The Chase Sapphire Reserve is my favorite credit card. It has excellent bonus categories, but for this month only, there’s a special bonus available; cardholders may earn 5x bonus points on Chase Sapphire Reserve transactions made with Chase Pay.
September Chase Pay Bonus
From September 1 to 30, 2018, cardholders can earn an extra 5 points in addition to the usual 1 for Chase Pay transactions with certain merchants. That’s 6 points per dollar for Chase Pay purchases made with Best Buy, Tock, and eBags. The caveat, however, is that there’s a $200 spending cap on this promotion. That means if you maximize this promotion, you’ll only earn 1,200 Ultimate Rewards points. Sort of.
Stacking Bonuses
Best Buy and eBags both participate with the Ultimate Rewards shopping portal. Purchases from Best Buy earn an additional one point per dollar, while eBags purchases earn an additional seven points per dollar!
That’s a total of 13 points per dollar for purchases of up to $200 at eBags this month. Meaning, if you maximize your purchases with this promotion, you could earn 2,600 Ultimate Rewards points! What an amazing value!
And believe me, it’s not hard to spend $200 at eBags. I’ve purchased all of my carry-on bags, one of my camera bags, and my travel umbrellas from them. Heck, they sale Tumi, which is easily over the $200 limit.
5x Bonus Points on Chase Sapphire Reserve, Final Thoughts
Boy, do I wish I knew about this promotion sooner. I didn’t receive the e-mail from Chase until the 7th, which was really bad timing for me. As you may recall, I was able to score a table at The French Laundry using the Amex Platinum Concierge. And, later that same day, I decided to have them book me a table at Atelier Crenn too. What’s the point of all of this? Both restaurants use Tock to make reservations and require payments in full at the time of booking. But, Tock transaction usually post as a business service, so they don’t earn triple points with the Sapphire Reserve. That’s why I ended up having the Platinum Concierge book Crenn for me too. Had I known about this promotion, though, I could’ve booked Crenn myself and earned over 1,500 Ultimate Rewards points instead. Oh well. At least I got the reservations I wanted!
And, remember, Chase Ultimate Rewards points transfer to many programs such as United Mileage Plus, World of Hyatt, Marriott Rewards, Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer, and more, at a rate of 1:1. That means you could a one bedroom suite at the Delano Las Vegas or a standard room at Aria for 25,000 points per night via World of Hyatt. Though, you could stay at the Hyatt Place Las Vegas for 8,000 points or the MGM Grand for 15,000 points per night instead.
Patrick says
Jeff,
I have a couple of questions regarding your post “My Favorite Card: The Chase Sapphire Reserve”
You mention a ton of benefits to having the card (we have it as well)
Specifically…
•National Car Rental Emerald Club Executive Level membership + 25% discount on rentals
•30% discount on rentals with Avis Car Rental
•30% discount on rentals of two days or more with Silvercar
How do you get the discount when booking these cars?
Thanks
Island Miler says
Hey Patrick, to access these benefits, you’ll need to login to your Chase account, go into Ultimate Rewards, and then select your Sapphire Reserve card (if you have more than one UR card like the Freedoms or Ink). From there, you’ll want to click on the “Card Benefits” menu item and right there on that screen will be details on how to accessing those benefits. You’ll want to use the link provided to enroll in the Emerald Club Executive membership, but all the discounts require a promo code. For example, the Silvercar one is VINFINTE and will work with any US-issued Visa Infinite card like the Ritz-Carlton Rewards Visa (no longer available). Hope this helps!
JRG says
If I was visiting eBags, I would go when the shopping portal have high miles (15+), and then I’d try to use the chase pay thing. But a better deal is still to wait for the $15 off of $75 offer from AMEX (not currently in affect).
Island Miler says
Yes, eBags does have better portal rates from time to time, but I’d argue that the current Chase Pay promotion is better than the Amex one if you’re going to be spending $200 anyway. With the Amex promo you’ll only get $15 off, regardless of spend amount, while with the Chase promo you’ll get up to 2,600 points, which is redeemable for $26 cash. Though you could also extract more value when redeeming for travel via Chase ($39) or by transferring to an airline or hotel, depending on how you value points in that regard.
Leo says
Hello Jeff, are both Best Buy paying with Sapphire Reverse and Chase Pay targeted offers? I only recently got the CSR and don’t see either of these.
Shravan Kumar Lakumarapu says
How do i get this promotion. I feel like I am missing something. My app or chase pay web page doesn’t show this offer
Leo says
Hello Jeff, are the Best Buy paying with CSR and Chase Pay targeted offers? I’ve only recently gotten the CSR and I don’t see those offers. Thanks!
Island Miler says
Aloha Leo and Shravan,
I’ve been digging around and cannot find anything to support it being targeted or not. However, I did just get the offer for my Freedom card this morning too, though like you guys, it doesn’t show up in my card account or my Chase Pay account. If you’re already planning on making a purchase, I see no harm in giving it a shot, but due to the ambiguous nature of this all, I’d hesitate to make a purchase just for the offer. Sorry I couldn’t be of more help.