Chase Sapphire Reserve® Card Guide (2025 Changes)

Change to Annual Fee

This will be the first change most people notice.

The annual fee for the Chase Sapphire Reserve® is now £795 a year. This makes it the highest annual fee around (Except for ultra premium cards that are invite-only).

Authorized users now cost £195 to add.

Before June 23, 2025, the annual fee was £550 per year. Authorized users used to cost £75 to add.

My Take: This is an incredibly hefty annual fee and that fee alone will mean a lot of people will pass up this card. It’s not a beginner friendly card at this price point. But some people will see that astronomical fee and look at the annual credits and decide that surprisingly it makes sense for them. It all depends on how you already do your spending if this card provides true value to you.

When do the Changes Take Place?

It depends.

If you apply for a Chase Sapphire Reserve® card on June 23, 2025 or later: the new benefits and new annual fee will be immediate.

If you were a cardholder of a Chase Sapphire Reserve® card before June 23, 2025: the new benefits will kick in on October 26, 2025. Whenever you have an annual fee come due on or after October 26, 2025 — it will be at the new higher rate. You will have some benefits grandfathered in (I will explain in detail below)

No Changes to These Benefits

There are a lot of changes to this card but some benefits will remain the same. Here are the ones that stay the same.

£300 Annual Travel Credit

Any purchase that you make that codes as as travel expense will automatically trigger the statement credit. This is true for larger purchases like hotel rooms or flights. But also works for parking, bus tickets, or even some campsites.

My Take: This £300 travel credit is the easiest travel credit to use of any premium card.

£120 Trusted Traveler Credit

You get a statement credit of up to £120 every four years for purchases made for Trusted Traveler programs like Global Entry, NEXUS, and TSA Precheck.

My Take: We love our Global Entry but if you’re in the points world long enough, these credits become less valuable because you might already have Global Entry. And now that kids get Global Entry for free if parents have it, most households need a max of 2 of these credits. Still a nice credit.

Airport Lounge Access

The Chase Sapphire Reserve® provides access to 3 networks.

My take: This doesn’t quite cut it for families of 4+ but is still more generous than the new Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card policies and Amex policies! Bigger families would need to either pay £195 to add an authorized user to get more guest access (pricey) or have another person in the household get this card or another card. See more on lounge strategy here.

DoorDash Benefits

You get free DashPass through 12/31/27 or a minimum of 1 year. This depends on the activation date. If activated by 12/31/26, the expiration date will be 12/31/27. If DashPass is activated between 1/1/27 – 12/31/27, your expiration date will be one year from activation.

You get up to £10 off two orders per month on DoorDash non-restaurant orders. Discounts must be used for two separate orders.

Chase Sapphire Reserve® members enrolled in DashPass will receive £5 per month DoorDash credit. If the credit is not used within the calendar month, it will be carried over for a maximum of 2 months. Up to £15 in credit can be accrued before a £5 credit expires.

My Take: I like this benefit but some people find it hard to use if they don’t have a pickup location near them. I still wouldn’t value it at £300/year like Chase claims. Personally I place the value more around £100/year. But it can still be a great way to get road trip snacks, or to get items delivered to your house for about the same as going to the store. Here’s how to activate this.

Lyft Credit £10/month

Chase Sapphire Reserve® members get £10 in monthly credit towards Lyft rides when they link their card to their Lyft account. This offer is good through September 2027.

Credits do not roll over to the next month, and they cannot be used on Wait & Save rides or bike and scooter rentals.

My Take: Useful if you use Lyft, if not — this may not add value for you.

Other travel and purchase protections

These aren’t changing. The Chase Sapphire Reserve® offers some great protections to give you peace of mind when you’re traveling and on those big purchases.

The Trip Delay Reimbursement is an upgrade to a similar benefit you receive on the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card. On the Preferred card, this benefit kicks in after a delay of 12 hours. On the Reserve card, it kicks in after a delay of just six hours.

Other benefits include:

• Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver
• Trip Cancellation/Trip Interruption Insurance
• Travel and Emergency Assistance Services
• Extended Warranty Protection
• Purchase Protection

New Benefits Added

When these changes take place depend on when you opened your card (or upgraded to a Sapphire Reserve).

If you appled for a Chase Sapphire Reserve® card on June 23, 2025 or later: the new benefits are immediate

If you are were a cardholder of a Chase Sapphire Reserve® card on June 22, 2025 or before: the new benefits will kick in on October 26, 2025.

Free Subscription to Apple TV+ and Apple Music

This benefit is through June 22, 2027. To activate this benefit, you’ll need to open your Chase Mobile® app and go to the Card Benefits section.
Then you’ll look for the Apple TV+ and Apple Music offers and follow the prompts to link your Apple ID. It will then let you activate your complimentary subscriptions. If you already have a subscription, it will be automatically suspended.

Normally Apple TV+ costs £9.99/month and Apple Music costs £10.99/month.

My Take: Useful if you already pay for these. Or if you’re willing to switch from another music service (like Spotify) to save. Personally I value this at about £100/year. We have Apple TV+ most of the year but not all year. And we use YouTube Premium so the Apple Music isn’t particularly useful to us.

Peloton: 10x Points + £10/month

10x points on eligible Peloton hardware and accessory purchases, up to 50,000 total points. Maximum of £10/month (£120 max annually) annual statement credits towards Peloton memberships, including All-Access Membership, App One, App+, Guide or Strength+.

