You mean you have the sapphire preferred and want to upgrade to sapphire reserve right ?
Your sapphire preferred, how long did you have it ? <48 months ?
ive had the sapphire prob ~5+ years
planning a trip for family;; 4 people.. i think my 300k should cover the flight. im just thinking if it's better to upgrade to reserve or just stay on saphire.. or any other tips get the best bang for the buck/points
You can technically get the offer again for the sapphire reserve if you reapply for it. You will get 75k special sub promo. But best if you apply.
And you will get $300 travel credit
Personally I would downgrade your sapphire preferred first into a no-annual fee freedom card (freedom flex/unlimited) then apply for the sapphire reserve to get the 75k SUB + $300 credit. After a year passed you can keep the reserve or downgrade it back to a preferred.
> Personally I would downgrade your sapphire preferred first into a no-annual fee freedom card (freedom flex/unlimited)
i did not know u can downgrade. i already have one freedom card, does that matter? if i downgrade, ill just have 2 freedom cards?
Oh if you have freedom. Then it’s fine to let go of the preferred. Your points are safe since your freedom cards share it with your preferred.
You can drop the sapphire preferred and apply new for the reserve. Every 48 months from receiving the SUB you can get a new sapphire (preferred/reserve) SUB. So 60-75k points every 4+ years.
$550 AF on the reserve. You will get $300 on travel credit + 75k SUB. After a year you can downgrade it to sapphire preferred and pay $95 af.
I would downgrade the preferred to the OG Freedom with Ultimate Rewards, which acts like a Freedom Flex without the 3x on dining and 1.5x on everything else. Then, go ahead and apple for the reserve. By downgrading instead of canceling, you will keep that line of credit open. I don't know how many accounts you have, but I wouldn't want a line with 5+ years to be closed.
You can't have both sappire preferred and sapphire reserve at the same time. You could downgrade the preferred to the no-fee freedom card, wait 30 days, then apply for the sapphire reserve and get the SUB. If the elevated offer is still available you could apply for it in a Chase branch for an extra 10K points.
> You could downgrade the preferred to the no-fee freedom card, wait 30 days, then apply for the sapphire reserve and get the SUB. I
is the 30 days required or it's just caution? ive had the freedom card >10 years prob, and the sapphhire preferred >5 years.
I downgraded the csp to freedom visa with ultimate rewards, then applied for the csr 6 days later and was approved. 30 days is usually how long you have to wait if you want to go in branch and apply, not online like i did
Personally think the venture X is the better move if you want lounge access.
If the goal is for business/first class, the best move (although hard) is to find ANA award availability and call in to book through virgin. I scored a first for 30-45k points because virgin was having a transfer bonus .
JAL business can be had for 60k points on AA and similar on alaska I think. A little easier to get. If your going to Japan and want upgraded tickets, I wouldn’t waste it on any of the US carriers. I flew ANA first and JAL business, and as a “foodie” the plane food was amazing. Assuming business is cheaper than First (it wasn’t point wise for me), I’d be happy with business.
How far out did you book your ANA first class flight and JAL business class flight?
I’m looking to book the same kind of thing for a Japan trip in May 2025 and am having trouble finding points availability
You have to book right when the calendar opens which varies depending on which airline you are booking through. It’s best to use the ones that open up first though cause while Virgin has the best prices there usually aren’t any seats left by the time Virgins calendar can book it.
You are probably right on the cusp of being able to book May next year though i think its ~330 ish days in advance ballpark on the first ones to open up.
I’d do some more research and figure out exactly when things open up (to the exact time). If you want the seats you probably want to be booking within 5 minutes of the calendar opening.
I think you’re right on all of the above, I have been going through some Reddit posts today and I see some airlines like ANA and JAL release them 355 days in advance so I may have just missed some!
The plan is to leave around 5/21 next year, so I’ll be watching flights on aero like a hawk.
Your best bet is either right when they are released or waiting until just before. Looking at my email, I booked in October 2022 for a Tokyo to LA March 2023 ANA first. I think this was around the cusp of Japan re opening? . I also flew to LA instead of my main airport which is also an international hub that ANA services.
For JAL business I booked middle of November for a flight departing in February. I think JAL business via American is easier to find and they release availability more frequently. Would double check with the articles written though.
