Did Chase Just RUIN The Sapphire Preferred + Plus New Card, 100k Bonus

Added: 2026-05-11

[00:00:00]In this video, I want to talk about three things. Has Chase just ruined the Sapphire Preferred? They've announced the removal of one of the cards benefits. Then we have a new credit card that has just been launched. It's connected to Bitcoin and has some unique features. And then lastly, we have a certain airline credit card that is currently offering a 100,000 point limited time bonus. Hey credit warriors, welcome to the show. My name is Ben Hedges aka the credit shu. On this channel, I cover US credit cards, personal finance, and luxury travel. If you like the sound of that, do subscribe. But let's get into it. Oh, and this video is brought to you by Freck, but more on that later. All right, so firstly, let's talk about a negative change to Chase's Sapphire Preferred card. Now, this is their mid-tier travel credit card, okay? So, not the Sapphire Reserve, the high-end one, but the Sapphire Preferred. It's the mid-level one with a $95 annual fee.

[00:00:52]Now, this card has a benefit known as the 10% anniversary bonus, where you get 10% of your spend issued to you in the form of points. The example that they give is normally this. If you spend $25,000 on your card in one year, you'll earn 2500 bonus Ultimate Rewards points.

[00:01:12]So, this works out the same as an extra 0.1 points per dollar. The way Chase words it in their marketing actually makes this very confusing. And there's whole Reddit threads of people trying to make sense of it, but I think this guy does a good job of summing it up. The way to think about it on practice is that the bonus adds 0.1 to all earning rates. 3.1 on dining, streaming, online grocery, 2.1 on travel and transit, and 1.1 on everything else. So, it's not really a huge bonus, but for people who are high spenders on the card, it's a nice little extra that you get at the end of the year, but this is the benefit that is reportedly ending. Here is what people have shared on Reddit. Check your Chase app. The anniversary bonus is retiring. You will continue to earn 10% of your spend through 10126. Okay, so October 1st, 2026. So, it seems for current card members, the benefit ends on October 1st this year. The blog site Award Wallet reached out to Chase and got this statement. This update appeared early in our app. The benefit will be discontinued as we regularly evaluate and update our benefits based on card member feedback and what benefits resonate most. We look forward to sharing additional updates to the Sapphire Preferred card in the near term. So, from that, it seems that it was first talked about as a notification within the app, but now it is actually confirmed that it is indeed ending. But does this matter? Was it really that key of a benefit on this card anyway?

[00:02:39]I think for this benefit the answer is no. If it was an extra one point per dollar spent at the end of the year then that would be awesome. Okay, brings you up by a whole point. But we're talking about.1 of an ultimate rewards point for every dollar spent. So spending $25,000 a year gets you 2500 points which works out at $25 in cashback value. It isn't that much for that amount of spending, but there's no opportunity cost. All right? They're not asking you to do extra spending on the card or anything like that. So, it is a nice little extra for literally doing nothing. And it actually gives you the same kind of deal sort of as the Charles Schwab MX Platinum, effectively giving you 1.1 cents per point in cash value. Although, it's slightly different because the bonus categories like 3x on dining and stuff, they still only earn 0.1 points that's added. Okay. So, at least in spending in the 1x category, like the all everything else category, it works out the same as the Charles Schwab MX Platin. Interestingly, this is a benefit that seems to come and go on this card.

[00:03:40]Apparently, it had this bonus back in the day before my time in the US credit card space and then it went away and then they brought it back again a couple of years ago when they added like the $50 annual hotel credit and stuff. Now, it's gone again, but now there are rumors that Chase is going to refresh the Sapphire Preferred and getting rid of this bonus could be making way for other things to come. Okay, you saw in that quote just above that award wallet got out of Chase that they did hint that they were going to bring in some new benefits. So, I don't think we should be upset about this. I would say sit tight and let's see what they add to the card in the coming months. All right, let's look at a new credit card that was just released and then we'll look at how you can get 100,000 points. But first, have you heard of tax loss harvesting? That is when an investor or their money manager will strategically sell a stock or fund that is at a loss and then immediately reby something that moves in correlation so that they can stay invested and keep getting market returns. This avoids triggering the wash sale rule which does not allow you to take a tax loss if you reby the same security within 30 days before or after the sale. Well, today's sponsor, FE, offers direct indexing with tax loss harvesting at a very affordable rate.

