Amex Green Card vs. Chase Sapphire Reserve Card [Detailed Comparison]

Both the American Express^® Green Card and the Chase Sapphire Reserve^® are 2 fantastic travel rewards cards. That said, each card is quite different in the value they offer to cardholders between their bonus categories, benefits, protections, and fees.

In this guide, we will provide a detailed comparison of everything that both cards have to offer to help you decide which is the better fit for you.

Amex Green Card vs. Chase Sapphire Reserve Card — Overview

Before we do a deeper dive into how these cards stack up against each other, here’s a quick overview of the rewards, perks, protections, and fees of both cards.

Benefit or Feature	American Express® Green Card	Chase Sapphire Reserve®
Welcome Bonus	NEW OFFER: Earn 60,000 points after spending $3,000 on purchases in your first 6 months. Plus, earn 20% back on eligible travel and transit purchases made during your first 6 months, up to $200 back as a statement credit.	Earn 60,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months.
Earning Potential	3x points at restaurants (including takeout and delivery in the U.S.) 3x points on transit (including rideshares, trains, subways, parking, and more) 3x points on travel (including airfare, hotels, and car rentals) 1x point on all other eligible purchases	10x points on hotels and car rentals purchased through Ultimate Rewards 10x points on Chase Dining purchases through Ultimate Rewards 10x points on Lyft (through March 31, 2025) 10x points on Peloton equipment and accessory purchases over $250 (through March 31, 2025) 5x points on airfare purchased through Ultimate Rewards 3x points on other travel purchases worldwide 3x points on other dining purchases, including eligible delivery services, takeout, and dining out 1x points on other purchases
Redemption Options	Amex transfer partners Amex Travel bookings Cash-back via statement credit Gift cards Shopping with select retailers	Chase transfer partners Chase travel portal bookings (50% bonus) Cash-back via statement credit Pay Yourself Back Gift cards Shopping with select retailers
Statement Credits	Receive up to $189 per calendar year in statement credits after you pay for your CLEAR Plus membership with the Card. Receive up to $100 in statement credits annually when you purchase lounge access through LoungeBuddy using the Green Card.	Up to $300 annual travel credit Global Entry, TSA PreCheck, or NEXUS application fee credit $10 monthly Gopuff credit $15 monthly Instacart credit Complimentary DoorDash DashPass subscription and $5 in DoorDash credits each month
Travel Benefits and Protections	No foreign transaction fees (rates and fees)	Complimentary Priority Pass Select airport lounge membership Access to the Luxury Hotel & Resort Collection Access to Reserved by Sapphire Lyft Pink All Access Membership Primary rental car insurance Roadside assistance Trip cancellation and interruption insurance Trip delay reimbursement Lost or delayed luggage reimbursement Emergency evacuation and transportation No foreign transaction fees
Shopping Benefits and Protections	American Express Experiences	Chase Offers Complimentary ShopRunner membership (enroll by August 31, 2023) Purchase protection Extended warranty coverage Return protection
Annual Fee	$150 (rates and fees)	$550
Authorized User Fee	$0 (rates and fees)	$75

While both cards offer compelling rewards and benefits, you’ll notice that the Chase Sapphire Reserve card offers significantly more perks — but that is to be expected given its annual fee is $400 higher than the Amex Green card.

Given that, deciding which card is the better option for you will come down to what type of perks and protections you are looking for, how much value you think you can receive from each benefit, and how much you are willing to pay for those perks and benefits.

The Value of a Welcome Offer

Amex Green Card

Chase Sapphire Reserve Card

Bottom Line: Our valuation of Amex Membership Rewards points and Chase Ultimate Rewards points are quite close, at 2.2 cents per point and 2 cents per point, respectively. This means the more lucrative bonus will usually come down to which card has a larger welcome offer.

Earning Potential

One of the main goals of any rewards card is to earn as many points as possible. Here’s how many points each card earns in each of its spending categories.

