Full Comparison: Chase Sapphire Preferred vs. Citi Premier — Which One Is Better to Apply For?

Overall comparison

For mid-tier credit cards with annual fees under $100, the two strongest options are probably the Chase Sapphire Preferred (CSP) and the Citi Premier. Both cards have excellent welcome offers, moderate approval difficulty, strong points earnings, and points that can be worth more when redeemed for travel than when cashed out. If you don’t want to keep either card long term, there are also some good upgrade/downgrade options. So today we’ll compare these two cards from every angle. If you’re choosing between the two, you can use the comparison below.

Here’s the overall comparison table first:

	Chase Sapphire Preferred	Citi Premier
Welcome offer	100,000 UR, worth about $1,600	80,000 TYP, worth about $1,040
Annual fee	$95	$95
Approval difficulty	$5,000 minimum credit line, with 5/24 and 48-month restrictions	$2,000 minimum credit line, with 2/65 and 24-month restrictions
Points earning	2x on travel and dining, 1x on everything else	3x on supermarkets, restaurants, gas, airfare, and hotels; 1x on everything else
Point value	UR value 1.6c/p. Chase Travel and Pay Yourself Back at 1.25c, other redemptions at 1c; transfers 1:1	TYP value 1.3c/p. Cash out at 1c; transfers 1:1
Credits/discounts	Peloton Digital membership $60 reimbursement	$100 off a $500 hotel booking through Citi Travel, once per year
Product change options	Freedom Flex, Freedom Unlimited, Sapphire Reserve	Rewards+, Custom Cash, Double Cash
Card review	CSP detailed review	Premier detailed review

Here are the two cards at a glance:

Welcome offer

• The Chase Sapphire Preferred has the higher welcome offer, worth $1,600 ($1,040 for Premier)

Right now, both cards have welcome offers at historical highs: CSP is 100,000 points, and Premier is 80,000. The first-year annual fee is still $95 for both, so we’re not subtracting it here. The spending requirement is the same for both cards: $4,000 in three months. In terms of point value, based on our previous valuation:

• Chase Ultimate Rewards points are worth 1.6c/p, so the CSP welcome offer is worth $1,600
• Citi ThankYou Points are worth 1.3c/p, so the Premier offer is worth about $1,040

Of course, everyone has different redemption preferences, so the actual value can vary. We’ll take a closer look in the points-usage section below.

Approval difficulty

• The Citi Premier is relatively easier to get and has fewer restrictions

For two mid-tier cards, the approval difficulty isn’t very high. We’d generally suggest trying once your credit history is more than one year old (in other words, after your oldest card has been open for a year). That said, there are still quite a few things to watch out for when applying.

• The Chase Sapphire Preferred has a $5,000 minimum credit line, and you must not have opened 5 new credit cards in the past 24 months. You also can’t have received a Sapphire-family welcome bonus within the past 48 months, and you can’t currently hold a Sapphire-family card.
• The Citi Premier apparently doesn’t have a minimum credit line requirement (one reader reported being approved for a $2,500 limit). You must not have received a ThankYou-family card welcome bonus within the past 24 months. You can only submit one personal-card application every 8 days, and only two personal-card applications every 65 days. This refers to application submission limits, whether approved or not.

Overall, both cards place some limits on people who apply for a lot of cards, so you should compare your own application history to decide whether you’re likely to get approved. But compared with Chase’s 5/24 rule and the once-every-48-months Sapphire bonus restriction, Citi Premier’s rules are much looser. On the credit line side, a $2,500 approval limit for Premier is also easier to get than the CSP’s $5,000 minimum.

Points earning

• The Citi Premier has a slight edge in both earning breadth and earning rate

The main spending categories for these two cards are travel-related purchases, and both offer solid earning rates. Specifically:

• Chase Sapphire Preferred offers bonus points on travel-related spending: 2x on dining, car rentals, airfare, and hotels
• Citi Premier offers 3x on restaurants, gas, airfare, and hotels, plus 3x on supermarkets and food delivery

On earning rate alone, Citi Premier’s 3x wins. If you calculate it directly using the point values above, the real return is still something you need to judge based on how you redeem the points, so we’ll analyze that more in the points-usage section below. Also, Premier’s 3x at supermarkets is excellent, giving this card coverage from travel to everyday spending.

Points usage

• UR has much stronger redemption value and flexibility than TYP

The Chase Sapphire Preferred earns Ultimate Rewards (UR), while the Citi Premier earns ThankYou Points (TYP). Both currencies can be cashed out at 1:1, and both can also be transferred to airline miles or hotel points. If you already have a sizable balance of UR or TYP, these cards can also act as a bridge for transferring to airline miles or hotel points.

