Earlier today, news broke that Chase is changing the rules on who can get signup bonuses on 2 of their most popular cards – the Chase Sapphire Preferred and Chase Sapphire Reserve. These 2 cards are quite popular and it’s no surprise that they were the first 2 picks in our credit card mock draft.
[Why I keep recommending the Chase Sapphire Preferred for people starting out]
People wanting to apply for either of the 2 Sapphire Premium cards already had to contend with the Chase 5/24 rule, which said that anyone who had been approved for 5 cards from ANY bank in the past 24 months would not be approved for either of these 2 cards (among others).
[The 2 types of cards subject to Chase 5/24]
There has been reports on this change to who is eligible for bonuses on the 2 premium Sapphire card from Doctor of Credit, One Mile at a Time, Miles to Memories, Frequent Miler, reddit and I’m sure most other blogs and miles and points news and blog sites. The basic gist of it is
- Going forward, people may only have one Sapphire branded card. So you’ll have to choose between the Chase Sapphire Reserve and the Chase Sapphire Preferred.
- Customers will not be eligible for a bonus on any Sapphire branded card if they’ve received a bonus on a Sapphire branded card in the past 24 months\
3 people affected by this Sapphire change
Here are 3 types of people that are (negatively) affected by this change
- Someone with one of the Sapphire cards that has been waiting to get under Chase 5/24 to apply for the 2nd one
- Those who signed up for the Sapphire Reserve last year and had been planning on applying for a Sapphire Preferred before they canceled their Reserve card (SEE: Should I pay the annual fee on my Chase Sapphire Reserve?)
- Anyone that has gotten a Sapphire bonus in the past 24 months and was looking at getting another Sapphire card
Important to note that if you ALREADY have multiple Sapphire cards (most commonly I’d assume would be a CSR and CSP), you can continue to hold both (all?) of them. But if you canceled one of them, you would not be able to get it back.
What about you? Were you affected by this change to the Chase Sapphire bonus rules?