These days, deciding which credit card to get isn’t just about calculating how many points you’ll rack up.
The best credit cards now include additional benefits, such as airport lounge access, travel perks, extended warranties and insurance coverage. These benefits are all designed to get you to pay a (sometimes) hefty annual fee and keep the card at the top of your wallet.
The three major issuers of premium cards — American Express, Chase and Capital One — compete on nearly every aspect of their card portfolio, from lounges to luxury perks. But their newest battleground? Your dining plans.
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In recent years, all three issuers have made major investments in their dining offerings, and Chase is now out with its latest perk: the Sapphire Reserve Exclusive Tables program.
Chase Sapphire Reserve Exclusive Tables program
Effective immediately, those with the Chase Sapphire Reserve® (see rates and fees) have exclusive access to several prime-time restaurant reservations and events curated in partnership with The Infatuation, which Chase acquired back in 2021.
The new program, available through the OpenTable platform, will unlock special dining access at select restaurants nationwide.
The list includes spots such as Estela in New York City, High Street in Philadelphia, Dunsmoor in Los Angeles, Burdell in San Francisco and EntreNos in Miami.
The program currently covers restaurants in more than 25 U.S. cities, but Chase says that more restaurants and cities will be added over the coming months.
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After verifying your eligible Chase card (either the Chase Sapphire Reserve or the J.P. Morgan Reserve Card), you’ll find a new tab on the OpenTable explore page listing participating restaurants and their availability.
The information for the J.P. Morgan Reserve Card has been collected independently by The Points Guy. The card details on this page have not been reviewed or provided by the card issuer.
I’m currently based in Philly and found that most of the participating restaurants had plenty of prime-time weeknight dinner reservations available over the next few weeks, though availability was tougher to find on the weekend.
Of course, availability is always subject to change, but this is a nice new perk to add to the long list of benefits for one of Chase’s most popular credit cards.
Chase’s big dining play
While this new program will undoubtedly become a handy perk for those looking to splurge on a nice dinner or event, the concept isn’t entirely new.
After all, American Express and Capital One both already offer something similar to their top cardmembers. Amex’s Global Dining Access program is offered in partnership with Resy, and it also unlocks exclusive reservations for premium cardmembers at some of the nation’s top restaurants.
Better yet, the Global Dining Access program also includes a priority notification service that will alert you to last-minute cancellations before the general public — a feature not currently included in Chase’s Sapphire Reserve Exclusive Tables program.
Meanwhile, Capital One offers the Capital One Dining program via the SevenRooms platform. The issuer partners with José Andrés and other culinary icons to curate special events and exclusive tables at top restaurants.
On the surface, it might seem like Chase is playing catch-up with its two biggest rivals. And in many ways, it is.
Chase acquired The Infatuation in 2021 to broaden its dining offering to cardmembers. (Amex acquired Resy in 2019 to do the same.)
“It’s been a really good marriage, and we’re finding that one plus one equals more than two,” said Chris Stang, co-founder of The Infatuation and head of lifestyle at Chase, in an interview with TPG.
Asked about Chase’s big bet on dining, Stang explained that “the customers that we interact with, that we hear from every day, say dining is a really important part of their set of experiences that they’re looking to have in life.”
The Infatuation helps Chase cardmembers learn more about new restaurants and dining experiences across the cities they live in and travel to. “The Infatuation had a really important role in helping us curate from a list of restaurants within OpenTable, which we said, ‘We think these are the ones that can be difficult to get into, but more importantly that our customers care about or we’re certain that they’ll want to try,'” explained Stang.
Chase’s big dining play largely resembles another big competition among credit card issuers: airport lounges. Amex was the first to enter the market in 2013 with the Centurion Lounge, but Chase and Capital One have spent the past few years quickly closing the gap.
Lounges are another good example of issuers trying to win their spot in your wallet, explained Stang. And it’s also a great way for Chase (and its competitors) to show off its variety of partnerships, starting with dining.
For example, Chase’s newest lounge in Philadelphia features an exclusive collaboration with the city’s famed Middle Child Clubhouse restaurant. That partnership has been years in the making, explained a company spokesperson after the restaurant won a Hit List award with The Infatuation and then hosted a dinner series for Chase cardmembers. Nowadays, it’s featured prominently in one of its flagship Sapphire Lounges by The Club.
“When we bring a restaurant into something like an airport lounge, we do it because we’re huge fans of what they do. And, we want to be able to do more together,” said Stang.
Though Chase is playing catch-up both in the airport lounge and dining game, the issuer isn’t at all worried about missing out on the first-mover advantage. In fact, its airport lounges are in many ways nicer than those of the competition, even though Chase’s first outpost didn’t open until earlier this decade.
“Some of the most successful businesses and ventures in the world aren’t necessarily the first ones,” Stang quipped.
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