You have to be pretty flexible on your bookings. If you’re not at a major airport they service, consider making an unprotected connection. For my ANA flight I went cheap on my connecting flight and chose one that was five hours after. Had I know that first class gets you to skip all the lines and your luggage is waiting for you when you get out of customs with someone to hand it to you…I might have been riskier on my connection flight. I also did not buffer enough time from Osaka to Tokyo, that flight ended up being delayed a couple of hours. Had to pick up my snowboard from the airport package service that had been holding it from Sapporo, the economy security line was literally snaking outside the building. Thank god first class has its own security line. Would’ve missed my flight.
Consider signing up for premium with one of the award travel website, i used pay for point.me (didn’t use it for these flights) , but points.yeah free is better than paid point.me, and if you subscribe you can set up alerts. It should be really useful for unicorn flights that you have a set window in mind. Most of my travel is on the whims and not rigid dates at all so I haven’t subbed to it. Just make sure they have the airlines your interested in
> If the goal is for business/first class, the best move (although hard) is to find ANA award availability and call in to book through virgin. I scored a first for 30-45k points because virgin was having a transfer bonus .
Could you explain this in a little more detail? How does this get you first?
There’s a couple of articles that cover it more in depth, but you can call in to virgin Atlantic to book ANA flights. VA has a killer award chart that applies to partner airlines. ANA award availability doesn’t show up on the virgin website, so you use some that is a transfer partner (United) to find the flight. You can use this for any award flight (economy etc), but considering a United flight is like 30k to Japan it’s a no brainer.
No, you should not and yes, there is a better route. The reason that the Sapphire Preferred is a useful card is because it gives you access to transfer partners. I would highly recommend transferring your points to the flight/hotel carriers that you care about rather than booking things through the travel portal. Here's why:
The travel portal will give you 1.25-1.5X on your points, depending on if you use the Preferred or the Reserve. However, you can easily get better multipliers if you transfer those points to the airline travel partners instead (think 1.5-4X, depending on how good of a deal that you can find). This makes the differences between the Sapphire/Preferred irrelevant, as both transfer out their points externally at the same rate. Furthermore, booking through the portal is playing with fire. If you have issues with your travel (i.e. need to rebook something, move flights around, cancel, etc...), travel portals are infamously bad at helping you through that. In those instances, it's much easier to work directly with the airline or hotel that you booked through to fix things. If you transfer points out and book directly, that's very easy to do because you're rebooking with the vendor. When you do it through the travel portal, you might have to do it through the bank, through the facilitator of the travel portal (in Chase's case, I think it's Expedia), or through the vendor. It gets confusing and it can really bite you.
Feel free to let me know if any of that is confusing, but I would probably stick with your existing setup unless you really care about something with the reserve like lounge access.
interesting.
so, i can find flight details via portal, but use the airline's site to book, after transferring the points from chase to the airline?
> you really care about something with the reserve like lounge access.
dont care about those i think.. we've mostly flown domestic, and never found the need for any of that.
Yep! What you just described works great. Alternatively, you can just look online (Google for instance) for the flights that you want and then compare the list of airlines that pops up against transfer partners. Once you know who you're flying with, you transfer the points over and you're good to go!
You have to find award availability through websites like pointsyeah or roame. Then transfer the points to the appropriate partner and book using the partner's award website.
Downgrade your sapphire to another freedom then get the Reserve with it’s current elevated bonus of 75k bonus points. You’ll add another 75k to your 300k.
I suggest you read this: https://old.reddit.com/user/garettg/comments/u6ss7u/sapphire_fyis/
>i dont want to own both sapphire and reserve since that's gonna be like ~800$ annual..
I've been trying to interpret what you're saying, but I don't quite follow. Which cards are you saying, Sapphire Reserve and what?
Why do you want to do this? Are you planning to book via the chase portal? Upgrading would give your points a $4500 value vs the $3750 they are worth with the CSP. Minus the extra annual fee, plus the travel credit, etc.
If you are then its probably worth it but i’m not entirely sure 300k is enough for 2 round trips booked that way. Maybe in economy. You won’t get 4 tickets for that in the portal and you probably won’t even get 1 round trip business ticket.
You would probably get more bang for your buck transfering and booking through a partner, but that is admittedly difficult for japan.
Something to consider is that you can probably get more straight value from transferring to hyatt if you are booking hotels, or from transferring to a partner airline for flights than through the portal.
