Good morning everyone, I have a dilemma on my hands. The $450 annual fee is posting in the next 2 months on my JPMorgan Chase Ritz Carlton Credit Card and I need to decide if I should keep both my Chase Sapphire Reserve Credit Card and JPMorgan Chase Ritz Carlton Credit Card. Both credit cards have $450 annual fees and I don’t *need* both credit cards, but what should I do? As a reminder, I recently converted my Chase Freedom into a Chase Sapphire Reserve, but I have had my JPMorgan Chase Ritz Carlton Credit Card for almost 3 years (I applied for this credit card when the sign up bonus was 140,000 Marriott Points). I will walk through all the perks for both credit cards and see if I have a clear answer by the end of this post.
Contender 1: Chase Sapphire Reserve Credit Card
If we exclude the current credit card sign up bonus, this is what the $450 annual fee on the Chase Sapphire Reserve Credit Card gets you:
- $300 travel credit (worth $300 to me since I travel a lot)
- 3x Chase Ultimate Reward Points on travel and dining
- Redeem Chase Ultimate Reward Points at 1.5 cents per point (CPP)
- $100 Global Entry / TSA PreCheck credit (worth $0 to me since I have more Global Entry credit than I can use)
- Priority Pass Select Membership (worth $0 to me since I have Priority Pass Select memberships with my American Express Business Platinum Charge Card and the JPMorgan Chase Ritz Carlton Credit Card)
- Special deals with National, Avis, Silvercar and the Luxury Hotel & Resort Collection (worth $0 since I can get better rental car rates with AutoSlash and I do not pay to stay at fancy hotels)
- No foreign transaction fees (worth $0 since I have 20+ other credit cards that do not charge foreign transaction fees)
- Travel and purchase protections
- 24/7 customer service and concierge service
After deducting the travel credit from the annual fee, I am paying $150 for 3x Chase Ultimate Reward Points on travel and dining plus the ability to redeem Chase Ultimate Reward Points at 1.5 CPP. If I compared that to the Chase Sapphire Preferred, I would pay $95 for 2x on travel and dining, plus the ability to redeem Chase Ultimate Reward Points at 1.25 CPP. As long as I redeem more than 22,000 Chase Ultimate Reward Points a year, I will come out ahead with the Chase Sapphire Reserve. 22,000 Chase Ultimate Reward Points is worth $275 with the Chase Sapphire Preferred (1.25 CPP) and $330 for the Chase Sapphire Reserve (1.5 CPP). Considering that I have 150,000+ Chase Ultimate Reward Points, I will definitely get more value with the Chase Sapphire Reserve. I should also mention that I have a Chase Ink Plus Business Credit Card, so I already have access to Chase Ultimate Reward transfer partners.
Contender 2: JPMorgan Chase Ritz Carlton Credit Card
If we exclude the current credit card sign up bonus, this is what the $450 annual fee on the JPMorgan Chase Ritz Carlton Credit Card gets you:
- $300 travel credit reimbursements (covers baggage fees, seat upgrades, airport lounges, etc – worth $150 to me since I normally do not pay for those items)
- 5x Marriott points at Ritz Carlton, Marriott, and SPG hotels
- 2x Marriott points on airlines, rental cars, and restaurants
- 10% annual points bonus (worth $10 since I only put a few hotel reservations on this credit card)
- Priority Pass Select Membership (worth $0 to me since I have Priority Pass Select memberships with my American Express Business Platinum Charge Card and the Chase Sapphire Reserve Credit Card)
- $100 Global Entry / TSA PreCheck credit (worth $0 to me since I have more Global Entry credit than I can use)
- Visa Infinite $100 off airline tickets (worth $50 to $200 to me since you must purchase roundtrip, domestic airfare for 2 or more people on select airlines)
- Special deals with Avis, National, and Silvercar (worth $0 since I can get better rental car rates with AutoSlash)
- 3 Ritz Carlton Club upgrades (worth $0 since I would never pay to stay at a Ritz Carlton hotel)
- $100 Ritz Carlton hotel credit (worth $0 since you need to pay for a 2 night stay at a Ritz Carlton hotel)
- No foreign transaction fees (worth $0 since I have 20+ other credit cards that do not charge foreign transaction fees)
- 24/7 customer service and concierge service
After deducting the travel credit reimbursements from the annual fee, I am paying ~$300 for a bunch of Ritz Carlton perks that I do not take advantage of. The only reason to consider keeping this credit card is if I could use the Visa Infinite $100 off airline ticket discount several times over the year. Due to several different reasons, I find it very difficult to use the Visa Infinite $100 off airline ticket discount. All of the other perks are identical to the Chase Sapphire Reserve.