Bonus Category	Amex Green Card	Chase Sapphire Reserve Card
Travel	3x points	3x points
Restaurants	3x points	3x points
Transit (Trains, Ferries, Buses, Subways, Rideshares, Etc.)	3x points	3x points
Hotels and Rental Cars Through Ultimate Rewards	N/A	10x points
Dining through Chase Dining	N/A	10x points
Lyft Rides	3x points	10x points
Airfare through Ultimate Rewards	N/A	5x points
Peloton Equipment and Accessory Purchases (over $250)	N/A	10x points
All Other Eligible Purchases	1x points	1x points

The Amex Green Card is no slouch when it comes to earning points by offering 3x points on eligible travel, transit, and at restaurants. That said, the Chase Sapphire Reserve card matches those 3x earnings in those areas and offers 5 more bonus categories that allow you to earn 5x to 10x points.

Redemption Options

One of the best benefits of both the Amex Green Card and the Chase Sapphire Reserve card is that they earn flexible rewards points that can be redeemed in a variety of ways.

Amex Green Card

Those who hold the Amex Green Card can use their earned Membership Rewards points to book through the Amex Travel portal, transfer them to Amex’s transfer partners, or redeem them for cash-back via a statement credit, gift cards, or shopping with select merchants like Apple and Amazon.

That said, each redemption option can offer significantly different value, which is why our favorite redemption option is using Amex’s airline and hotel transfer partners. Redeeming your points this way allows you to book luxury travel experiences for a fraction of what the retail price would have set you back.

Some of our favorite Amex transfer partners include Air Canada Aeroplan, Avianca LifeMiles, Air France-KLM Flying Blue, and Virgin Atlantic.

For instance, you could transfer your Amex Membership Rewards points to the Air France-KLM Flying Blue program to book a business class ticket from the East Coast to Paris or Amsterdam for as low as 53,000 miles, or even less if you combine it with a Flying Blue Promo Award. Given that these tickets regularly cost around $2,500, this gives you over 4.7 cents per point in value for your Amex Membership Rewards.

Chase Sapphire Reserve Card

With the Chase Sapphire Reserve card, you have many of the same redemption options with your Ultimate Rewards points, including Chase’s transfer partners, redeeming for cash-back, Pay Yourself Back, gift cards, and shopping partners.

One big added perk of the Chase Sapphire Reserve card is that you receive a 50% bonus when redeeming your points through the Chase Ultimate Rewards portal, allowing you to redeem your points toward virtually any travel purchase for 1.5 cents per point. With most cards (from all banks), you’ll only get 1 cent per point in value when redeeming through their respective travel portal. While you can often get more value than that by strategically using Chase’s transfer partners, the 50% bonus gives your points a baseline value of 1.5 cents each towards travel redemptions with significant flexibility and no blackout dates, which is a huge plus.

Chase offers access to one of our all-time favorite transfer partners, the World of Hyatt program. Through the World of Hyatt program, award nights at the very best properties cost between 30,000 and 40,000 points per night, which can be over 50% to 60% less than what competitors, like Marriott and Hilton, charge for top-tier hotels. Given that your Chase Ultimate Rewards points transfer 1:1 to Hyatt, you can get fantastic value at premium properties like the Park Hyatt Sydney, Andaz Tokyo Toranomon Hills, and the Park Hyatt Paris.

Hot Tip: Read more about the best ways to use Amex Membership Rewards points and how to maximize their value and the best ways to use Chase Ultimate Rewards points to get outsized value. 

Statement Credits

No matter which card you pick you’ll need to pay an annual fee, but both cards offer statement credits to help offset that cost.

Amex Green Card — CLEAR Plus and LoungeBuddy

One of the best benefits of the Amex Green Card is that it offers an annual CLEAR Plus credit to receive up to $189 per calendar year in statement credits after paying for a CLEAR Plus membership with the Amex Green Card. This benefit alone can easily offset the $150 annual fee if you are someone who would have paid for CLEAR Plus anyway.

If you’re not familiar with CLEAR, it provides a faster security experience at select airports and stadiums nationwide using biometrics.