When it comes to transfers:

• UR: can transfer 1:1 to United Airlines miles (good for China–U.S. economy, domestic U.S. economy, one-way tickets); 1:1 to British Airways miles (good for China–Japan and short-haul U.S. domestic redemptions); 1:1 to Hyatt points (great for Hyatt hotels, where value can reach 1.8 cents per point). This is one of the highest-value points currencies.
• TYP: can transfer 1:1 to Virgin Atlantic miles (good for Delta One nonstop awards and ANA round-trip first class between the U.S. and Japan); 1:1 to Avianca miles (good for China–U.S. business class and ANA / Asiana first class between China and the U.S., with no YQ on tickets); 1:1 to Qantas Airways (QF) miles (good for nonstop U.S. domestic flights and U.S. East Coast to Western Europe). Overall, the partners aren’t especially user-friendly.

When it comes to cashing out:

• UR: can be redeemed for cash at 1:1. Right now, you can use Pay with Points to reimburse supermarket, restaurant, and gas spending. If you only hold the CSP, the redemption rate is 1.25c/p; if you hold the CSR, it is 1.5c/p. In addition, booking flights or hotels through Chase Travel can also be redeemed at 1.25c/p.
• TYP: can be redeemed for cash at 1:1.

Looking at both together, UR has higher utility than TYP and is usable in many more places. We generally value UR at around 1.6c/p and TYP at around 1.3c/p. So from the perspective of bonus-category earning, TYP at 3x is effectively 3.9%, while UR at 2x is 3.2%. By that math, Premier still has the slightly better bonus-category return.

Perks analysis

• Premier has slightly better extra perks

Neither card has a ton of perks, which makes sense for a mid-tier card with a $95 annual fee.

• CSP: car rental insurance benefits, cellphone protection, and a $60 Peloton Digital membership reimbursement
• Premier: each year, if you book a hotel through Citi Travel and spend more than $500, you can get a $100 discount (once per year); also includes cellphone protection

Compared with CSP, Premier’s $100 hotel discount is a real $100 saving if you can use it. So Premier still has the slightly better extra perks.

Upgrade/downgrade analysis

• There isn’t much difference here; both are pretty good

When applying for a card, another thing to consider is what happens if you no longer want to keep it: are there good upgrade and downgrade options? After all, if you can’t use the $95 annual fee’s benefits, there’s no real reason to keep paying it. That said, both card families are fairly complete, and there are plenty of worthwhile no-annual-fee cards to product-change into. Even if you don’t want to keep either card long term, you can still apply first, earn the large welcome bonus, and then downgrade to a no-annual-fee card in the second year for long-term holding.

• CSP: the no-annual-fee quarterly 5x Freedom Flex and the all-spending-1.5x Freedom Unlimited are both good downgrade options. If you’re interested in premium perks or want to maximize UR value, upgrading to Sapphire Reserve is also a good choice.
• Premier: the no-annual-fee Rewards+, the automatic 5x Custom Cash, and the all-spending-2x Double Cash are all good options. One thing to note is the points-expiration issue after downgrading a TYP-earning card. The premium card Prestige is still being reworked for now, so it can’t be product-changed into yet.

Compared with CSP, the upgrade path is a little better. The downgrade options are about equally good on both sides.

Future outlook

• The Sapphire Preferred has more upside, but also some annual-fee increase risk

These two cards are core products for Chase and Citi, so they probably won’t be discontinued any time soon. Premier has already gone through a refresh recently, so there likely won’t be major benefit changes.

However, there are currently rumors that the Chase Sapphire Preferred will add new benefits on August 15, and they’re fairly substantial and valuable. The rumored changes are:

• 5x points on hotels and airfare booked through the Chase Travel portal
• $50 hotel credit each cardmember year
• Dining / streaming services / online grocery (excluding Target, Walmart, and wholesale clubs)
• 10% annual points bonus, meaning you get 10% extra points at the end of each year on points earned, excluding the welcome bonus. Earn 10,000 points and you’d get 1,000 extra points.

These changes sound pretty valuable. My guess is that the annual fee could go up by $50... we’ll have to wait and see.

Bottom line

First, both cards are absolutely worth applying for. If you’re eligible and can meet the spending requirement for the welcome offer, I strongly recommend not missing out. Based on the comparisons above, the two cards aren’t all that different. If I had to rank them, I’d suggest starting with the Chase Sapphire Preferred, since the 5/24 rule and the 48-month Sapphire bonus restriction are both stricter, so it’s better to get it sooner and start the waiting period sooner. Of course, if you have the capacity to get both, then the answer is definitely: why not both?