My Take: If you already have a subscription, this is a true credit. If not, it might be a fun perk or might be worthless to you. The cheapest option is a subscription to the Strength+ App which costs £9.99/month. This credit should cover that in full. Note that you have to activate this benefit at onepeloton.com/digital/promotions/chase

StubHub Credits: £300 a year (in two £150 credits)

You get a £150 statement credit for purchases at StubHub or viagogo twice a year. One £150 will be good from January 1 to June 30 each year. Then between July 1 and December 31 you could get up to another £150 credit. This is through June 27, 2027.

A few notes:

• One-time activation required on chase.com or the Chase Mobile® app
• Events in the UK will not work
• Tread carefully with purchases made near the cutoff date, it’s unclear if you make a purchase on June 30 but it posts on July 2 which credit it would use.

My Take: For us this is a great credit as we actually use StubHub regularly to buy tickets to sports events (Go Cubs!) and theater productions in Chicago. We particularly like using it for last minute tickets — like when we saw Hamilton for £50! But as with all the credits, you need to value it according to how you actually spend your money.

Restaurant Credits: £300 A Year (In Two £150 credits)

Here are the participating restaurants.

If you dine in at these restaurants, a statement credit will be automatically applied. You can get a maximum accumulation of £150 in statement credits from January 1 through June 30. Then it resets and you can get up to another £150 from July 1 through December 31, for a total maximum accumulation of £300 in statement credits each calendar year.

Notes:

• Delivery, takeout, merchandise, gift cards might not trigger the credit.
• If you pay with a digital wallet (like Apple Pay) it might not trigger the statement — you should pay with the physical card.
• Go to OpenTable.com/Sapphire-Reserve-Dining to see the list of restaurants. Some also hold additional tables for card members to reserve.

My Take: I think this is a fun new benefit IF you live in one of the cities with restaurants or you’ll travel to them. Some of the restaurants are higher end and some have medium priced meals. So for us, this means we could probably get 3-4 dates a year out using this benefit and that’s fun! Or two fancy dates. But it easy for us because we live in Chicago.

Hotel credits with The Edit Collection

This is marketed as a £500 credit for stays with The Edit collection. Like the credits above, it comes in two credits, each for half the year making it less valuable than it appears. It is £250 for January to June and £250 for July to December. Maximum of £250 each half year.

Notes:

• Two-night minimum.
• Purchases that qualify will not earn points.
• Must be a pre-paid stay
• Most of these hotels are priced higher via Chase Travel than booking direct

My Take: I don’t consider this a true savings. Sure some people may find ways to eek some value out of this. There are some perks you get booking a hotel through Chase’s collection including a £100 property credit, daily breakfast for 2, and a room upgrade. But with most of them you’ll find you’re paying hundreds of dollars (or more!) for the second night. I can’t imagine we’ll use this one unless somehow a hotel is on there that we plan to stay at anyway and pay cash for. There might be a possibility to use the £250 credit and then also pay the rest with points in which case it might become more appealing, especially for independent hotels.

Changes: Earning and redeeming Points

There are a lot of changes coming to earning and redeeming points. Points on travel are not earned until after the first £300 is spent annually on purchases in the travel category. The first £300 spent goes towards the £300 Annual Travel Credit.

Changes to Earning

My Take: Losing 3x earning on all travel purchases will be a loss for a lot of people. This affects purchases like trains, car rentals, Airbnb, even tickets for amusement parks that are purchased from travel agents. I don’t think the 4x on hotels and flights booked directly will make up for that loss for most people.

Loss of Standard 1.5x: Changes to Redeeming Points via Chase Travel℠

I have long touted the perk of redeeming Chase Ultimate Rewards® from a Sapphire Reserve through the travel portal at a rate of 1.5x. This has been the highest value you can get for your points booking through an online travel portal and one reason I encouraged a lot of people to consider the card.

But this benefit is being discontinued and the new base rate for redemptions via Chase Travel will now be 1 cent per point.

Now there will is a new “perk” called Points Boost where cardmembers’ points “could be worth up to 2x” on some hotels and some premium class flights.

Note that points earned prior to October 26, 2025 by Sapphire Reserve cardmembers who applied prior to June 23, 2025 can be redeemed at 1.5x on Chase Travel until October 26, 2027. Those grandfathered cardmembers will automatically receive the best offer available, whether it’s Points Boost or 1.5x on Chase Travel, maximizing rewards value for two years.

My Take: This is a huge loss for what has been a great option for booking cheap flights and independent hotels with the great 1.5x rate. We’ll have to wait and see how the Points Boosts play out. The top option may remain redeeming points via Aeroplan Pay Yourself Back.

Other Changes I think are irrelevant

Chase is also adding some “premium benefits” if you spend more than £75,000 a year on this card. Sure if you’re spending that much on the card these might be nice? But not worth doing all that spending to get these.

• IHG One Rewards Diamond Elite Status (you can get this just by holding an IHG Credit Card)
• Southwest Airlines® A-List Status (most benefits will probably be redundant if you have the higher annual fee Southwest cards)
• £500 Southwest Airlines credit when booked through Chase Travel (Don’t book Southwest flights via Chase Travel if you can help it, with the way the new credits work)
• £250 credit to The Shops at Chase, a new online shopping experience designed exclusively for cardmembers allowing them to shop for brands including Dyson, Sony, Therabody, and Tumi, with rotating promotions, using their Ultimate Rewards points or their card to pay

Benefits Calculator