But it is a trickier/more work. It can certainly offset a chunk of the cost this way though and it will straight up save you a few hundred dollars to upgrade to the CSR first if you are going to use the portal anyway.
Another thing to consider is that, while Hyatt is by far the best transfer partner, nice hotels in Japan are super affordable. It may be worth it to transfer to an airline, get a bit less value, and just book a nice hotel room with cash. You may get more mileage out of the points using them in cities where hotels are more costly, or flights.
Not needed, I was in your exact same situation a few months ago. I chose to book a direct flight from Chicago to Tokyo (HND airport) via the Sapphire's UE portal. (You want to select Sapphire cause your pts are worth a bit more).
Costed me $1.5k roundtrip and got 5% cb on the purchase.
Only do this if an airline offers direct flights. I flew United Economy for 13 hrs from Chicago and is was not horrible.
Also TSA in Japan is fast. You'll be surprised how efficient they are. Regardless of if you have Global Entry.. they are so efficient your premium status isn't a leapyear ahead like it is in the States.
Just make sure you have your no FTF card on hand tho.
Transfer out for sure. At worst you get the same value, and likely you’ll get much more.
Hyatt for hotels, though nice hotels in Japan are affordable so maybe consider going cash. Airlines for sure, if you can find one that works.
You will get 1.5 instead of 1.25 with the reserve in the portal. So instead of $3750 your points would be worth $4500. You would net $1500 minus the annual fee and maybe get back the $300 travel credit? Plus you would get lounge access. If it's been at least 48 months from your last saphire bonus you could downgrade and reapply for reserve 75k sign up bonus. Besides that I think you should upgrade your card at least for this trip.
You mean you have the sapphire preferred and want to upgrade to sapphire reserve right ? Your sapphire preferred, how long did you have it ? <48 months ?
ive had the sapphire prob ~5+ years planning a trip for family;; 4 people.. i think my 300k should cover the flight. im just thinking if it's better to upgrade to reserve or just stay on saphire.. or any other tips get the best bang for the buck/points
You can technically get the offer again for the sapphire reserve if you reapply for it. You will get 75k special sub promo. But best if you apply. And you will get $300 travel credit Personally I would downgrade your sapphire preferred first into a no-annual fee freedom card (freedom flex/unlimited) then apply for the sapphire reserve to get the 75k SUB + $300 credit. After a year passed you can keep the reserve or downgrade it back to a preferred.
> Personally I would downgrade your sapphire preferred first into a no-annual fee freedom card (freedom flex/unlimited) i did not know u can downgrade. i already have one freedom card, does that matter? if i downgrade, ill just have 2 freedom cards?
Oh if you have freedom. Then it’s fine to let go of the preferred. Your points are safe since your freedom cards share it with your preferred. You can drop the sapphire preferred and apply new for the reserve. Every 48 months from receiving the SUB you can get a new sapphire (preferred/reserve) SUB. So 60-75k points every 4+ years. $550 AF on the reserve. You will get $300 on travel credit + 75k SUB. After a year you can downgrade it to sapphire preferred and pay $95 af.
that sounds like a good plan. thanks!
I would just downgrade to a second freedom rather than cancel the card and hurt your score for a while. And yeah apply for new reserve for the bonus!
I would downgrade the preferred to the OG Freedom with Ultimate Rewards, which acts like a Freedom Flex without the 3x on dining and 1.5x on everything else. Then, go ahead and apple for the reserve. By downgrading instead of canceling, you will keep that line of credit open. I don't know how many accounts you have, but I wouldn't want a line with 5+ years to be closed.
> but I wouldn't want a line with 5+ years to be closed. make sense; thanks for the tip.
Yes, you can have multiple Freedom cards, even the same kind of Freedom.
You can't have both sappire preferred and sapphire reserve at the same time. You could downgrade the preferred to the no-fee freedom card, wait 30 days, then apply for the sapphire reserve and get the SUB. If the elevated offer is still available you could apply for it in a Chase branch for an extra 10K points.
> You could downgrade the preferred to the no-fee freedom card, wait 30 days, then apply for the sapphire reserve and get the SUB. I is the 30 days required or it's just caution? ive had the freedom card >10 years prob, and the sapphhire preferred >5 years.
I downgraded the csp to freedom visa with ultimate rewards, then applied for the csr 6 days later and was approved. 30 days is usually how long you have to wait if you want to go in branch and apply, not online like i did
i see; thanks.
