How Soon Will I See My Chase Sapphire Preferred Annual Points Dividend?

Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here – Chase Sapphire Preferred Card

Update: As of July 20, 2014, the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card no longer offers the 7% annual points dividend.

TPG reader John sent me a Facebook message asking:

"How quickly after the first of the year do your Chase Sapphire Preferred dividend bonus?"

The Chase Sapphire Preferred is one of my all-time top travel credit cards, and is the credit card I recommend most to family and friends because it offers really lucrative category spending bonuses including 2.14X points per $1 on travel (including the 7% annual points dividend) – which includes not only airline tickets, hotel rooms and things like that, but also parking garages and meters, taxis, metro transit like the Subway and a host of other transportation options – as well as on dining (and 3.21X points per $1 on dining the first Friday of each month through 2013). You can earn even more if you maximize the Ultimate Rewards shopping portal where merchants regularly offer multiple bonus points per dollar, and I personally earn an additional 2X points per $1 by booking airfare through Travelocity

Then when it comes time to redeem those points, you've got a ton of different options thanks to Ultimate Rewards' Chase Ultimate Rewards points (which are what you earn on the card) transfer at a 1:1 ratio to 10 travel programs: British Airways, Korean Air, Southwest, United, Virgin Atlantic, Hyatt, IHG Rewards, Marriott, Ritz-Carlton and Amtrak. So when you think about it, you're potentially earning multiple airline miles or hotel points on nearly every dollar you spend if you strategize your spending.

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At the end of the year, the card also offers a 7% dividend on all the points you accrue during the year (not including the sign-up bonus) – so if you earned 20,000 points, you'd earn an additional 1,400 points at the end of the year – which helps boost your balance even further. So it's a great card that lets you rack up multiple points per dollar on a lot of different purchases.

So John is wondering is when exactly he can expect to see that extra dividend. It's usually around your February statement. What Chase does is look at all the points you've earned over the course of the calendar year (excluding the sign-up bonus, as I mentioned) including bonus points you've earned on travel, dining and through the UR portal, and then they just add 7% to your balance. Even if you've already used or transferred some of the points you've earned, you still get 7% on what you earned during the year, whether those points are still in your Ultimate Rewards account or not.

So when your February statement closes, look out for a message on your statement and/or in your online account about that 7% dividend, and you'll probably get an email about it as well - so you should see it next month!

For more information, check out these posts:

The Top 5 Travel Credit Cards for 2014
The Top 10 Credit Cards in My Wallet and What I Use Each For
Details on the Sapphire Preferred 2X on Travel
Ranking the Chase Ultimate Rewards Transfer Partners
Top 10 Ways To Maximize Each Ultimate Rewards Transfer Partner
Why I Love Chase Ultimate Rewards
Ranking the Top Chase Travel Credit Card Offers

Let me know if you have any other questions by messaging me on Facebook, Tweeting me or emailing me at info@thepointsguy.com.