Not the smart ones. Sapphire is by far the best card out there. No other card gives a consistent 4.5% return.

OK, I must admit I'm not that familiar with Chase Sapphire, so I went and did a check on it for my travel pattern. Example my QR J award flight from DOH-HND runs $2910.13 if paid for with cash.

I booked this using AA FF miles for 40K miles + $13.05. So using an AA CC at 2 miles earned per spent on AA tickets, so $20,000 spend. FYI, I'm only using this for comparison as I don't have an AA CC as I earn enough miles from travel.

With Chase Sapphire reserve I would earn points at 3x points/$ spent on travel as best I can tell and according to info from Google on Chase Ultimate Rewards redemptions (points guy, etc since Chase's web site is not friendly from a rewards redemption perspective - it probably is if you're signed in) the best return appears to be redeeming 50K points for $750 value. So the $2910.13 ticket would cost 194K points as best I can tell. Or, a better redemption appears to be transferring Chase points to BA and get a BA award for 75000 Avios + $ 110.44. So in other words $25,000 spend.

So quite close IMO.

Now when using Chase Ultimate Rewards for Hotel awards, does one have to book advanced payment/non-refundable rates when using Chase points? Without the info readily available, it's really hard to tell.

As I mentioned earlier I was unable to find details on redeeming Chase points, so if you have a link to the details it would be greatly appreciated. I don't know if it would be something that works well with my travel paradigm or not, but it would be worth investigating. Thanks.

The best use of Chase UR points is to transfer them to a partner, not direct purchases of travel. Their transfer partners are excellent.

Also, the CSP (or CSR) offers outstanding travel insurance if you use it to pay for the ticket, which is not offered by your Citi AA card. So it's really not accurate just to compare points earning. But FYI, the typical valuation of a Chase UR point is around 2.2 cents, while AA miles are valued at around 1.4 cents (these are TPG's valuations).

I have a whole bunch of cards for different programs, and CSP gets the bulk of my spend. It's always a competitive choice, and often the best choice.

beats hilton/IHG at least for size and upscale
can transfer to/from starwood at the moment

so "worst" for what exactly, vs "who" exactly

No question about it, Marriott is the worst points program. Period. It doesn't even matter, "Worst at what?" It's the worst at everything. You should just leave your points and status behind and stay somewhere else.

(More upgrades for me!)