Can you have both sapphire preferred and reserve

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The 100,000-point sign-up bonus on the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card is the best deal right now among travel rewards cards — and there is a way to leverage a built-in feature of some Chase cards to double your bonus. 

If you and your spouse or domestic partner, or another person living with you, both get the card, you can pool the bonuses into one account and have 200,000 points to book flights and hotels. 

“Chase allows you to combine points with one member of your household, and it’s one strategy we’ve used to make the most of the program’s bonus categories and transfer partners,” says Nick Ewen, a senior editor at The Points Guy who frequently combines Chase points with his wife. (The Points Guy is owned by Red Ventures, like NextAdvisor.)

The only condition is that you have to share an address and that both cardholders meet the spending requirement to get the bonus, which is $4,000 in the first three months since account opening. This matters especially now, since there’s never been a better time to sign up for the Chase Sapphire Preferred. 

The card’s elevated welcome bonus of 100,000 Ultimate Rewards points, up from an earlier promotion offering 80,000 points, is worth around $1,250 when redeemed for travel, according to Chase. 

If you follow Ewen’s advice and combine two Sapphire Preferred bonuses, you and a spouse or domestic partner could score together a combined value of $2,500. 

Even with the $95 annual fee for the Chase Sapphire Preferred, the value you’d get from two sign-up bonuses makes it an attractive proposition.

You can use the same tactic to combine points from several other Chase cards, too — whether they’re your cards or belong to your partner or other household member. Doing so is a savvy points-earning strategy that can help you maximize your redemption value.

Pro Tip

You can only transfer points between Chase cards that participate in the Ultimate Rewards program, including the Chase Sapphire Preferred, Chase Sapphire Reserve, Chase Freedom Unlimited, Chase Freedom Flex and a few more.

Here’s how you and your spouse or domestic partner can pool your Chase points into a single account, whether they come from two Chase Sapphire Preferreds, or one Preferred and another Chase card, or two different Chase cards altogether, provided they earn Ultimate Rewards points or cash back that can be turned into points. The same strategy can apply to cards that are solely yours, too. 

How to Pool Your Chase Ultimate Rewards Points

If you link two credit card accounts that earn Chase Ultimate Rewards points, or cash back that can be turned into points, you can leverage this strategy to pool your earnings for even more firepower. 

That’s what Ewen and his wife Lillian have been doing for years, pooling their Chase Ultimate Rewards points in a single account. He has the Chase Sapphire Reserve Card, his wife has two Chase cards that earn cash back, and their accounts are linked, so she sends him her points every few months. 

This maximizes what they can do with their points, since they are worth more—1.5 cent each— when redeemed from a Sapphire Reserve account, as opposed to 1.25 or even 1 cent from other Chase cards. 

“I have added my Sapphire Reserve to her online Chase account so she can transfer her points to my Ultimate Rewards account. We don’t wait until we’re ready to book a trip to combine our points,” says Ewen. Now, the Ewens are “strongly considering having her apply for the Chase Sapphire Preferred card thanks to the current offer, as the additional 100,000 points would go a long way toward future trips,” he says. 

Until recently, you were able to add another household member online, but now the initial setup of this process takes a little more effort. You have to call Chase to add a household member, but it’s just a one-time requirement. Chase’s definition of “household member” is relatively loose, but you’ll need to have the same address and provide the person’s last name and credit card number to add them to your account. 

Once the account is added, it’ll remain there for point transfers in the future. Pooling Ultimate Rewards points into another Chase credit card account is completely free, and you can move any number of points between your accounts. Keep in mind that you’ll want to avoid adding your spouse or partner as an authorized user to your account; you’re looking to open a whole separate account instead. 

You can also pool Ultimate Rewards points across all of your own accounts, too—no partner or other household member needed.

In either case, sign into your Ultimate Rewards account, click on the card you would like to transfer cards from, and then click “Combine Points” from the sidebar menu. You’ll want to transfer points to either a Sapphire Reserve or Sapphire Preferred card, depending on which one you have. They are worth 1.5 cents per point or 1.25 cents per point, respectively, when redeemed via the portal.

An important caveat here is that Chase does not allow cardholders to have both the Sapphire Reserve and Sapphire Preferred cards at the same time. You must choose one. The good news is that the Preferred’s current 100,000-point bonus is far more attractive than the Reserve’s, which has a steep $550 annual fee and offers a slew of elite perks but has a bonus of 60,000 points, with the same spending requirements.

Bottom Line

Couples and even family members in the same household can leverage “two-player mode” to pool their bonuses and rewards from some Chase credit cards. 

Because of the Sapphire Preferred’s lucrative sign-up bonus right now, the most strategic move is for you and your partner to each get the card, provided you both have good credit scores and are able to pay off your balances each month. 

That way, you can each earn the 100,000-point sign-up bonus and use the points to book travel together. And remember, don’t add each other as authorized users or you would void this tactic.