Why I downgraded my Chase Sapphire Preferred

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In May 2026, the Chase Sapphire Reserve offered its highest publicly available welcome offer — 150,000 Ultimate Rewards points after spending $6,000 within three months of account opening — and I couldn’t help but apply.

However, as a Chase Sapphire Preferred cardholder, I also couldn’t help but feel holding two Sapphire cards at the same time was unnecessary, even if technically allowed. I recently downgraded my Sapphire Preferred to a Chase Freedom product — here’s why.

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I have more credit cards than the average person. I spend over $3,000 each year in credit card annual fees, so I’m constantly evaluating my portfolio to ensure I’m not paying for benefits that I don’t use. At the time that I applied for the Sapphire Reserve, I hardly used my Sapphire Preferred. Sure, the $50 annual hotel credit was nice, but with so many other (more valuable) credits, I didn’t prioritize it.

Plus, its earning potential felt subpar for a card as popular as it is. Earning 2x Ultimate Rewards points on travel and 3x on dining is great, but I already earn 2x Capital One Miles on everyday purchases with my Capital One Venture X and up to 6x on dining with my Citi Strata Elite.

I don’t think I’ve ever made an online grocery purchase, and I don’t pay much for streaming services, so those bonus categories didn’t get used at all. In short, I didn’t use the Sapphire Preferred, so the $95 annual fee had to go, especially since I was adding a $795 annual fee with the Sapphire Reserve.

I wanted to downgrade to the Chase Freedom Flex. It’s hard to pass up the chance to earn 5% cash back on rotating bonus categories (with a $1,500 quarterly cap), 3% back on dining and drugstore purchases, and 1% on all other purchases.

However, when I called Chase to process the product change, I wasn’t eligible to switch to the Freedom Flex. According to other user reports online, Chase removed the ability to product change to the Freedom Flex in the last year or so — possibly because the Sapphire products run on the Visa network, while the Freedom Flex runs on the Mastercard network.

I was offered two options: the Chase Freedom Unlimited or the Chase Freedom with Ultimate Rewards. If you’re unfamiliar (as I was), the Freedom with Ultimate Rewards is the original Chase Freedom card. It offers the same 5% rotating bonus categories as the Chase Freedom Flex, but it doesn’t offer other bonus categories for dining and drugstores. I selected that option, as my entire reason for wanting the Freedom Flex was the rotating bonus categories.

The other benefit of choosing the Freedom with Ultimate Rewards, which is no longer available to new applicants and is only available via a product change, is that I am still eligible to earn a welcome bonus on the Freedom Unlimited or Freedom Flex in the future. Also, because I requested a product change within a month of my annual fee posting, I received a full refund of my $95 Sapphire Preferred annual fee.

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Naturally, just a couple of weeks after I downgraded my Sapphire Preferred to the Freedom with Ultimate Rewards, Chase announced a major refresh of the Sapphire Preferred.

Despite the devaluation of Hyatt points transfers and the loss of the 10% anniversary bonus, this overhaul was essentially designed for me. It doubled the $50 hotel credit to $100 in Chase Travel hotel credit and introduced a 3x bonus-earning category for vacation rentals. I live in Airbnbs for 11 months every year, and right now I earn just 2x points or miles on these purchases.

This was certainly annoying, but I’m happy to have the Freedom card in my wallet so I can earn 5% cash back on quarterly bonus categories that can be combined with my Ultimate Rewards earned through my Sapphire Reserve to unlock access to transfer partners. After I’ve been a Reserve cardholder for a year, I plan to downgrade to the Sapphire Preferred to save on annual fees and take advantage of the 3x bonus category for vacation rentals.

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