Edited to add, Part 3: This offer ended a day early.

Edited to add, Part 2: This offer will end by May 25 at 9:00 am Eastern Time.

Edited to add: This offer will be “ending soon.” If you were thinking about applying, don’t wait!

Whether you’re just getting into travel with miles and points or you’re a seasoned pro who already has had this card for a while, this increased offer should be on your radar.

The Chase Sapphire Preferred card earns Ultimate Rewards points. Chase Ultimate Rewards points are my favorite points because Chase has a ton of great travel partners you can transfer these points to. When you transfer your Ultimate Rewards points to those partners, you can get truly fantastic value out of nearly-free flights and hotel nights. The welcome bonus offer on this card has recently increased, so now is a great time to jump on it and apply—you can earn even more points than normal. (The most recent offer was 60,000 points for spending $4,000 in the first three months, so you can get an extra 20,000 points by applying now for the 80,000-point offer.) And the annual fee on this card is low—only $95 per year. (It also comes with a $50 statement credit when you book a hotel room through the Chase travel portal after your first year with the card, so the annual fee effectively drops to $45 with this trick—this definitely makes it worth keeping from year to year after the initial bonus.)

And if you have the Chase Sapphire Preferred card, you not only earn Ultimate Rewards points using that card, but you unlock the ability to get your other cash-back Chase points from other Chase cards to get “supercharged” into becoming Ultimate Rewards points, too. So for example, if you have a Chase Freedom Unlimited card, which earns 1.5 points for every dollar you spend, when you have the Sapphire Preferred, you can transfer your Freedom Unlimited cash-back points to your Sapphire Preferred card account and use them as Ultimate Rewards points instead of cash-back points. This opens up a lot of earning potential! And it doesn’t just work with the Chase Freedom Unlimited—you can turn points from your Chase Freedom Flex and no-annual-fee Chase business cards (like the Ink Business Cash or Ink Business Unlimited) into Ultimate Rewards points, too.

Ultimate Rewards points can be redeemed for cash back or used in the Chase travel portal to be redeemed for travel, but those aren’t even the best ways to maximize your return on these points (even though those ways are easy and can certainly save money). The best way to get the most value for your points is usually to transfer your Ultimate Rewards points to travel partners such as United Airlines, Southwest Airlines, or the World of Hyatt hotel program, which no other major bank’s cards transfer to. There are also nine additional airlines besides United and Southwest that you can transfer Ultimate Rewards points to, and two other hotel programs that are also transfer partners, so these points give you a ton of versatility. There’s a reason why most miles-and-points experts value Ultimate Rewards points over any other type of points! I tend to try to use other credit-card points to cover flights on one of the other nine airlines whenever I can and save my Ultimate Rewards points for my two favorite transfer partners that other cards can’t cover—namely, Hyatt and United.

Some important things to know before you apply:

Chase limits how often you can apply for this card and receive a bonus. You can only apply if 48 months have passed since you last got the bonus. So if you’ve had this card before and it’s been less than four years since your bonus posted, you’ll need to wait to apply. And thinking about this the other way, if you apply for this card, you won’t be eligible to get another Sapphire bonus (on this card or on the Chase Sapphire Reserve, which is its fancier sibling) for 48 months after this bonus posts. So be sure you’re okay with that before you apply! (This bonus is great and I’m betting you’ll be okay with it, but I want to make sure you know all the right information first.)

If you have a Chase Sapphire card (either the Preferred or the Reserve) right now and it’s been 48 months since you last got the bonus for it, you can call Chase and ask to downgrade your current Sapphire to either a Freedom Unlimited or Freedom Flex—neither of which have no annual fee—and then wait about two weeks and apply for the Sapphire Preferred again. (Sidenote: If you want to get even more crafty, you can ask to be downgraded to the “original Freedom” Visa card and insist that it’s a Visa so you can use it at stores that don’t take Mastercard, like Costco. Then you can still be eligible to get the sign-up bonuses for the Freedom Flex and Freedom Unlimited because those are different products. But if you don’t want to get into that, that’s totally fine–those bonuses are usually not that high, so you won’t miss out on that much.) Then you’ll be meeting the requirements to get another Sapphire Preferred bonus: you aren’t a current Sapphire cardholder (because you downgraded) and you haven’t received a Sapphire bonus in the past 48 months. And downgrading instead of closing the card’s account will keep the account open, which helps keep your credit score high.

There are three ways to apply:

1. If you have a travel partner (your “Player 2”) who already has the Sapphire Preferred, see if they can generate a referral link you can use to apply that will earn you the 80,000-point bonus. If they refer you, you get your 80,000 points and they also get a 15,000-point referral bonus!
2. If you aren’t averse to a little bit of extra required spending, you can apply for this card in person at a Chase bank branch and meet the initial $4,000 spending requirement in the first three months and then add on another $2,000 in spending over the three months after that, for a total of $6,000 of spending over six months. That will earn you 90,000 Ultimate Rewards points!
3. If you want to help support Practical Points Travel, you can use my affiliate link to apply. The bank will pay a small commission to me at no cost to you, and I’ll be able to provide more helpful travel content.

The Chase Sapphire Preferred is a card I think every traveler should have in their wallet. It’s worth getting it for the sign-up bonus, and it’s also worth keeping from year to year.