The *chase sapphire reserve* $300 dining credit – added to the card last summer after a major refresh – just got a little more useful … depending on where you live.
Chase added new restaurants to OpenTable's Sapphire Reserve Exclusive Tables Collection on Tuesday, bringing the list to more than 400 restaurants nationwide. But that headline number leaves out the restaurants Chase quietly removed in the process – and it still doesn't come close to what American Express offers with Resy.
Here's what changed, and why the gap still matters.
The Exclusive Tables List Just Got (a Little) Bigger
Chase's refresh brings the Exclusive Tables Collection to cities that weren't previously covered, including Aspen, Fairfax, and Newport Beach, alongside new additions in cities that already had a presence, like Houston, Chicago, Miami, and many others.
“We've updated the collection with new restaurants across the country,” Chase told Thrifty Traveler, adding that the list now spans more destinations, “with additional restaurants to be added regularly.”
Chase also confirmed it's continuing to fine-tune the list: “A selection of restaurants has also been removed from the collection as we continue curating a list of top restaurants in the destinations our cardmembers live and are traveling to.”
But what Chase didn't tell us is that, according to Doctor of Credit's tracking, this update added 91 restaurants and removed 64 – a net gain of just 27. Most of the removals came out of Las Vegas, which is now down to a single restaurant on the entire list.
If you've been relying on a specific spot to use your up to $150 semiannual credit, it's worth double-checking that it's still in the collection before you book.
Case in point: In Minneapolis, where I live, Chase has removed the legendary Manny's Steakhouse from the Exclusive Tables Collection and replaced it with Porzana – a modern-Argentinian wood fire steakhouse.
Related Reading: Breaking Down the New $300 Dining Credit on the Chase Sapphire Reserve®
What to Do If Your Restaurant Got Cut
Doctor of Credit first reported that Chase customer service reps were telling callers about a 60-day grace period for existing restaurant reservations that were recently removed. Chase has since confirmed it to us directly: if you booked a reservation before a restaurant was removed from the program, you're still eligible for the dining credit for up to 60 days after the removal.
If you have a reservation at a restaurant that's no longer on the list (especially in Las Vegas), that grace period should cover you. It's still worth calling Chase to confirm your specific case, but this is now confirmed policy rather than something you need to verify on your own.
The Gap With Amex Isn't Close
Even with this update, Chase's Sapphire Reserve dining credit still only works at a few hundred restaurants across 26 cities. American Express operates on an entirely different scale. It's Resy network already covers more than 10,000 restaurants in over 1,600 cities. And that list continues to grow …
Back in March, Amex announced it's folding Tock into Resy this summer, a move that will bring the combined platform to more than 25,000 bookable venues – including fine-dining and tasting-menu restaurants that Resy never had access to before. That expansion is designed specifically to make it easier for *amex platinum*, *amex gold*, and Delta Amex cardholders to actually use the Resy dining credits baked into those cards.
Chase's few hundred restaurants (even after this refresh) aren't in the same ballpark. Amex's network was already dramatically larger before the Tock integration, and once it lands, the gap will widen further.
Related Reading: How to Use the Resy Dining Credits on Your American Express Card
A New Priority Booking Perk
Chase did add one feature unrelated to restaurant count: Something it's calling “Priority Notify.”
Cardholders can opt into the feature “to be alerted when reservations become publicly available,” per Chase. Once notified, they get a priority window to book before the general public – at all OpenTable restaurants, not just the ones in the Exclusive Tables Collection.
That's a genuinely different kind of value than a bigger restaurant list. It doesn't help you use the dining credit anywhere new, but if you've ever refreshed OpenTable at midnight trying to grab a reservation that books up in seconds, it could be a real perk of its own.
Bottom Line
Chase's refreshed restaurant list is a step in the right direction, and Priority Notify is a nice addition that doesn't cost cardholders a thing.
But on the metric that actually determines whether you can use the $300 dining credit – how many restaurants you can use it at – Chase is still working with a few hundred restaurants against Amex's tens of thousands. Until that changes, this remains one of the clearest gaps between the two banks' premium dining perks.
