The refreshed Sapphire Preferred is a true one-card setup

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I've recommended the Chase Sapphire Preferred card to friends and family for years, and after its recent refresh, I think it has a legitimate case for being the best one-card wallet available today.

Yes, Chase recently made a few changes, including one that Hyatt fans (myself among them) won't love. But it also added several new perks, statement credits, and bonus categories that make the card much stronger for everyday spending.

If you're looking for one card that can handle just about everything without needing to juggle a wallet full of others, I actually think the Chase Sapphire Preferred card is the strongest it's ever been.

I've carried the Chase Sapphire Preferred for more than a decade, and the June 2026 refresh filled some of the biggest gaps in its earning structure, making it a much better fit for everyday spending.

The biggest addition, in my opinion, is 3x points at gas stations and EV charging stations. If you drive regularly, that's an easy way to rack up more Chase Ultimate Rewards points on a purchase many of us make every week.

Chase also added 3x points on vacation home rentals like Airbnb and Vrbo. While that's obviously not an everyday expense, it's a nice boost for travelers who prefer to book a house or condo rather than a traditional hotel.

Pair those new earning rates with the card's existing bonus categories — 5x on travel booked through Chase Travel, 3x on dining, select streaming services, and online grocery purchases, and 2x on other travel purchases — and it becomes clear just how much of your spending this card now covers.

The Chase Sapphire Preferred card has always been one of my favorite travel cards with an annual fee under $100, and Chase just made the value proposition even stronger.

Cardholders now receive up to a $100 Chase Travel hotel credit each account anniversary year for eligible hotel stays booked through Chase Travel, along with a Global Entry, TSA PreCheck, or NEXUS application fee credit of up to $120 every four years.

That application fee credit is something I'd normally expect to find on a much more expensive travel card, so I was pleasantly surprised to see Chase add it to the Chase Sapphire Preferred card.

If you use the $100 Chase Travel hotel credit each account anniversary year, you've already gotten more value than the card's $95 annual fee. The points you earn and the rest of the card's benefits are just an added bonus.

My biggest gripe with the refresh is Chase's decision to devalue transfers to World of Hyatt. As a Hyatt Globalist who transfers Chase points to Hyatt all the time, I was genuinely disappointed to see the transfer ratio change from 1:1 to 4:3. If you had the card before June 15th, you keep 1:1 transfers until October 1st, 2026.

Hyatt has long been one of Chase's most valuable — and arguably its most popular — transfer partners, so there's no sugarcoating it: This is a meaningful devaluation, and it lands right on the heels of Hyatt's own award chart overhaul.

Chase is also retiring the 10% anniversary points bonus, which paid out based on the prior year of spending. For most of us that was worth a few thousand points a year, so it stings a lot less than the Hyatt change.

Once the initial sting wore off, I realized these adjustments didn't really change my overall opinion of the card. The way I see it, the new bonus categories will help me earn more Chase points throughout the year than I was earning before. Those points can still be transferred to Hyatt — or to any of Chase's 13 other airline and hotel transfer partners — so the flexibility of these points is staying (mostly) the same.

Plenty of smart people landed in the opposite place after the refresh. But if I could only carry one travel rewards card today, I'd still reach for the refreshed Chase Sapphire Preferred card. Despite the Hyatt change, I think it's the strongest version of this card Chase has ever offered.