Switching your Chase Sapphire Preferred to the Sapphire Reserve keeps your account and points but gives up the Reserve’s sign-up bonus, often worth more than a year of its higher fee. If you’ve never had the Reserve, apply for it as a new card first, and upgrade only if you can’t get the bonus.
Right now that bonus is 100,000 points for $6,000 of spending in the first three months, worth $1,000 at a cent a point and more than the Reserve’s $795 annual fee. An upgrade pays none of it.
Chase’s terms also say anyone who previously held the card may not get the bonus, so an upgrade now can rule it out later.
You don’t need to give up the Preferred to apply, since Chase lets you hold both Sapphire cards. If you aren’t eligible for the bonus, the application tells you before Chase runs a hard credit check, so you can withdraw with your score untouched.
The Sapphire Reserve costs $700 a year more than the Sapphire Preferred. Its $300 travel credit cuts that to $400, or $500 if you use the Preferred’s $100 hotel credit. The rest has to come from perks you’d use anyway: up to $300 a year at participating restaurants, $300 in StubHub tickets through 2027, $500 toward prepaid stays at select hotels, and airport lounge access. If they don’t cover the gap, keep the Preferred.
If they do, apply for the Reserve as a new card, provided you’ve never had it, you’ve opened fewer than five cards in the past two years, and the $6,000 fits your normal spending. Once the bonus posts, keep the Preferred or switch it to a no-fee Chase card to avoid paying two fees.
Otherwise, upgrade. Chase allows it once you’ve had the Preferred a year, by phone, at a branch, or online, where it’s called a product change. There’s no new application and usually no hard credit check, and the account keeps its history and your points. The Reserve requires a credit limit of $10,000 or more, and asking Chase to raise yours can mean a hard credit check. Before you agree, ask how Chase will handle the $95 fee you’ve already paid.
If you want the Reserve, start the application before you call Chase. If the bonus isn’t there for you, the upgrade still is.
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