Chase Sapphire Reserve NEW Credit, Citi SCRAPS Product Changes?

In this video, we are going to look at a new monthly credit on the Chase Sapphire Reserve, plus the new pay yourself back categories on the reserve for quarter two of 2025. Then the 5x categories on the Chase Freedom card that are now live. And lastly, we have Citi putting some new restrictions on product changes. We'll tell you why that matters to you in this video. Hey, credit warriors, welcome to the show. My name is Ben Hedges, aka The Credit Shofu, and on this channel, I cover US credit cards and personal finance topics. If you like the sound of that, do subscribe. But let's get into it. And this video is brought to you by Max Rewards. But more on that later. So let's talk about the Chase Sapphire Reserve first. Now, Chase has just extended its partnership with the Lyft ride sharing app. If you don't know like what that is, OK, it's basically the same as Uber, but bright pink. Like the logo is pink. They even have a membership program called Lyft Pink. Well, anyway, for some time, Chase has had a partnership with Lyft on several of its cards. The Chase Sapphire Reserve, the JP Morgan Reserve, the Sapphire Preferred, the Chase Freedom and the Inc Business Cards. And for some time, that's ended now. But in the past, you did actually get Lyft Pink membership, which gets you priority pickup and a discount, etc. Now, the Lyft partnership was going to end on March 31st. OK, just a couple of days ago. But now Chase has extended it. And the new end date is September 30th, 2027. So you got two more years, over two more years. But there have been some changes, including a new Lyft credit on the Sapphire Reserve, which is probably the most exciting change. And the other changes a little bit negative. So anyway, let's check it out. So the Sapphire Reserve and the JP Morgan Reserve now get a new $10 monthly Lyft credit. So that's $120 per year. Then also CSR and JP Morgan Reserve holders will also earn five points back per dollar on Lyft. Now, that is actually down from 10 points per dollar that those cards used to earn, unfortunately. With the Sapphire Preferred, you get five points per dollar on Lyft. With the Chase Freedom, you now get two points per dollar on Lyft. That's gone down from five points per dollar. And on the Inc Cards, it's still 5x. They also point out that on the Sapphire Reserve and a few of the other cards, actually, you do get a free DoorDash Dash Pass, which gets you a discount on Lyft rides, too. Now, obviously, it's a little disappointing that the earning rate has gone down, especially on the CSR. But that $10 monthly credit provides probably more value than the previous 10x points did for probably most people, except for the most hardcore Lyft power users. Then, in addition to the Lyft partnership being extended and the new $10 credit, also on the Sapphire Reserve, we have a new list of pay yourself back categories for quarter two of 2025. Let's check those out. Now, if you don't know, pay yourself back was a benefit brought in on many chase cards during COVID times, when people couldn't really use their points for travel. It enables you to use points to pay off charges on your card at rates higher than one cent per point, but only in certain categories. Now, this program has kind of been gutted as we are now out of the pandemic period. So the value of the points was lowered and the category is restricted. But the CSR has been the strongest of the chase cards even after that happened. So here are the new categories for quarter two of 2025 and the value of the points in each. Grocery stores, excluding Target and Walmart, 1.25 cents per point. Gas stations, 1.25 cents per point. Pet supply stores and veterinary services, 1.25 cents per point. The annual fee, 1.25 cents per point. And select charities, 1.5 cents per point. Now, obviously, there's kind of an elephant in the room here in that, except for charities, the points are only redeemable at 1.25 cents per point, which is lower than the value that you would get for travel portal redemptions because that's 1.5 cents per point on the Sapphire Reserve. But still, it's better than you would get if you redeemed as cashback and then use that cashback to cover those charges. And the categories are pretty good, in my opinion, with grocery stores and gas being two really high spending categories for a lot of people. So if you aren't planning on traveling anywhere and you have a load of chase points and, you know, you've been struggling a little financially with the economy, how it is or the inflation, et cetera, you could consider doing this. And since you're still over 1 cent per point, I'm not going to fault you for it. All right. 