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[00:05:32]Once diversification is complete, you can stay invested and keep enjoying tax losses that FE will keep creating for you. You can also borrow against your portfolio at a low interest rate to access cash. Go to fck.com/benhedges or click the link below to schedule a free portfolio analysis with the Freck team or sign up and get $250 when you fund an account. Terms apply. All right, so we have a new credit card that has just hit the market and that would be the AAN Bitcoin Visa card. Now, you may remember AAN since we actually did a video about their Heliloc credit card a couple of years ago. It's a unique idea where they give you a credit card that is secured by the equity in your home.

[00:06:14]And since this is secured debt, they are able to offer you a much lower interest rate than on a traditional credit card.

[00:06:22]on their home equity card. They're offering an average APR of around 10% and it will be lower if your credit score is really good. But even 10% is way lower than regular credit cards. So the idea is that this is a card that you actually do use to borrow money on for things like home improvement projects or starting a business. And the card earns unlimited 2% cash back on spending, too.

[00:06:44]But now AAN's newest product is their Bitcoin Visa card. And this does the exact same thing as their HELOC card, but it uses your Bitcoin as collateral to secure the line of credit instead of the equity in your home. And thus, they can offer lower interest rates than typical credit cards. And it seems with the Bitcoin card, the rates are even lower than the home equity card. They advertise interest rates as low as 7.99%. And it seems with this one, the interest rate is based on how much loan to value you decide to take out. Okay?

[00:07:13]So, how much of your Bitcoin you use as collateral. So, for example, if you had $100,000 worth of Bitcoin and you set your credit limit at $30,000, that's 30%. All right? So, at 30% the rate is 7.99% interest, under 50% it's 9.99 and under 70% it's 11.99 since that's more risky. Okay? If you go up to 70%. So, the higher you go in loan to value, the higher your interest rate is going to be. Down at 30% loan to value, your Bitcoin would have to drop in value quite a lot to wipe out the collateral backing your loan. It is also easier to sell Bitcoin to pay off your loan than to sell a house to pay off your loan. So they may see this liquidity as a safety net, too. But on the flip side, they can forcibly sell your Bitcoin. Since you do need to transfer your Bitcoin to BitGo, where it's custodied, they say that they will only sell some of your Bitcoin if your balance on the card goes over 80% loan to value. So that could happen if say you maxed it out at 70%. And then suddenly the value of Bitcoin dropped because the market dropped and that pushes you over 80%. All right. So you can actually go over the limit without spending more on the card. All right.

[00:08:21]This is kind of unique. It's like your Bitcoin drops in value. You didn't do anything but suddenly you're over the limit. Okay. Now at 80% they will just sell enough to get you back down to your intended LTV. So back down below 70% if that's what you originally had on your card. But if you go over 85%, they will pull the nuclear option on you and they will sell 85% of your Bitcoin to pay off the card in full. Okay? So, I would be really careful with this. I would certainly lean towards setting my credit limit at 30% of my Bitcoin holdings for maximum safety, knowing how volatile Bitcoin can be. But this could be a really useful card for people who have a lot of Bitcoin. It offers credit limits up to a million dollars for crypto whales. So, it's a great way to get access to your crypto without having to liquidate and pay capital gains tax on it. The card also offers 2% cash back on everything. It's not for everyone, but I think the people in the audience who would benefit from it know who they are. Okay, let's look at a card that is offering a 100,000 point bonus.

[00:09:24]So, we promised you 100,000 points and here it is. The Advantage Executive World Elite Mastercard. This is the premium American Airlines card from City. It gives you Admiral's Club access and a load of credits that offset the 5.95 annual fee. This card is now offering 100,000 points for spending $10,000 in 3 months. So, it's a bit of a high spend requirement of $3,333 per month, but with a value for American Airlines miles of 1.6 cents per mile, according to the points guy, this bonus is worth $1,600.

[00:09:56]That's actually a great value bonus, and it's hard to earn AA points. Right. Only City can transfer over to them with their transferable points. Thank you points. Okay. Notably, American Express, Chase, and Capital 1 cannot transfer to American Airlines. Anyway, this is a limited time offer. It does require a special link. All right. If you just search the card on the city's website, you will see a lower offer. So, I will paste the link down below in the description or in a pin comment. That's the video for today, guys. Don't forget to check out Freck at fret.com/benhedges or in the description down below.

[00:10:27]Schedule a free portfolio analysis with the FEC team or sign up and get $250 when you fund an account. Terms apply.

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