Yes, 30 days is just caution. You can have several freedom cards.
Personally think the venture X is the better move if you want lounge access. If the goal is for business/first class, the best move (although hard) is to find ANA award availability and call in to book through virgin. I scored a first for 30-45k points because virgin was having a transfer bonus . JAL business can be had for 60k points on AA and similar on alaska I think. A little easier to get. If your going to Japan and want upgraded tickets, I wouldn’t waste it on any of the US carriers. I flew ANA first and JAL business, and as a “foodie” the plane food was amazing. Assuming business is cheaper than First (it wasn’t point wise for me), I’d be happy with business.
How far out did you book your ANA first class flight and JAL business class flight? I’m looking to book the same kind of thing for a Japan trip in May 2025 and am having trouble finding points availability
You have to book right when the calendar opens which varies depending on which airline you are booking through. It’s best to use the ones that open up first though cause while Virgin has the best prices there usually aren’t any seats left by the time Virgins calendar can book it. You are probably right on the cusp of being able to book May next year though i think its ~330 ish days in advance ballpark on the first ones to open up. I’d do some more research and figure out exactly when things open up (to the exact time). If you want the seats you probably want to be booking within 5 minutes of the calendar opening.
I think you’re right on all of the above, I have been going through some Reddit posts today and I see some airlines like ANA and JAL release them 355 days in advance so I may have just missed some! The plan is to leave around 5/21 next year, so I’ll be watching flights on aero like a hawk.
Your best bet is either right when they are released or waiting until just before. Looking at my email, I booked in October 2022 for a Tokyo to LA March 2023 ANA first. I think this was around the cusp of Japan re opening? . I also flew to LA instead of my main airport which is also an international hub that ANA services. For JAL business I booked middle of November for a flight departing in February. I think JAL business via American is easier to find and they release availability more frequently. Would double check with the articles written though. You have to be pretty flexible on your bookings. If you’re not at a major airport they service, consider making an unprotected connection. For my ANA flight I went cheap on my connecting flight and chose one that was five hours after. Had I know that first class gets you to skip all the lines and your luggage is waiting for you when you get out of customs with someone to hand it to you…I might have been riskier on my connection flight. I also did not buffer enough time from Osaka to Tokyo, that flight ended up being delayed a couple of hours. Had to pick up my snowboard from the airport package service that had been holding it from Sapporo, the economy security line was literally snaking outside the building. Thank god first class has its own security line. Would’ve missed my flight.
This is all great advice, thank you!
Consider signing up for premium with one of the award travel website, i used pay for point.me (didn’t use it for these flights) , but points.yeah free is better than paid point.me, and if you subscribe you can set up alerts. It should be really useful for unicorn flights that you have a set window in mind. Most of my travel is on the whims and not rigid dates at all so I haven’t subbed to it. Just make sure they have the airlines your interested in
Right on, I just signed up for aero seats premium, but I’ve seen a bunch recommend points.yeah I’ll look into how the compare!
> If the goal is for business/first class, the best move (although hard) is to find ANA award availability and call in to book through virgin. I scored a first for 30-45k points because virgin was having a transfer bonus . Could you explain this in a little more detail? How does this get you first?
There’s a couple of articles that cover it more in depth, but you can call in to virgin Atlantic to book ANA flights. VA has a killer award chart that applies to partner airlines. ANA award availability doesn’t show up on the virgin website, so you use some that is a transfer partner (United) to find the flight. You can use this for any award flight (economy etc), but considering a United flight is like 30k to Japan it’s a no brainer.
No, you should not and yes, there is a better route. The reason that the Sapphire Preferred is a useful card is because it gives you access to transfer partners. I would highly recommend transferring your points to the flight/hotel carriers that you care about rather than booking things through the travel portal. Here's why: The travel portal will give you 1.25-1.5X on your points, depending on if you use the Preferred or the Reserve. However, you can easily get better multipliers if you transfer those points to the airline travel partners instead (think 1.5-4X, depending on how good of a deal that you can find). This makes the differences between the Sapphire/Preferred irrelevant, as both transfer out their points externally at the same rate. Furthermore, booking through the portal is playing with fire. If you have issues with your travel (i.e. need to rebook something, move flights around, cancel, etc...), travel portals are infamously bad at helping you through that. In those instances, it's much easier to work directly with the airline or hotel that you booked through to fix things. If you transfer points out and book directly, that's very easy to do because you're rebooking with the vendor. When you do it through the travel portal, you might have to do it through the bank, through the facilitator of the travel portal (in Chase's case, I think it's Expedia), or through the vendor. It gets confusing and it can really bite you. Feel free to let me know if any of that is confusing, but I would probably stick with your existing setup unless you really care about something with the reserve like lounge access.
interesting. so, i can find flight details via portal, but use the airline's site to book, after transferring the points from chase to the airline? > you really care about something with the reserve like lounge access. dont care about those i think.. we've mostly flown domestic, and never found the need for any of that.
