Chase is now offering 50,000 bonus points after spending $3,000 within the first 3 months of getting your Chase Sapphire Preferred card. That’s double the number of points it was previously offering, enough for 2 airline tickets or a statement credit of $500.

Redeeming Your Chase Sapphire Points
With Chase Sapphire points, you have a number of redemption options. You can convert your Chase Sapphire points into BA miles, Continental miles or Hyatt miles at a 1:1 ratio at any time you want. Point transfers are also possible to Amtrak, Priority Club and Marriott at lower conversion ratios.

If you convert your 50,000 points to one of these programs, what does that get you?

• With 50,000 BA miles, for instance, you can get 2 tickets within the continental United States and Canada on American Airlines.
• 50,000 Continental miles are also enough for 2 tickets on Air Canada, Continental, United or US Airways.
• 50,000 Hyatt Gold Passport points, on the other hand, can be redeemed for between 2-10 free hotel nights with no blackout dates, depending on hotel category and room type.

Alternatively, if you use Chase’s online travel portal, you can redeem your 50,000 points towards $625 worth of airfare or hotel accommodations.

For those who aren’t into travel or prefer cold hard cash, you can also redeem the 50,000 points for a $500 gift card or a $500 statement credit.

The annual fee of $95 is waived for the first year. You can also downgrade to the standard version of the card after a year, which does not carry an annual fee.

The Chase Sapphire Preferred card also earns double the number of points per dollar spent on travel (including air, hotel, car rental, trains, travel agencies, taxis, etc.) and on dining purchases (from fast food and coffee shops to fine dining).

In addition, there are no foreign exchange fees when you use the card overseas and you’ll earn a 7% annual points dividend on any points you earned during the year, so you actually earn 1.07 points per dollar spent on regular purchases and 2.14 per dollar spent on travel and dining, making it a particularly excellent choice for the international traveler.

Update 4/3/12: The 50,000 point offer has expired and has been replaced by an intro offer for 40,000 points, making this deal slightly less lucrative. 40,000 points is still enough to redeem towards a $400 statement credit or $500 in travel when redeemed through Chase’s Ultimate Rewards portal.

Chase Sapphire Preferred Application Link