Chase Sapphire Reserve® Card Keelhauls Points for Cruisers Nerfing The Value of Points

Ugg!

Double Ugg!!

I spent much of Tuesday in a real funk reading all the details of the brutal, devastating, disgusting, horrendous devaluation for Chase points for cruise redemption. The clock is now ticking to harvest high value for what has been one of the most valuable travel currencies in the travel space.

(note: this post is focused to the ability to spend Chase points for cruises – not other options).

For those not aware, allow me to bring you up to speed on what I am talking about. If you have held the Chase Sapphire Reserve® card (CSR) you have been able to spend the points held at 1.5 cents each via the Chase Travel℠ folks to book cruises. That meant you could do some amazing things like:

• Pay for the cruise in full with points
• Pay for daily gratuities with points
• Pay for other extras (think Vibe Beach Club or The Retreat) with points
• Pay for refundable onboard credits ($1,000 with NCL)
• Get the best sale offers on cruises plus additional perks

The above is not an exhaustive list but you get the general idea, that is, that with Chase points you could end up getting HUGE value by spending the points at 1.5 cents per point. Not only did this result in big cruise discounts, but in the case of NCL mentioned above, you could walk off with some cash in hand, harvested at 1.5 cents per point value.

All this will be GONE with the launch of the new “enhanced” CSR card. We can expect the ability to book cruises will continue, but only receive 1 cent per point value, dropping the value of the currency by 33% – OUCH – that stinks!

There is some small good news in that these changes will be phased in over some time so we will still have the opportunity to cash out points a the old high value for more than a year and we will have a number of months to keep earning points that can also be used at the 1.5 cent value (i.e. combining your Ultimate Rewards points all in your CSR account.

Again, for many, there are many better uses for CSR points, but for me, as a frequent floater, this is one of the primary uses for these valuable travel points. I could earn Chase points at 1.5x or 3x or even 5x and then funnel them over to my CSR card and bump up the value by 50% to 1.5 cents at the time of redemption for a cruise. This has been a reason for me to always look for ways to pay for almost anything with some kind of Chase credit card to amass more and more points with an eye toward a future cruise booking. Not for much longer!

So am I done with Chase? Am I done with Chase points? Am I going to wholesale cancel all my cards and shift my spending? It will be complicated.

Unless something changes, clearly, the value of using Chase points to book cruises will become “pointless.” Like so many point deals in the past, this one too will be over. So now what?

My yearly annual fee due date will bill before the cutoff date for the new higher fee enhanced card so I get one more year at the $550 fee and I will thus keep the card for one more year and focus on extracting the maximum cruise value I can. This will also give me time to digest the new enhanced card features and decide if I want to switch my focus on UR points to transfer partners vs. using the points the way I have been accustomed to.

Bottom line – I am really bummed out over these changes and there is no way to sugar coat the downgrade from cruise redemptions and even the idea of another “coupon book” card makes my blood boil. At least we all have some time to decide what to do next! – René