Chase BACKTRACKS Sapphire Reserve Cuts + US Bank Adds Transfer Partners

Well, that was quick. It was just yesterday that we uploaded a video on changes to the Chase Sapphire Reserve that could cost the average cardholder $250 per year. But just like that, Chase seems to have cancelled these changes, at least for now. We'll tell you what we know. We also have US Bank adding transfer partners, which has been a long time coming, but certainly increases the value of their points. We'll tell you all about that, too. Hey, credit warriors, welcome to the show. My name is Ben Hedges, a.k.a. The Credit Shifu. And on this channel, I cover US credit cards, personal finance and luxury travel. If you like the sound of that, do subscribe. But let's get into it. And this video is brought to you by Silo, the brokerage where you earn credit card style points on your investments. They just launched a new entry level plan and doubled the points earning caps. But more on that later. OK, so yesterday we reported on a change that Chase on the Sapphire Reserve. Here is the text of that change. So basically, this would prevent you using the two credits on one four night trip. You would have to make two genuinely separate bookings. So either switch hotel or do a five night trip with one paid night in the middle to give a 24 hour period before you use the credit again. But within just a few hours of uploading that video, people started commenting that they don't see that language on Chase's site anymore. So let's check out what happened. Did Chase actually backtrack on the change? Well, yes. This is what I see today on that same page. We just have get two two hundred and fifty dollar statement credits for prepaid bookings with a two night minimum. And then the second part about no back to back stays has been deleted. I think this is a good move. And it is actually a rare move to normally credit card companies just start stuff off super easy to use and then they devalue. Right. And make it harder to use so that they make more money. We've seen this with the Amex fine hotels and resorts collection, where if someone books two separate bookings at the same hotel back to back, you used to be able to get a one hundred dollar property credit on each of the bookings. But now you can only get it once per stay. OK, which means on one of those two bookings, because the two bookings back to back are considered one stay. They made that change because people were gaming the system to get an extra one hundred dollars in value. In addition, the Amex FHR credit is harder to use for a back to back stay than the Chase credit, since the Amex credit is three hundred dollars every six months, whereas the Chase credit is two hundred and fifty dollars twice a year. But you can use either of the two fifties any time. So I assumed that this was Chase's way of making it harder to use the two halves of the credit. Amex does it by giving you one credit every six months and you either use it or lose it. Thus, you can only use it for a back to back stay. If you do something like what I did on my recent trip to D.C. where I stayed at the Conrad, I booked one night just before the credit reset at the end of June and then I waited until July, hoping fingers crossed, hoping that the hotel didn't get fully booked. And I booked the next night after the credit reset. Luckily, there were still rooms available. So I was able to use the full six hundred dollar credit on one trip. So anyway, great to see Chase maintaining the ability to use the credit on a four night stay. To be honest, the Chase Hotel Collection credit is still quite a lot harder to use than Amex's FHR credit anyway, since it requires two night stay to trigger the two hundred and fifty dollar credit, whereas Amex FHR only requires one night. Although I point out if you book the hotel collection, not the fine hotels and resorts collection, but the hotel collection, you do have to stay two nights to trigger the credit. But have Chase permanently backtracked? Well, I don't know, since we saw this on a page that explains the benefits. It was never added to the terms and conditions of the card, that little thing that you click that says offer details on the landing page. It was never in there. So it could have been something that is going to happen, but they added it to the language of one of their pages too soon before it was actually added to the terms and conditions. So I wouldn't say that we are 100 percent safe yet. We will still have to wait and see. All right, let's now move on to U.S. Bank adding transfer partners. But first, over the past year, you've probably heard me talking about silo, silo, silo, silo, silo, silo. Well, there's a reason for that. It is the investing platform that enables you to earn points on your stocks. It's like what built has done with earning points on rent. But for investing this month, they launched two big updates that make the platform much more useful and accessible. The first is Blue Rewards, a new entry level plan that costs just ninety five dollars per year. That's the same annual fee as a mid tier credit card. It lets you earn half a point per dollar each year on up to a fifty thousand dollar portfolio that works out to as many as twenty five thousand points per year paid monthly. Silo have just launched their travel portal where you can use silo points to book travel at one cent per point with over 300 airlines and hotel chains. It's a really cool interface and make searching and booking travel an absolute breeze. In my opinion, the booking experience is better than most big banks. Not naming any