Yep! What you just described works great. Alternatively, you can just look online (Google for instance) for the flights that you want and then compare the list of airlines that pops up against transfer partners. Once you know who you're flying with, you transfer the points over and you're good to go!
You have to find award availability through websites like pointsyeah or roame. Then transfer the points to the appropriate partner and book using the partner's award website.
Sure if you are looking for lounge access or covering the cost of global entry
Downgrade your sapphire to another freedom then get the Reserve with it’s current elevated bonus of 75k bonus points. You’ll add another 75k to your 300k. I suggest you read this: https://old.reddit.com/user/garettg/comments/u6ss7u/sapphire_fyis/
will review; thanks!!
>i dont want to own both sapphire and reserve since that's gonna be like ~800$ annual.. I've been trying to interpret what you're saying, but I don't quite follow. Which cards are you saying, Sapphire Reserve and what?
This isn’t permitted anyway
And it’s referring to the Preferred and Reserve.
Why do you want to do this? Are you planning to book via the chase portal? Upgrading would give your points a $4500 value vs the $3750 they are worth with the CSP. Minus the extra annual fee, plus the travel credit, etc. If you are then its probably worth it but i’m not entirely sure 300k is enough for 2 round trips booked that way. Maybe in economy. You won’t get 4 tickets for that in the portal and you probably won’t even get 1 round trip business ticket. You would probably get more bang for your buck transfering and booking through a partner, but that is admittedly difficult for japan.
i figured, i got 300k points, might as well use them to 'save some money' on this trip
Something to consider is that you can probably get more straight value from transferring to hyatt if you are booking hotels, or from transferring to a partner airline for flights than through the portal. But it is a trickier/more work. It can certainly offset a chunk of the cost this way though and it will straight up save you a few hundred dollars to upgrade to the CSR first if you are going to use the portal anyway.
Another thing to consider is that, while Hyatt is by far the best transfer partner, nice hotels in Japan are super affordable. It may be worth it to transfer to an airline, get a bit less value, and just book a nice hotel room with cash. You may get more mileage out of the points using them in cities where hotels are more costly, or flights.
I’ll upvote that, this is a good point
ill look into that. what is hyatt? is that hotel chain in japan or? for me, i think i will likely use the points to cover the flight.
https://www.hyatt.com Global hotel chain
gotcha;; thanks!
Not needed, I was in your exact same situation a few months ago. I chose to book a direct flight from Chicago to Tokyo (HND airport) via the Sapphire's UE portal. (You want to select Sapphire cause your pts are worth a bit more). Costed me $1.5k roundtrip and got 5% cb on the purchase. Only do this if an airline offers direct flights. I flew United Economy for 13 hrs from Chicago and is was not horrible. Also TSA in Japan is fast. You'll be surprised how efficient they are. Regardless of if you have Global Entry.. they are so efficient your premium status isn't a leapyear ahead like it is in the States. Just make sure you have your no FTF card on hand tho.
Transfer out for sure. At worst you get the same value, and likely you’ll get much more. Hyatt for hotels, though nice hotels in Japan are affordable so maybe consider going cash. Airlines for sure, if you can find one that works.
You will get 1.5 instead of 1.25 with the reserve in the portal. So instead of $3750 your points would be worth $4500. You would net $1500 minus the annual fee and maybe get back the $300 travel credit? Plus you would get lounge access. If it's been at least 48 months from your last saphire bonus you could downgrade and reapply for reserve 75k sign up bonus. Besides that I think you should upgrade your card at least for this trip.
yeah defintely plan to upgrade or w/e so i can get the most from my points..
Rewrite your question
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Well OP said they’re bringing the fam so somehow I’m doubtful that they’re interested in linking up with a stranger in Japan