Head to head · issuer terms as read 2026-08-30
Amex Platinum vs Sapphire Reserve
Amex Platinum charges $895 a year; Sapphire Reserve charges $795 — a $100 gap the earn rates and credits have to close. Amex Platinum earns Membership Rewards points; Sapphire Reserve earns Ultimate Rewards points. Both have a cash floor we can stand behind at 1.0¢, so the receipts below compare them in the same unit.
On the published earn tables, Amex Platinum leads on travel booked direct; Sapphire Reserve leads on dining & restaurants, travel booked through the issuer's portal, everything else. Credits, as the issuers state them, add up to $3,114 a year on Amex Platinum and $2,128 on Sapphire Reserve — if you would have spent that money anyway. Monthly credits have breakage; count only the ones you'd really use.
The Platinum Card from American Express
$895 feeTransfers
Chase Sapphire Reserve
$795 feeTransfers
The terms, side by side
| Amex Platinum | Sapphire Reserve | |
|---|---|---|
| Annual fee | $895 | $795 |
| Foreign transaction fee | Foreign fee: No Foreign Transaction F… | No foreign fee |
| Earns | Membership Rewards points | Ultimate Rewards points |
| Transfers to partners | Yes | Yes · 14 on the official list |
| Credits stated | 16 · $3,114/yr if fully used | 12 · $2,128/yr if fully used |
| Welcome offer, as stated | Not shown on the public page we read | Earn 100,000 points after you spend $6,000 in purchases in the first 3 months from account opening. |
Earn rates by category, as stated
| Category | Amex Platinum | Sapphire Reserve |
|---|---|---|
| Dining & restaurants | base rate | 3X |
| Travel booked direct | 5X (cap $500,000/yr) | 4X |
| Travel booked through the issuer's portal | 5X (cap $500,000/yr) | 8X |
| Everything else | base rate | 1X |
Green = the higher stated multiplier. Brand-specific, promotional and rotating rates are on each card page, not modeled here.
What each nets at sample spend
Three sample monthly budgets, every point at 1.0¢ (the Pay-with-Points floor we paid), fee subtracted, no credits counted. Estimates, not promises — your spend is the input that matters.
Run your own spendQuestions people ask
- Which has the lower annual fee, Amex Platinum or Sapphire Reserve?
- Sapphire Reserve: $795 versus $895, as stated on the issuers' pages on 2026-08-30.
- Does Amex Platinum or Sapphire Reserve charge foreign transaction fees?
- Amex Platinum: foreign fee: no foreign transaction f…. Sapphire Reserve: no foreign fee. Read off each issuer's page on 2026-08-30.
- Which earns more on dining?
- Amex Platinum states no dining rate; Sapphire Reserve states 3X.
- Can I transfer points to airline and hotel partners?
- Amex Platinum: yes. Sapphire Reserve: yes (14 partners on the official list).
- Which is better for me?
- It depends on where your spend goes. The receipts on this page use sample spend profiles at 1.0¢ per point; the Card Stack Optimizer runs your own numbers against every card we track, net of the annual fee.
- Amex Platinum: Welcome offer could not be confirmed as a single stated figure from a fetched americanexpress.com page: the marketing page (amex.com/us/credit-cards/card/platinum/) and the terms/conditions pages (apply.americanexpress.com terms URLs) did not return readable welcome-offer text via WebFetch (JS-rendered / title-only content). Third-party and search-snippet sources cited conflicting/personalized figures (e.g. 175,000 points for $8,000 spend in 6 months vs. 175,000 points for $12,000 spend in 6 months), consistent with Amex's disclosed practice that welcome offers are personalized/variable by applicant. Per instructions, welcomeOffer.summary is set to null rather than guessed.
- Amex Platinum: Earn rate for 'all other purchases' (commonly cited elsewhere as 1X Membership Rewards point per dollar) could not be confirmed via WebFetch of an americanexpress.com page fetched today — the marketing page and the official U.S. Consumer Platinum Card Fact Sheet (PDF, dated 9/16/2025, effective 9/18/2025 benefits) only stated the 5X flight and 5X prepaid-hotel rates. This field is therefore omitted from earnRates rather than invented.
- Amex Platinum: Global Lounge Collection annual value (cited elsewhere as '$850+ in value') appeared in one WebFetch pass of the marketing page but was not present in the fact-sheet PDF fetch; listed here as a non-monetary access benefit without a dollar figure to avoid citing an unconfirmed number consistently across sources.
- Amex Platinum: Annual fee ($895) is confirmed both by the americanexpress.com credit-intel article (fetched today) and the official Amex U.S. Consumer Platinum Card Fact Sheet PDF (issuer press-kit document, dated 9/16/2025), which also lists 'Rates and fees' as footnote 1 for that figure.
- Amex Platinum: Credits list and cadences are taken from the official Amex press-kit Fact Sheet PDF (effective September 18, 2025 benefit refresh) plus the marketing page for Global Lounge Collection description; all values described there as 'up to' statement credits, not guaranteed amounts.
- Amex Platinum: transferPartners confirmed true via americanexpress.com FAQ page fetched today, which states Membership Rewards points can be transferred into frequent flyer or hotel guest programs — this FAQ is generic to the Membership Rewards program (not Platinum-card-specific), but the Platinum Card earns Membership Rewards points per the fact sheet, so this applies.
- Sapphire Reserve: Per-authorized-user fee stated on issuer page: $195 for each authorized user.
- Sapphire Reserve: Network confirmed as Visa Infinite via direct quote on issuer page: "eligible U.S. issued Chase Sapphire Reserve® Visa Infinite cards."
- Sapphire Reserve: Several credits are time-limited promotions active as of verification date (Apple subscriptions through 6/22/2027; DoorDash, StubHub, Peloton through 12/31/2027; Lyft through 9/30/2027) and may change or expire.
- Sapphire Reserve: The '$300 in DoorDash promos' credit is stated on the issuer page with a monthly cadence but the total/monthly split was not fully itemized in the fetched summary — verify exact structure against the live page before publishing a precise number.
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