The Points Guy
Pairing a Chase Sapphire and Chase Freedom card is an easy way to earn more bonus points.
The Chase Sapphire Preferred and Chase Sapphire Reserve are some of the best cards for people who love to travel thanks to bonus points on travel (and dining) purchases and trip delay and cancellation coverage. But if you use a Sapphire card for every single purchase, you could be missing out on valuable Chase Ultimate Rewards points that could take you virtually anywhere in the world.
Adding the Chase Freedom or Freedom Unlimited to your wallet could amplify your points earning - and neither Freedom card has an annual fee. Read more to find out how it all works.
Keep in mind that we're focusing on the rewards and perks that make these credit cards great options, not things like interest rates and late fees, which will far outweigh the value of any points or miles. It's important to practice financial discipline when using credit cards by paying your balances in full each month, making payments on time, and only spending what you can afford to pay back.
Why frequent travelers love the Chase Sapphire family of cards
I signed up for the Chase Sapphire Preferred card in March 2012. I later upgraded it to the premium Sapphire Reserve, which comes with more benefits and more points in bonus purchase categories.
The Sapphire Preferred card charges a $95 annual fee. It gives you 2 points per dollar on restaurant and travel purchases. Points are worth 1.25 cents each toward travel when you redeem them through Chase, or you can transfer them to airline and hotel partners for potentially greater value.
The Sapphire Reserve card charges $450 per year, but it comes with a heap of additional benefits. These include up to a $300 annual credit on travel purchases, up to a $100 credit for TSA PreCheck or Global Entry, and Priority Pass Select lounge membership. It also gives you 3 points per dollar on restaurant and travel purchases and a higher 1.5 cents per point when booking travel through the Ultimate Rewards website.
These are arguably among the best travel rewards cards available today. If you don't have one already and travel frequently, they are worth serious consideration.
Sapphire and Freedom cards are a great pair
The Chase Freedom and Freedom Unlimited cards are popular cash-back cards with no annual fee. But many people don't realize that you can turn cash back rewards from these cards into Chase Ultimate Rewards points if you have a Sapphire card as well. Cash back turns into points at a rate of 1 cent to 1 point.
The Sapphire cards only give you a bonus for travel and dining purchases. Outside of that, you get just 1 point per dollar. The Chase Freedom cards can give you even more.
Because the Freedom and Freedom Unlimited have no annual fee, there's no harm in using both as long as you stay on top of things and pay them off in full every month. Also keep in mind Chase's 5/24 rule, which prevents you from opening new Chase cards if you've opened five or more credit card accounts (across all banks) in the last 24 months.
Read more: The Chase credit card trifecta that will earn you the most points
Maximize what you earn with each purchase
Between my wife and I, we have a Chase Sapphire Reserve, Chase Freedom, and Chase Freedom Unlimited card. We carry all three and pull out the best card for each purchase depending on where we are.
The Sapphire Preferred or Reserve make sense for those travel and dining purchases, but outside of restaurants and travel companies, we use the Freedom cards more often.
The original Chase Freedom gives you 5% back, or the equivalent of 5 points per dollar, on rotating bonus categories that change every three months. The 5%/5x rate is good for up to $1,500 in combined purchases per quarter. The 2019 Chase Freedom bonus categories included gas stations, grocery stores, drug stores, home improvement stores, and streaming services among others. For the current quarter, the categories are department stores, PayPal, and Chase Pay.
When we can't get a bonus from the Freedom card or Sapphire Reserve card, we use the Freedom Unlimited card. This gives 1.5% cash back on every purchase - the equivalent of 1.5 points per dollar - with no limits.
Using this strategy, we earn at least 1.5 points per dollar on every purchase, with up to 5 points where we can.
Combine your points into your Sapphire account for maximum value
A few times a year, I log in to my Chase account and my wife's Chase account to merge our points. Chase makes it easy to combine points across cards in your own account in just a few clicks. Combining with my wife takes a few more steps, but Chase makes it pretty easy to merge points with other household members as well.
When you add it all up, this combination of Sapphire and Freedom cards yields a lot more points than any of them would alone. And with no annual fee on the Freedom and Freedom Unlimited, you can add one with no extra cost. With all of the new points you'll be earning, your biggest problem will be deciding where to travel next.
Disclosure: This post is brought to you by the Personal Finance Insider team. We occasionally highlight financial products and services that can help you make smarter decisions with your money. We do not give investment advice or encourage you to adopt a certain investment strategy. If you take action based on one of our recommendations, we get a small share of the revenue from our commerce partners. This does not influence whether we feature a financial product or service. We operate independently from our advertising sales team.
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Please note: While the offers mentioned above are accurate at the time of publication, they're subject to change at any time and may have changed, or may no longer be available.
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