Options for the Chase Unlimited Combo
From Travel Strategies
Easily Earn Points for Free Travel, Get a Great General Purpose Reward Card and Use It for All of Your Spending
The Chase Unlimited combo requires one of the Chase Unlimited cards to earn 1.5x Ultimate Rewards points on everyday purchases and one of several different Chase cards to be able to convert your points into Hyatt points or frequent flyer miles (or cash them out for more than 1 cent each. There are six different possible combinations, the question is which one is right for you.
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Personal cards only
If you aren't willing and able to get business cards, you'll need the Freedom Unlimited and either the Sapphire Reserve or the Sapphire Preferred.
- The Sapphire Reserve is much more expensive, but it comes with a bunch of extra benefits: Priority Pass airport lounge membership, free roadside assistance, slightly better "free travel insurance" when you use it to pay for travel, a higher rate (1.5 cents per point) when you cash out your points, and 3x rewards on travel purchases.
- How much more expensive depends on how much you expect to spend on travel purchases. The annual fee for the Sapphire Reserve is $550. However, the trivial-to-use $300 travel credit brings the effective cost down to $250, which is $155 more than the Sapphire Preferred. The Sapphire Preferred comes with a $50 hotel credit, but it can only be used on hotel reservations made on the Chase website, which won't count for the hotel's own loyalty program and which are likely to be a bit more expensive than you can find on other websites. So, it is worth much less than face value. The Sapphire Reserve comes with a $60 Door Dash credit, which for most people is worth a little closer to face value. So the out-of-pocket difference is likely around $125. Assuming you don't have another card that earns better rewards, for every $1,000 you spend on Travel, you'll earn an extra 1,000 Ultimate Rewards points with the Sapphire Reserve Card. At 1.7 cents each, that works out to $$20 per $1,000.
- If you don't need the lounge access, you should almost certainly get the Sapphire Preferred.
