Originally Posted by
Adelphos
They also haven’t seemed very keen in growing the Sapphire cardmember base that aggressively in recent years.
The CSP has been out of date since the day the CSR came out, IMO. Marginally more expensive ($55/yr net of the travel credit) but way better earning and portal redemption rates.
I see this as Chase trying to re-pivot to annual fee averse and the lower end of the market, at least for now. They probably see the writing on the wall that as long as international travel remains low on people’s priority list, they’ll want to stem cancellations from the higher AF cards and give a more interesting downgrade path. We already saw them delay the higher AF for the CSR.
3% Cashback/UR on dining on no annual fee cards is pretty good. MSers will appreciate 3x on drugstores. I could care less about 5% on bookings through the Chase travel portal, and they aren’t removing the FTF as far as I can tell, so it isn’t really a suitable CSR replacement for anybody who travels abroad.