My top 3 tips for evaluating card benefits

June 21, 2025

How to decide on a card when benefits change

by Brian Kelly

As you might have seen, there’s been big news in the premium card space from both Chase and American Express this week.

I want to unpack what some of these changes mean for existing and potential cardholders so you can make a rational decision (not an emotional one) about the cards to decide which ones deserve a spot in your wallet.

Assessing the benefits and how easy they are to use is the key to getting the most value. And remember, for Chase Sapphire Reserve® existing cardholders, nothing is really changing until Oct. 26. Points Boost will go live for everyone on June 23, but the annual fee won’t change for existing cardholders until your renewal after Oct. 26 but you will start getting access to all the new credits and perks on Oct. 26. You have time to let this all sink in and see what makes sense for you.

With that said, here are my top three criteria when evaluating a premium card:

No. 1: Lounge access — If you are going to carry a premium card, lounge access is paramount. Think about your home airport and which lounges are there, or where you might fly in and out of the most. Then, look at the top three premium cards: the Chase Sapphire Reserve®, The Platinum Card® from American Express and the Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card.

Amex has 30 Centurion airport lounges, Chase has eight lounges and Capital One has six lounges. When you look at guest access policies, Sapphire Reserve still provides access for two guests to its own branded lounges, whereas the Amex Platinum is $50 per adult guest at its Centurion Lounges (unless you spend $75,000 annually on the card). Capital One is also removing complimentary guest and authorized user access in February 2026 from its Venture X Card for those who don’t spend $75,000 on the card per calendar year.

No. 2: Earning rates — Where is the majority of your monthly spending? Is it groceries and dining out, travel expenses like flights and hotels, or something else? I will miss the 3 points per dollar on general travel that the Sapphire Reserve is ending, but it is going up to 4 points per dollar on hotel and airline charges booked directly (or 8 points per dollar via the Chase Travel℠ site).

Amex Platinum offers 5 points per dollar on the first $500,000 of airfare booked directly or through American Express Travel® per calendar year (then 1 point per dollar after) and prepaid hotels booked through Amex Travel. Venture X is 10 miles per dollar on hotels and car rentals in its portal. So, there are lots of options.

No. 3: Redeeming points — How easy is it to redeem your points for travel? All three premium cards offer travel portals for redemptions, and all offer multiple hotel and airline transfer partners to help you get even more value out of your redemptions. I almost exclusively use my Chase Ultimate Rewards points to transfer to airline partners for award tickets, as Chase has some of the best transfer partners out there, such as the World of Hyatt, which provides excellent value.

However, I have been using the Chase Travel portal more and am very curious to see Points Boost in its full version starting next week — so stay tuned.

I don’t like seeing card annual fees go up any more than the next person, but I don’t want people to impulsively cancel their cards without giving it time to see how useful the new benefits, credits and features are for their lives and wallets.

Just remember, there’s still time before any of these premium card changes take effect. Check out my post for a full comparison chart and more details.

Have a great weekend,

BK

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Photo Credit: JONNO RATTMAN.

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