In my opinion thee best and most profitable credit card to open for sign up bonuses right now is the Chase Sapphire Preferred card. For the past several years this credit card has offered a $500 or $600 sign up bonus1 for spending $4,000 within the first 3 months, but Chase started offering an $800 sign up bonus (80,000 points) last year which ended in November 2020. If you account for the $95 annual fee that the Chase Sapphire Preferred card charges you shortly after you open the account, the value of the sign up bonus is actually $705, but that’s still one of the highest welcome bonuses you can get.
About a week ago Chase started offering the $800 sign up bonus again, but this time with an additional $50 bonus for grocery store purchases during your first year. After you deduct the $95 annual fee, you’re still essentially getting a $755 sign up bonus which is considerably higher than the $500 sign up bonuses I could find on a few other credit cards.
The Sapphire Preferred credit card comes with 2% cash back on dining, restaurants and travel but in my opinion the really awesome thing about the card is the relatively new “Pay Yourself Back” feature. In May 2020 Chase introduced a Pay Yourself Back feature on their Sapphire Preferred credit card that can effectively give you an additional 25% back on all the rewards you earn or basically 25% cash back on your bonus and any cash back, if that makes sense.2 So if, for example, you earned $1,000 through bonuses and cash back, you could essentially turn that $1,000 into $1,250 by redeeming your money through that Pay Yourself Back feature. The caveat is that this feature only allows you to earn that 25% cash back on purchases made at grocery stores, home improvement stores, dining/restaurants and select charities, but if you just make $1,000 of purchases in those categories, then in this example you’d increase your bonus by 25% or an additional $250. (Grocery stores and home improvement stores tend to have a very wide selection of gift cards for various retailers and services like Amazon, Best Buy, Netflix, Apple and more so you’re definitely not restricted to buying only groceries, power tools and eating out in the Pay Yourself Back categories if you know how to play the game.)
When I opened my most recent Chase Sapphire Preferred card several months ago, I received the $800 sign up bonus plus an additional $100 or so from the regular 1% or 2% cash back rate that Chase offers on this credit card, so utilizing the Pay Yourself Back feature I essentially made over $1,100 in bonuses and cash back from this one credit card alone!
But that’s not it.
I have several other Chase credit cards that I’ve earned cash back (points) on so since Chase allows you to transfer these points between cards, I transferred those rewards to my Sapphire Preferred card which will increase the value of those rewards by 25% once I use the Pay Yourself Back feature!
By the time I transfer the remaining points from my other Chase credit cards to my Sapphire Preferred card and redeem through the Pay Yourself Back feature, I’m estimating I’ll have made at least $1,200 in bonuses and cash back.
The only bad thing about this is that Chase limits you to one sign up bonus every 48 months for their family of Sapphire credit cards, so I might need to expand the list of family and friends that will let me open up credit cards in their name for sign up bonuses. 😅
4/7/2021: If you are interested in getting a Chase Sapphire Preferred credit card, they have a referral program where I can earn $150 for anybody that gets approved using my link below, but I would love and prefer to send that referral bonus to anyone who gets approved through that link so that you can use it towards making your finances elite (paying down debt, savings, etc). Just message me or email me at Eman@MoneyElite.blog to let me know you applied and got approved and I’ll coordinate how to send the money to you.
Chase Sapphire Preferred referral link: https://www.referyourchasecard.com/6p/REXUVX4WGM
- Chase actually offered 50,000 or 60,000 bonus points, which equates to $500 or $600 cash since every point is worth one penny but for simplicity I’m mostly going to refer to dollar values.
- If you have the Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card, then Chase gives you 50% back on the rewards you redeem through the Pay Yourself Back feature but the Reserve credit card comes with a $550 annual fee as opposed to the $95 annual fee for the Preferred credit card.
