What credit cards should I pair with the Chase Sapphire Preferred?

Q: What credit cards should I pair with the Chase Sapphire Preferred?

Best cards to pair with the Chase Sapphire Preferred. It earns 3x on dining, gas and online grocery but 1x on everyday purchases, and a no-fee Chase card that earns 1.5x can pool its points with it.

The Chase Sapphire Preferred earns 5x on Chase Travel, 3x on dining, gas stations, EV charging, and streaming, 2x on other travel, and 1x on everything else, for a $95 annual fee. The classic pairing is the no-fee Chase Freedom Unlimited, which earns 1.5% on everything plus 3% on dining and drugstores. Its points pool into the Sapphire account for transfer to airline and hotel partners. The other gap is in-store groceries, where the Preferred earns its base rate.

What the Preferred covers

$95 annual fee
5x Chase Travel · 3x dining · 3x gas stations, EV charging, select streaming and online grocery · 2x other travel · 1x everything else
Up to $120 every four years for Global Entry, TSA PreCheck or NEXUS

Rates and credits sourced from the SavvX catalog, last fetched October 2026. Verify on creditcards.chase.com before applying.

The gap in numbers

Example household spend — illustrative only, not a promise of your result.

Gap figures will appear here once catalog rates are verified.

Suggested pairings by spend pattern

Almost everyone

Freedom Unlimited as the everyday card. No fee, and every point it earns pools into the Sapphire account for transfer to airline and hotel partners. It earns 1.5x on everything the Preferred earns 1x on, and 3x on dining and drugstores.

Big in-store grocery spend

A supermarket card. The Preferred's 3x bonus applies to online grocery only; in-store purchases earn 1x. If your household spends heavily at a physical supermarket, a card with a grocery bonus covers the gap.

Everything else is covered

Dining, gas and travel already earn 2x–3x on the Preferred. Adding a third card for those categories rarely pays off.

How the point-pooling works

Points earned on the Freedom Unlimited and other no-fee Chase cards can be moved into the Sapphire Preferred's account. Once there, they become transferable to Chase's airline and hotel partners at a 1:1 ratio, or redeemable through Chase Travel at an elevated rate per point. This is the core reason the Sapphire Preferred is paired with Freedom Unlimited rather than a separate cash-back card.

What this is not

It is not a claim that everyone needs to pair the Preferred with anything. The card covers the most valuable categories for most households, and a single-card setup is sometimes the right answer. The pairings above add value only if you would actually use the second card at the right places.

How SavvX decides

SavvX runs your real Plaid transactions against the catalog and shows what adding a card would change for you, net of its annual fee. If a pairing does not pay for itself on your spending, it will not recommend it.