With the Amex Green card, you’ll also receive a $100 annual LoungeBuddy credit and receive up to $100 in statement credits annually when purchasing lounge access through LoungeBuddy using the Amex Green Card. Depending on which lounges you choose, this credit should cover 2 to 3 visits each year.

Chase Sapphire Reserve Card – Annual Travel Credit, Gopuff, Instacart, DoorDash, and Global Entry/TSA PreCheck/NEXUS

Annual Travel Credit

The Chase Sapphire Reserve card offers arguably one of the best annual travel credits of all travel rewards cards. With it, you’ll receive $300 toward any travel purchase you make with the card each year. Chase really means it when they say any travel purchase, as even items like rideshare services, parking garages, and tolls can apply, in addition to the more obvious purchases like flights, hotels, and rental cars.

Better yet, the $300 annual credit doesn’t require you to book directly through the Chase Ultimate Rewards portal and applies to any sort of travel purchase, so you can truly use it almost any way you see fit.

Gopuff, Instacart, and DoorDash

Chase has a variety of partnerships with grocery and food delivery services that benefit Chase Sapphire Reserve cardholders.

For starters, you’ll receive a $10 monthly Gopuff credit through December 31, 2023. Gopuff is an on-demand delivery service offering snacks, groceries and other household essentials.

Beyond that, your Chase Sapphire Reserve card gets you a complimentary 1-year membership to Instacart+, which usually costs $9.99 a month and offers $0 delivery fees (on orders over $35), lower service fees, and a 5% credit on pickup orders. Plus, you’ll receive a $15 monthly credit toward orders each month through July 2024. Instacart is a grocery delivery service that allows you to order from most major grocery stores, including Costco, Wegmans, Aldi, Safeway, and more.

Lastly, the card comes with a DoorDash DashPass subscription, a $9.99 per month value, which includes $0 delivery fees and lower service fees on eligible orders, along with $5 in DoorDash credits each month. DoorDash specializes in food delivery from restaurants but also offers grocery and alcohol delivery.

Global Entry, TSA PreCheck, or NEXUS

Wrapping up the statements credits for the Chase Sapphire Reserve card is its Global Entry, TSA PreCheck, or NEXUS credit. The credit is offered every 4 years and can be applied to any of the 3 programs.

In our view, we think opting for Global Entry is the best option because it offers an expedited customs experience when reentering the U.S. and includes TSA PreCheck access which offers expedited security at every U.S. airport.

Travel Benefits and Protections

Benefit or Protection	Amex Green Card	Chase Sapphire Reserve Card
Foreign Transaction Fees	None	None
Rental Car Insurance	Secondary (coverage comes after  your personal auto insurance)	Primary (coverage comes before your personal auto insurance)
Trip Cancellation/Interruption Insurance	Not offered	Up to $10,000 per person and $20,000 per trip for your prepaid, non-refundable travel expenses
Baggage Delay Insurance	Not offered	Receive coverage of up to $100 a day, for up to 5 days, on bags that are delayed by more than 6 hours
Baggage Protection	Up to $1,250 for carry-on baggage and up to $500 for checked baggage for bags or items that are lost, damaged, or stolen	Up to $3,000 per passenger for bags or items that are lost, damaged, or stolen
Trip Delay Reimbursement	If your flight is delayed by more than 12 hours, you can receive up to $300 in coverage.	For flights delayed by 6 hours or more, you can receive up to $500 in coverage for expenses like meals and lodging
Travel and Emergency Assistance Services	Yes	Yes
Airport Lounge Access	$100 LoungeBuddy credit	Complimentary Priority Pass access
Access to the Luxury Hotel & Resort Collection	No	Yes
Lyft Pink All Access Membership	No	Yes
Access to Reserved by Sapphire	No	Yes

Once again the Chase Sapphire Reserve card wins out on every category here, as we would expect it to given the difference in annual fees.

