Chase Sapphire Preferred + Freedom Unlimited: The Combo I've Used for Years

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People ask me all the time what card to get first if they want to start earning real travel rewards. My answer hasn't changed in years: get the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card and the Chase Freedom Unlimited® together. I've run this exact pairing for a long time now, and it's still the combo I recommend before anything fancier.

The idea is simple, but it's genuinely one of the best beginner setups in the whole points game. The Freedom Unlimited earns strong cash back on everyday spending, and the Sapphire Preferred turns that cash back into real, transferable Chase Ultimate Rewards points you can move to airline and hotel partners through the Chase Travel℠ portal. Neither card does much on its own, but together they cover almost everything you buy.

Here's the part most people get wrong. The Freedom Unlimited doesn't technically earn Ultimate Rewards points on its own, it earns cash back. It's only once you also hold an Ultimate Rewards-earning card like the Sapphire Preferred that Chase lets you combine the two accounts, and your Freedom Unlimited cash back converts over into full-value, transferable points. I didn't fully appreciate that distinction myself until I looked into it more closely, so it's worth knowing exactly what you're earning before you assume every purchase is racking up "points."

Let me show you what that actually looks like with real numbers. Say you buy a $2,000 MacBook Pro at Apple. That's not a bonus category on either card, so it falls into each card's base earning rate. Put it on the Sapphire Preferred and you'd earn 1 point per dollar, so 2,000 Ultimate Rewards points. Put it on the Freedom Unlimited instead and you'd earn 1.5% cash back, which is $30, and once combined into your Ultimate Rewards account that becomes 3,000 points. Same purchase, same $2,000, but the Freedom Unlimited comes out 50% ahead because its base earn rate is higher than the Sapphire Preferred's.

That's exactly why I keep both. The Sapphire Preferred is what unlocks transfers and travel redemptions, but the Freedom Unlimited is what actually earns the most on the purchases that don't fall into a bonus category, which for most people is most of their spending.

In practice, here's how I split things. Dining, travel booked outside the Chase Travel portal, gas, EV charging, streaming, and online groceries go on the Sapphire Preferred, since that's where it earns 3x or 2x. Everything else, groceries, shopping, bills, that $2,000 MacBook, goes on the Freedom Unlimited, since 1.5% back beats the Preferred's 1x on anything outside its bonus categories. At the end of the month, I move the Freedom Unlimited's cash back into my Ultimate Rewards balance and redeem or transfer from there.

One more reason I'd tell any beginner to prioritize these two cards specifically: Chase's 5/24 rule. If you've opened five or more personal cards across any issuer in the past 24 months, Chase will likely turn you down for both of these. If they're on your radar at all, apply for them before you go build up cards elsewhere.

You don't need to open both on day one. I know plenty of people who started with just the no-annual-fee Freedom Unlimited and added the Sapphire Preferred later, once they were ready to pay the $95 fee and start transferring points. Either order gets you to the same place. But if you're asking what to get first, this is still my answer, years in.

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