names. This is all in addition to up to five hundred thousand points on your portfolio balance each year and an up to two hundred and fifty thousand point welcome bonus in the first year. So a total of potentially seven hundred and fifty thousand points in your first year. That bonus is only available until transfer partners launch, which is any day now. So if you want to check out their new blue plan and earn points on your portfolio that you can use for free travel, you can click my link in the description or go directly to silo markets dot com slash Ben to get started today. All right. So U.S. Bank has added four transfer partners which really increase the value of its points. You have three airlines and one hotel chain, and this could hint at some new U.S. Bank credit cards coming in the near future. I'll tell you why in just a moment. But first, what are the transfer partners? Well, you have Air France KLM. That's a pretty common one. Ethiopian Airlines, less common. And then Qantas Frequent Flyer. All those are one to one transfer partners. So one U.S. Bank point equals one airline mile. That's a good ratio. That's what you want. But these airlines might seem like a little bit of a strange bunch. OK, there is not one U.S. airline in there. It seems the reason they chose these three is to give you one airline from each major airline alliance. It doesn't matter if you're going to Ethiopia or not because you can book other airlines with the miles. So Air France KLM is in SkyTeam. And if you're looking for an American airline in that alliance, it includes Delta. Ethiopian is in Star Alliance, which includes United. And Qantas is in One World, which includes American airlines and also British Airways. So that gives you the option to potentially book any of the airlines in the three major alliances, including the three major U.S. legacy carriers and other popular airlines like British Airways. Now, how good that's going to be in practice will require some research since each airline has different policies. Some open more award space to their own members and less to alliance partners. But at least this way, U.S. Bank can say that they have transfer partners from all three major airline alliances. Then you have one hotel chain, and that is Accor. The transfer ratio to Accor is two to one, but Accor points are actually worth quite a lot. The points guy values them at 2.3 cents per point in value. Accor doesn't have that much of a presence in the U.S. with only 100 or so properties in the whole of North America. But they do have a big presence in Europe and Asia with over 5,100 properties in total. So this could be a really great partner for an international trip. But why did I say that U.S. Bank bringing in partners hints that there may be a new credit card in the works? Let's have a look at that now. So right now, these transfer partners are only available on the U.S. Bank Altitude Reserve card, which is no longer available to new card members. There is currently a landing page for the card explaining the benefits, but you cannot apply. There is no apply button. However, a lot of people still do have this card. People saw it as a really great card. It actually earns three points per dollar on mobile wallet spend, up to I think it's $5,000 in spending per month. So potentially you could get three points per dollar on a lot of your spending with this card. And there are some other bonus categories as well. They also even updated it in December 2025. So U.S. Bank is still paying attention to it. So does this mean that it could get reopened for new applications? Well, I think that might be a possibility. Otherwise, what's the point of this update? Or could we see these partners being added to other U.S. Bank credit cards that earn points like the Altitude Connect, for example? That is actually a possibility as well. Or thirdly, could we see a new U.S. Bank credit card being released that has all these transfer partners with more being added in the future? We saw that exact thing happen with Capital One a few years ago. They didn't used to have transfer partners. Then they added a few several years back and then more and more. And now they have 22 partners, mostly at a one-to-one ratio. And then they've released new cards like the Venture X to take advantage of the interest in Capital One's travel rewards. And they've got their own lounges now as well. So hopefully U.S. Bank will be going the same way. I mean, could we see that they add transfer partners and then you get the U.S. Bank lounge and stuff? I don't know whether that's really going to happen. You have to see whether they want to go into the sort of premium travel reward space or whether they're just going to continue doing what they're doing. And, you know, this transfer partners thing is just sort of a side project. I don't know. OK, but if they do go the full route and they add transfer partners and they add lounges and stuff, it would be great. It gives consumers more options and it creates some healthy competition in the credit card reward space, which forces other issuers to step it up and keep competing with each other to keep delivering great rewards to consumers. All right, guys, that is the video for today. And don't forget, if you want to check out their new blue plan and earn points on your portfolio that you can use for free travel, use my link silomarkets.com slash Ben to claim your last chance to get up to two hundred and fifty thousand bonus points. And they have transfer partners coming soon as well. Please subscribe to the channel if you need. We'll see you next time.