What is Chase Sapphire Reserve Travel Credit?

One of the many reasons why the Chase Sapphire Reserve is regarded as a top-tier credit card is because of its various travel rewards. One specific reward is the $300 of travel credit that is given every year to its holders. This is immediately one of the biggest ways to offset the $550 annual fee on the card, and it is very convenient for anyone that travels. Let’s take a closer look at how to access the credit and what to spend it on.

How to Access Your Annual $300 Travel Credit

Your Chase travel credit is loaded onto your card right when you successfully sign up for it. Every following year after that, $300 of credit will automatically be added to your account. You can see your travel credit simply by logging into your Chase Ultimate Rewards portal and looking at the dashboard. This will tell you whether or not you’ve used up your Sapphire Reserve credit and when you’ll get the next refresh.

In order to use your travel credit, you don’t have to do anything other than use your Sapphire Reserve card for qualified travel purchases! This means that you don’t even have to think about spending your credit, and you will still end up using it all. However, keep in mind that you won’t receive the 3x points for travel until you spend up all of your $300 credit.

What You Can Spend Your Travel Credit On

You can pretty much spend your travel credit on anything that is travel-related. Specifically, whenever you make a purchase, the merchant category code associated with the purchases will identify whether or not it is a travel purchase. Here’s a quick list of things that you can spend your credit on:

• Airlines
• Hotels
• Car rental agencies
• Cruise lines
• Travel agencies
• Rideshares
• Buses
• Taxis
• Toll roads
• Parking lots and garages

If you want to take a closer look at Chase’s different categories, you can visit their website. The list of ways to spend your travel credit that we just gave isn’t completely exhaustive, but these are the most likely ways that you will spend your credits.

If you are a frequent traveler and are looking to book airline tickets in advance, using the $300 credit for those tickets would be very efficient. Once again, keep in mind that you won’t receive the 3x points for travel until your travel credit is used up, so making a big purchase (like airline tickets) would make it easy to spend up the reward.

Additionally, note that travel agencies are categorized for travel. This opens up many possibilities for what you can purchase, as travel agencies offer a lot of different products. For example, theme park tickets typically would count towards entertainment; however, if you purchased them through an eligible travel agency, you could potentially use your travel credit on them!

Closing Thoughts

You certainly do not have to worry much about spending up the annual $300 travel credit. Many people can end up spending it without even realizing, as travel expenses build up every single day for the typical commuter. The travel credit is just one more great perk of being an exclusive Chase Sapphire Reserve cardholder.