Free iPhone Pro Every Year with Chase Sapphire Reserve

The Wednesday Morning Weekly

This one will be short and sweet!

Update 9/15/2024. I did not take into consideration of the opportunity cost of owning the phone which was purchased for $712 below. So it isn’t totally free, because you have $712 tied up into phone where you could have been investing it elsewhere. Say that opportunity cost is 5% then the cost of the phone would be 0.05 x 712 = $35 for the year; still not bad! And who knows maybe you can squeeze $750 out of the used phone if you keep it in mint condition?

A brand new iPhone Pro costs $999 before taxes. After say 7% sales tax it’s $1068 out the door. This is quite pricey!

But for those who have a Chase Sapphire Reserve (CSR), Chase often runs specials where you can buy Apple products with Ultimate Rewards points at 1.5x, which provides a 33.3% discount on the iPhone — if you value Chase UR at 1 CPP as I do. This brings the $1068 out the door price down to $712.

Chase I am told often run these 1.5x UR deals on Apple products in November. See the following article from The Points Guy in November 2023:
https://thepointsguy.com/news/chase-ultimate-rewards-apple-offer/

So I am holding out for November myself.

Here is a screenshot of the points redemption page — the following example shows the Ink Business Preferred but you’d want to be on the redemptions page for the Chase Sapphire Reserve instead. Notice the option to Shop Apple. You’d want to do this when there is a 1.5x UR special going on.

Use this brand new iPhone Pro for a year. Then sell it for $712 on Facebook Marketplace. Rinse and repeat every year! Have the latest iPhone Pro at no cost, for life!

This is assuming you don’t break it — fortunately most of us have excellent cell phone protection with our credit & charge cards. I keep my iPhones in brand new condition with a decent case and screen protector; they are mint when I am done with them and need to sell them.