1 cent per point is kind of my absolute minimum value I want to redeem transferable points for. All right. Let's now move on to the new chase freedom categories and then talk about changes to Citi's product change rules. But first, if you're into credit cards, you really need to keep track of the benefits to get the maximum value out of your cards. And that's why I have partnered with Max Rewards. It is the ultimate credit card management app that I personally use. And it links to all of your cards, even if they're from different banks, and shows you your balances, your points and rewards balances, and even things like credit utilization all in one place. It's especially useful for cards with high annual fees, since you have this little card value chart here where you can see how much value you have got from using the credits and earning points. Look, my use of benefits alone amounted to over $800, completely offsetting the annual fee on this card. You can also click in for a more detailed view and see what benefits you've maximized and which ones you haven't. With Amex cards, Max Rewards can also be especially useful since you can search offers across all your Amex cards, something that you can't do on Amex's own site. You can only search on individual cards. And also the pro version Max Rewards Gold activates all of your Amex offers for you, so you never miss a deal. And when all your offers are activated, new offers that you never knew existed appear in your account, saving you even more money. You can get a 7-day free trial of Max Rewards Gold with my link below, and use code HEDGES25 when you sign up to get a 3-month discount on the annual plan if you continue after the free trial. There are also a load of free features that you can check out too. Alright, so the Chase Freedom categories. Now obviously we covered these when they were first announced two weeks ago, but they are now live as long as you've activated them, which you can do in the Chase app or in your online account. So we're going to give you a reminder. So the 5x Chase Freedom categories for Quarter 2 are Amazon and Select Streaming Services. This is on $1,500 in spending for the quarter, and you can have more than one Freedom card. So I have two, which increases the limit to $3,000 that I can earn 5x on across both those cards. Just remember to switch your payment method in your Amazon account, okay? Particularly people who are using the Amazon card for 5% back, remember to switch that over to the Freedom. 5x on the Freedom is potentially worth more than 5% on the Amazon card because it's transferable points. So just remember to do that if you want to take advantage of this. Alright, let's now talk about some changes to Citi's product change rules. So historically, Citi has been very generous when it comes to product changes, allowing you to product change to pretty much any of their cards. If you don't know, most card issuers only allow product changes within a series of cards. So for example, with Chase, you can product change within the Ultimate Rewards earning cards or within their, say, Marriott Hotel cards, but not from an Ultimate Rewards card to a Marriott card, right? Can't do that. Same with Amex. You can upgrade from an Amex Gold to an Amex Platinum, but you cannot product change from an Amex Gold to, for example, a Delta Airlines credit card. But with Citi, historically, you can do that. But now things seem like they're changing, with reports that Citi has restricted product changes from AA cards. Frequent Miler reported, We recently got an email from a reader named Ahmed who wanted to change his Advantage Executive Elite card to a no annual fee Citi double cash, which earns thank you points. However, when he called, the rep informed him that he could only downgrade to an Advantage Ally card, which included AA or, oddly enough, Costco cards. He tried to hang up and call again, but the second rep told him the same thing. So it seems they're describing cards that you can product change to as Advantage Ally, OK? And weirdly, that includes the Costco card, OK? I have no idea why that is. Frequent Miler then went on to do a test, phoning up and asking to product change a Citi Strata Premier card to an Advantage card, and they got the same response. No longer possible. Let us know in the comments if you've experienced the same issue, trying to product change in or out of a Citi American Airlines card. Now, you might be thinking, why would you want to do that anyway? Well, one reason is that AA cards can sometimes have good bonuses, but perhaps you don't want one long term. So you might want to, you know, product change it to, say, the custom cash. Now, the custom cash is a really useful card, OK? It earns five points per dollar in your biggest spending category per month, up to $500 in spending every month. And Citi actually lets you have more than one custom cash, OK? So if you get two, that's $1,000 per month that you have that 5% on, OK? Because you've got the two cards. It's the same situation like with the Chase Freedom, OK? I increased $1,500 per quarter to $3,000 per quarter that I can earn five points per dollar on because I've got two freedoms. So what you could do is you could get a nice bonus like this 75,000 miles special offer on the American Airlines Platinum Select card. And then after you got that, maybe after one year, you could downgrade it to the Citi custom cash for no annual fee and better point earning potential and perhaps to have an additional custom cash in addition to one you already have. OK, maybe you applied for one as an application and this second one you're now getting through product change. Well, now it seems that you can't do that. It's not the end of the world, but just another little credit card hack that seems no longer possible. Let us know if this has happened to you in the comments. All right. That is the video for today. Thanks for watching. Don't forget to get a free trial of Max Rewards and a three month discount on the annual plan if you choose to continue after the free trial with my link below and code Hedges 25. Please subscribe to the channel if you're new and we'll see you in the next video. Bye bye.