The winner is…
It looks like my answer is pretty clear, I need to ditch the JPMorgan Chase Ritz Carlton Credit Card. I wonder if I can convert / product change this credit card into another Chase credit card. But before I call JPMorgan Chase to inquire about possible conversion options, I need to finish the last ~$50 of my travel credit reimbursement. Has anyone called to convert their JPMorgan Chase Ritz Carlton Credit Card recently? Did you get any good conversion options? Do you think I made the right decision to keep only the Chase Sapphire Reserve? If you have any questions, please leave a comment below. Have a great day everyone!
It seems like neither card is really a great fit for you, since you’re getting less value than you’re paying in annual fees. Is the reason you want to keep the Ritz card because you’ve had it for 3 years? Just keep neither and go with something that you’d get more value out of.
I feel like the Ritz Carlton CC has a lot of potential but just isn’t working for me. I don’t care about Marriott points or keeping this card open for 3 years, so I’m 99% sure I will close or convert this CC before paying another $450 annual fee. As for the CSR, even though I don’t get tremendous value from this CC (because I have several other CCs), I still think I come out ahead vs not having this CC. I’ll hold on to it for a year and then reevaluate.
Never even thought about converting the RC card to another Chase product but my AF will hit around March next year so please keep us posted if it is successful. Wouldn’t mind another Freedom card.
I’ll keep you posted and share my results when the time comes.
Wait till after this weekend to reside – run it by everyone at chicago
I won’t make any decisions until mid December, so I have time to hear more opinions :)
I’m curious what will become of the Ritz card of AMEX wins the Marriott deal…..
Just a few thoughts in favor of the Ritz card, although I agree with others that it doesn’t seem like an excellent fit for you: it’s a J.P. Morgan product (not Chase) and calls go instantly to the JPM Executive line. That’s definitely a benefit for some. Also, the 10% annual points bonus is for all spend on the card (not just hotels). Spend $75k, get Marriott/SPG Platinum, and get 7,500 more points next year. And of course, we don’t know what will happen with this card after the merger. Marriott has indicated they’re moving from three programs to one consolidated one, so it’s quite possible that even if they stay with Chase, this card get the axe as RCR itself would no longer exist. I’m in a similar position of not necessarily finding extreme value from this card, but I want to hold onto all related cards to see what will happen.
I definitely agree, I am in the wait-and-see-what-happens camp. I just hope I hear something before the annual fee is due. I probably spent less than $1,000 on this card over the year (some hotel purchases and some reimbursable travel charges).
NO need to have both of these cards. I agree with you the Ritz Carlton benefits are worthless. I just got it for the sign up bonus. I have the Chase Sapphire Reserve and it’s great. I’d recommend downgrading the Ritz card back to a FREE Freedom card so you can take advantage of the 5 X quarterly bonuses.
I would love to get a Chase Freedom
cC again since I product changed my Chase Freedom to Chase Sapphire Reserve.
You may PC within family. For example: United Club to United Explorer/United Rewards. You can’t go from United to CSP/CSR/Freedom unless it was a “forced” conversion (ie Fairmount to CSP)
Do you know what credit cards are in the same family as the Ritz Carlton CC?
If you’ve had the Ritz that long, you should have been grandfathered at the old annual fee of $395.
Oh right, I think I am grandfathered I’m at the $395 annual fee, but I still don’t think I can justify the $395 annual fee.
How to get $300 travel credit reimbursements (covers baggage fees, seat upgrades, airport lounges, etc – ) on Ritz card? So far I used for baggage fee once. CSR is a lot easier to get travel credit. I would like to convert it to Freedom upon renewal too.
I usually just buy food onboard or pay for seat assignments / upgrades.
One of the potential perks of the RC card has not been mentioned yet -Gold elite status. Yes, this requires $10k of spend, but confers Gold status not only at RC but at both Marriott and at SPG properties also. That is a high-tier status at a huge number of properties. I have had a number of times when hotel staff went over the top to help me, and I am confident my Gold status was a significant factor.
That is true, but my American Express Business Platinum Charge Card provides SPG Gold for free, which I matched to Marriott Gold = Ritz Carlton Gold. I’m glad the Marriott Gold status has helped you get some extra perks.
Pingback: 2 Product Change / Conversion Options for JPMorgan Chase Ritz Carlton Credit Card