Put simply, the Chase Sapphire Reserve card is one of the best cards on the market when it comes to travel protections, so when you throw in perks like complimentary Priority Pass access, access to the Chase Luxury Hotel & Resort Collection, and a Lyft Pink All Access membership, it is easy to see just how much value cardmembers can receive by holding it.

With your Priority Pass Select membership, you’ll receive access to over 1,300 airport lounges and restaurants worldwide, so you’ll always have a place to relax before your flight. When you book a hotel through the Chase Luxury Hotel & Resort Collection, you get perks like a space-available room upgrade, late checkout, and daily breakfast for 2. If you’re a regular Lyft user, Lyft Pink All Access really comes in handy thanks to free priority pickups, waived cancellation fees, unlimited 45-minute classic bike rides, and more.

Shopping Benefits and Protections

Here is how each option keeps you covered when purchasing items with your card.

The Amex Green card offers these benefits:

• Amex Offers — Discounts and opportunities to earn more points and statement credits with 100 merchants each month
• Purchase Protection — Coverage 90 days from the date of purchase towards stolen or damaged items for up to $1,000 per occurrence and $50,000 per year
• Extended Warranty Coverage — Adds 1 year of additional warranty to extended warranties of 5 years or less
• American Express Experiences — Exclusive access to ticket presales

The Chase Sapphire Reserve card offers these benefits:

• Chase Offers — Discounts with select merchants
• Purchase Protection — Covers new purchases against damage or theft for up to 120 days from purchase with up to $10,000 in coverage per claim and $50,000 per account
• Extended Warranty Coverage — Extends a U.S. manufacturer’s warranty by an additional year on eligible warranties of 3 years or less
• Return Protection — Covers if a merchant will not allow you to return an item 90 days from purchase with up to $500 in coverage per claim and $50,000 per account

Annual Fees and Adding Authorized Users

Annual Fees

The annual fee of the Amex Green card is $150 while the annual fee of the Chase Sapphire Reserve card is $550. Since the Chase Sapphire Reserve card’s annual fee is significantly higher than that of the Amex Green card, you’ll want to make sure that you can get enough value out from the Chase Sapphire Reserve card’s benefits to justify the higher cost.

Authorized Users

When it comes to authorized users, you can add authorized users to your Amex Green card for no additional cost.

With the Chase Sapphire Reserve card you need to pay $75 per authorized user. Of course, authorized users don’t receive all of the benefits of the primary cardholder, but they do receive their own Priority Pass membership (which can easily be worth more than $75), and all of the card’s travel and purchase protections.

Final Thoughts

You can get great value out of both the Amex Green card and the Chase Sapphire Reserve card, but when it comes to a head-to-head comparison, it’s not much of a fair fight.

The Chase Sapphire Reserve card offers more bonus categories, more perks, more statement credits, and better travel and purchase protections. That said, it also comes with a hefty $550 annual fee, so you’ll want to make sure you get plenty of value out of the card. For those looking for one of the best travel rewards cards on the market, the Chase Sapphire Reserve card would be a great option.

On the other hand, if you don’t travel often enough to take advantage of all of the Chase Sapphire Reserve card’s perks and don’t want to pay its large annual fee, then the Amex Green card could be a more pragmatic option since it still offers great points-earning bonus categories, access to the Amex transfer partners, and an annual CLEAR Plus credit, but with a more reasonable annual fee.

For the secondary rental car coverage benefit of the American Express^® Green Card, Car Rental Loss and Damage Insurance can provide coverage up to $50,000 for theft of or damage to most rental vehicles when you use your eligible Card to reserve and pay for the entire eligible vehicle rental and decline the collision damage waiver or similar option offered by the Commercial Car Rental Company. This product provides secondary coverage and does not include liability coverage. Not all vehicle types or rentals are covered. Geographic restrictions apply. Eligibility and Benefit level varies by Card. Terms, Conditions and Limitations Apply. Visit americanexpress.com/benefitsguide for more details. Underwritten by AMEX Assurance Company. Car Rental Loss or Damage Coverage is offered through American Express Travel Related Services Company, Inc.

For rates and fees of the American Express^® Green Card, click here.