JPMorgan Chase is raising the fee on its popular Sapphire Reserve credit card to $550 and adding more perks just as some of the biggest card issuers have been pulling back on them.
To justify the $100 increase Chase is offering $60 in annual DoorDash credits in 2020 and 2021 and a complimentary year of Lyft Pink — which costs $19.99 per month and includes 15 percent off Lyft rides, free bike and scooter trips, priority airport pickup, and more flexibility for cancellations.
Cardholders will also earn 10 points per dollar on Lyft rides — a 20 percent return according to valuations by The Points Guy — versus the 3 points per dollar they normally earn on transportation spending, through March 2022.
Chase unveiled the Sapphire Reserve card in 2016 when anti-bank sentiment among the under-40 crowd was at its peak and seemingly no one in the industry thought millennials wanted credit cards. It began an arms race among competitors including Citi and AmEx to improve their own rewards offerings. That soon quieted and both issuers have begun to pull back on high-end rewards due to their high costs and reduced profits.
The rewards market has since boomed. Personal finance content and advice sites NerdWallet, Square's Cash App, and even Chase have integrated cash-back features into their apps. Rakuten, the Japanese e-commerce giant that bought the cash-back platform Ebates in 2014, is currently going hard on marketing. The rewards app Drop, which gives users points for shopping and gift cards to redeem with them, raised $21 million in Series A funding last year. And PayPal bought rewards platform Honey last month in its largest-ever acquisition.
The Sapphire Reserve fee updates will go into effect Jan. 12 for new cardholders as well as existing cardholders whose cards renew after April 1.
This story has been updated with a response from Chase Cards.
"We take a variety of factors into account when determining pricing on our products – value to the customer, customer demand and the competitive environment to name a few. Sapphire customers are incredibly savvy and we know they will consider the value of the card for them. That’s always been the case with Sapphire Reserve, and we expect no difference here," Catherine Hogan, president of Chase Cards, wrote in a statement.
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