onto the Chase card even if you downgrade it, if you don't think you will get value out of their points system. If that's the case, I would just close it. If it's within 30 days of paying the annual fee you will get that refunded.

The Wells Fargo Active cash Visa is a great option. No annual fee and 2% cashback on all purchases. NOT GOOD for overseas travel as they charge a 3% fee on each transaction.

PP here- you are right, mistakenly read a summary on another site that said it had 0% foreign transaction fee. PNC's Cash Unlimited card has 2% cash back everywhere, no annual fee, and 0% foreign transaction fee.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Looking at 2% cash back cards now, and it doesn’t look like Chase has one exactly. I cashed in most of my points last month using pay yourself back. So right now I’m thinking of downgrading Chase to a no annual fee option and getting Wells Fargo active cash and make that our regular card. Does that make sense?

Yes the Wells Fargo card is a solid 2% cash back card, one nice thing is it's a Visa and has no foreign transaction fee, so it's good to use while traveling outside the US as well.

Not sure why you would hold onto the Chase card even if you downgrade it, if you don't think you will get value out of their points system. If that's the case, I would just close it. If it's within 30 days of paying the annual fee you will get that refunded.

The Wells Fargo Active cash Visa is a great option. No annual fee and 2% cashback on all purchases. NOT GOOD for overseas travel as they charge a 3% fee on each transaction.

Are you using the extras? I will be getting $700 back at least off the top - stub hub, dining credit, travel credit. Plus I use lounges often. For me it is a no brainer. If I wasn't already using those things, I would probably choose a card that fits me better.

Anonymous wrote:Anyone can get more than the fee's worth of value out of the card even without taking points into account but it takes some effort.

The $300 travel credit is a no brainer, that's basically a free $300 off the fee right there.

Same with the $300 "select hotels credit," assuming you use hotels more than two nights a year just make sure you book through Chase and are using one of those select hotels.

$300 dining credit is also super easy. There's a few surprisingly reasonable places in DC to spend that at (Thip Khao would be my choice.) that's two free date nights a year.

Right there you've made your fee back and then some. The Stubhub credit is a fairly easy one to get some additional value out of. Even if you're not a huge sports or concert person you can easily spend each $150 credit on a single Caps game or big name concert.

The Edit credit is significantly harder to get decent value out of since the vast majority of Edit hotels are laughably overpriced but there are a few in B/C-Tier cities that are decent values.

Mostly with you, but there are still hoops to jump through for all of these except the base $300 travel credit. That one 90% of people are going to use without doing anything unusual. There are a good number of people who just want the hassle of having to do something weird/special to try and get the fee back, which is understandable.

Anyone can get more than the fee's worth of value out of the card even without taking points into account but it takes some effort.

The $300 travel credit is a no brainer, that's basically a free $300 off the fee right there.

Same with the $300 "select hotels credit," assuming you use hotels more than two nights a year just make sure you book through Chase and are using one of those select hotels.

$300 dining credit is also super easy. There's a few surprisingly reasonable places in DC to spend that at (Thip Khao would be my choice.) that's two free date nights a year.

Right there you've made your fee back and then some. The Stubhub credit is a fairly easy one to get some additional value out of. Even if you're not a huge sports or concert person you can easily spend each $150 credit on a single Caps game or big name concert.

The Edit credit is significantly harder to get decent value out of since the vast majority of Edit hotels are laughably overpriced but there are a few in B/C-Tier cities that are decent values.

It depends entirely on what you want out of the card and what your travel habits are. If you really don’t travel much then just get a cash back card and call it a day.

NP. I do not travel much.

I do not have any of these expensive "prestige" fancy cards. I don't travel much, so lounge access is not needed. I also don't Uber or do the various other things that the fancy cards give complicated credits for. For me, those cards are pure expense and not value. For someone else, they might be worthwhile.

Instead, I have a Marriott card (from Chase) that has a $95 annual fee, but also includes 1 free night at a low/mid-Tier Marriott property. I always am able to use that benefit which offsets most or all of the annual fee. I earn Marriott points -- and also status nights -- with things I happen to buy. If I eat out, 2x points and travel billed directly to an airline or rental car or (any brand) hotel gets 3x points. If we do happen to travel as a family for vacation, then there are Marriott properties most places and I can use those points then. For me, that is a better choice - more value I can use and much less expense.

Anonymous wrote:The play here is to have the Sapphire Preferred AND the Freedom Unlimited. Use the Sapphire Preferred for things which gets you bonus points- travel (2x) and dining (3x) purchases. Use the Freedom Unlimited for everything else at 1.5x. Then roll your Freedom Unlimited points into your Sapphire Preferred card and away you go.

This is the way you do it. OP spent a lot of money earning 1x on the Sapphire which is a common mistake.

Agree if you fly to destinations served by Southwest, getting their companion pass is great and you would likely get one. It is also very easy to use their miles.

Chase has a nice lounge at IAD. AmEx has a nice one at DCA. CapOne has a nice one at both.

But.. you said you dont' travel a lot so maybe not a big deal.

Cash back may work best for you. Points cards are better if you do travel. For example, I can get a round-trip business calss ticket on United to Europe for 160k points (Saved award) ,and that same ticket may cost me $5k if I bought it.

With cash back 2%, that means I need to spend $250k on my card to buy that ticket.

With points, some purcahses earn 3x and some earn 1x. Let's say it's 2x. That means I need to earn 160k points in Chase to Transfer to United (1:1 ratio), and I have to spend $80k to earn that many points.. so my business class ticket I get with $80k in spending not $250k... but again if you dont' travel a lot, it may not be worth it.

I would get the preferred— for $95 you get trip insurance, rental car auto insurance, no foreign transaction fees…

Anonymous wrote:We have the Chase Sapphire reserve and put $118,000 on our card in 2025 with about $11,000 being spent on travel. Just got charged the annual fee (795 plus 195 authorized user) and wondering if it’s worth it since we aren’t traveling that much compared to a few years ago.

Should I downgrade?

Yes.

If you aren’t traveling use a cash back card like Freedom Unlimited or even better the Fidelity card that gives you 2% back in a brokerage account

Anonymous wrote:Amex Platinum

An awful card for ongoing spending.