Chase Travel Plum Guide access is officially live for Chase Sapphire Reserve and Chase Sapphire Preferred cardmembers as of today, opening up thousands of expert-vetted vacation homes to a much wider pool of Ultimate Rewards earners.
Until now, the Vacation Homes category inside Chase Travel was walled off for Freedom and Ink Business cardmembers only. That always felt backward, given that Sapphire cards are the ones built for travel. Chase just corrected that, and they did it by plugging in Plum Guide as the inventory partner.
Here’s what’s new, how the earning works, and whether this is actually worth using.
What Changed With Chase Travel and Plum Guide
Starting on April 14th, 2026, eligible Chase Sapphire Reserve and Chase Sapphire Preferred cardmembers can browse, book, earn, and redeem Ultimate Rewards points on vacation home stays inside the Chase Travel portal. The inventory is coming from Plum Guide, a curation-focused rental platform that vets every property against more than 150 criteria covering design, comfort, and location.
Plum Guide launched inside Chase Travel back in January 2026, but access was limited. Today’s expansion is the one that actually matters for the points and miles crowd, because Sapphire cardmembers are the ones earning and redeeming Ultimate Rewards at the highest rates.
The property mix includes cottages, villas, beach houses, and city apartments across top destinations worldwide. If you have been eyeing a trip where a hotel room just will not cut it, you finally have a points-earning path that does not involve sending your money to Airbnb or VRBO and walking away with nothing.
Who Gets Access Now
Access inside Chase Travel now extends to:
Chase Sapphire Reserve, Chase Sapphire Preferred, Chase Freedom, and Chase Ink Business cardmembers. Freedom and Ink have had it all along. Sapphire Reserve and Preferred are the new additions today.
To see it, log into your Chase account, head to the travel portal, and look for the Vacation Homes tab next to Hotels under the Stays search bar. If you have multiple Chase cards, make sure you have selected an eligible card before searching, since the option only appears for cards that qualify.
How Many Points You’ll Earn
This is where it gets interesting. Chase Travel Plum Guide bookings earn at standard Chase Travel portal rates, which means:
Chase Sapphire Reserve earns 8x Ultimate Rewards points per dollar on Plum Guide bookings. Chase Sapphire Preferred earns 5x points per dollar. Freedom cards earn 5% cash back. Ink Business Cash earns 1% cash back on this category.
For context, 8x on a vacation rental booking is functionally unheard of (unless you are stacking with Rakuten). Airbnb and VRBO bookings on a Sapphire Reserve earn 1x as general travel since they are not booked through the portal. That means you are looking at an 8x swing on Reserve and a 4x swing on Preferred compared to booking a rental directly elsewhere.
What Plum Guide Actually Is
Plum Guide is not Airbnb. That distinction matters when you are evaluating whether to use this.
Plum Guide only lists homes that clear a proprietary 150-plus point vetting process covering design quality, comfort, location, and host reliability. They reject the vast majority of homes that apply. The result is a much smaller inventory than Airbnb or VRBO, but the homes that make it through tend to be legitimately high end rather than someone’s spare bedroom with a ring light.
How to Book a Plum Guide Stay Through Chase Travel
The booking flow is straightforward. Log into your Chase account, open Chase Travel, and choose Vacation Homes under the Stays search tab. Enter your destination, dates, and guest count. Filter by property type, amenities, or price. Pay with points, cash, or a combination.
One wrinkle worth flagging: Chase Travel’s points redemption values for vacation homes are fixed at 1 cent per point regardless of which card you hold. The Points Boost multipliers that juice your redemption rate up to 2 cents apply to select hotels and flights, not vacation homes. That means redeeming points on a Plum Guide stay is a weaker value play than earning points on one.
The smarter play for most people is to pay cash, earn 8x or 5x on the booking, and save those points for premium cabin flights or The Edit hotel stays where Points Boost actually stretches them. Or better yet, transfer to partner airlines for even more value.
Bottom Line
Chase Travel Plum Guide access for Sapphire Reserve and Preferred cardmembers is one of the more genuinely useful Ultimate Rewards expansions in a while. 8x on vacation rentals did not exist as a category anywhere else, and now it does, on a card a lot of people already carry.
Two caveats to keep in mind. Points redemptions on Plum Guide bookings are capped at 1 cent per point, so earn on these and redeem your points elsewhere. And Plum Guide’s inventory is narrower than Airbnb or VRBO, so check availability before getting attached to the idea.
For the right trip, though, this is a real unlock. Worth a look the next time you are planning a villa week or a city apartment stay.
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