Chase Sapphire Reserve's Best-Ever Bonus Just Hit 150,000 Points
What it is
The Chase Sapphire Reserve just launched its highest welcome offer ever: 150,000 Ultimate Rewards points after you spend $6,000 in the first 3 months from account opening. The card has been around since 2016. For most of those nine years, the standard offer ran between 50,000 and 75,000 points. Elevated windows occasionally hit 100,000, and 125,000 appeared exactly once in a targeted retention context. It has never been this high publicly.
The offer launched April 30. There's no announced end date, but Chase categorizes it as limited time.
Why it's worth it
At The Points Guy's May 2026 valuation of 2.05 cents per Chase Ultimate Rewards point, 150,000 points is worth roughly $3,075 in travel. Here's what that actually books:
Business class to Europe. Air France and KLM's Flying Blue program — where Chase transfers points 1:1 — prices round-trip business class from US East Coast cities to Paris at around 120,000 miles in peak season. That's a lie-flat seat to France and back, with 30,000 points left over.
Business class to Japan. ANA's round-trip business class award from the US starts at 105,000 points through the ANA or United MileagePlus programs (both Chase transfer partners at 1:1). Your 150,000-point welcome bonus covers it with room to spare.
Lufthansa First Class, one-way. Transfer to Air Canada's Aeroplan program and book Lufthansa First Class from a US East Coast airport to Germany for 90,000 points. That's the sharp end of the plane — lie-flat pod, proper meal service — for points, not $5,000 in cash.
If transferring to airlines feels like too many steps, you can burn them directly through Chase Travel at 1.5 cents per point: 150,000 points = $2,250 in straightforward travel bookings against any flight, hotel, or car rental.
The context that matters: the standard 60,000-point offer the card ran for most of its history translates to roughly $900 in Chase Travel bookings or a budget domestic itinerary in points. The current offer is 2.5 times that baseline. The gap is real.
The catch
The annual fee is $795. The card comes with a $300 annual travel credit, a $500 credit for stays of two or more nights through Chase Travel's curated hotel collection (The Edit), and $300 in dining credits at Sapphire Reserve Exclusive Tables restaurants. If you use all of those, you come out ahead of the fee. If you only realistically use the $300 travel credit, you're paying $495 net per year. Be honest with yourself about which scenario you're actually in.
This is the only welcome bonus you'll ever get on this card. In January 2026, Chase changed the Sapphire eligibility rules. Previously, you could earn the bonus again after 48 months. It's now once per lifetime, per product. If you earn the Reserve bonus today, you cannot earn it again — ever — even if you cancel and reapply in five years. That makes timing matter in a way it never has before. Getting this at 150,000 points versus 60,000 points is a $2,000+ difference in travel value. You only get one bite.
Chase's 5/24 rule applies. If you've opened five or more credit cards in the past 24 months across any issuer, Chase will almost certainly decline the application automatically. This is not negotiable and cannot be overridden by a branch visit or phone call.
The spend requirement is $6,000 in 3 months. For most people that's roughly $2,000/month in normal spending. If your monthly spend runs significantly lower, you'd need to front-load larger purchases to hit the threshold.
The bonus eligibility is stricter than it looks. You cannot currently have a Sapphire Reserve account open. If you had a Sapphire Reserve previously and earned a bonus, you're likely ineligible under the new lifetime rule. Check your Chase account history before applying.
Where to get it and when it expires
Apply at chase.com/reserve. Standard online application, instant decision in most cases.
No expiration date has been published. Similar elevated Chase Sapphire offers have historically run for 1–3 months before reverting to the standard offer. That means you probably have weeks, not days — but "probably" is not a promise. Chase can close limited-time offers without advance notice.
If you're eligible — under 5/24, no current or prior Sapphire Reserve bonus — this is the highest the card has ever been. Between the record bonus and the once-per-lifetime rule locking in your one shot, the argument for applying now rather than waiting for "a better time" is that there won't be one.