How To Beat Chase’s New Restrictions On Credit Card Bonuses (No Longer Works)

by joeheg

It appears Chase has shut down the work around mentioned in this article.

Chase has been making it harder and harder to earn the sign up bonuses for their credit cards. In August 2017, Chase stopped accepting applications for multiple versions of  the Sapphire credit cards and you’re now only able to have either a plain Sapphire card, Sapphire Preferred or Sapphire Reserve. If you already have one of these, you can’t apply for a different one just to get the sign up bonus.

Previously, you were eligible for a sign up bonus if you didn’t currently have any Sapphire cards and if it was more than 24 months since you received a sign up bonus for any version of Sapphire card. If you’re like me and are approaching the earning of points and miles as a marathon and not a sprint, waiting two years between sign up bonuses wasn’t that bad of a restriction. Then Chase unexpectedly made a change to the terms for the sign up bonus on the application page for the Sapphire cards:

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The change was in subheading (ii), where it now says that you aren’t eligible for the sign up bonus if you’re received a new card member bonus within the last 48 months. Ouch.

If you were looking to get one of these cards for the sign up bonus and it’s been between 24 and 48 months since you’ve gotten the sign up bonus, it looks like you’re out of luck.

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Luckily, it turns out that you’re not too late. There are still referral links out there, including our link for the Sapphire Preferred, that still have the 24 month language .

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No one’s really sure how long these referral links will continue to have the 24 month language, so if you’re considering signing up for a Sapphire card I wouldn’t procrastinate. Just remember that to get approved for a Sapphire card you need to be under Chase’s 5/24 rule (If you’ve signed up for 5 or more cards from any bank in the last 24 months, you’ll automatically be denied, no matter how good your credit is).

The current sign up bonus for both the Sapphire Reserve and Sapphire Preferred is 50,000 Ultimate rewards points if you spend $4,000 in the first three months of account opening.

We have a referral link for the Sapphire Preferred which will give you the 50,000 point sign up bonus, has the 24 month restriction and gives us a 10,000 point bonus that we greatly appreciate.

SAPPHIRE PREFERRED SIGN UP LINK

Here’s my review of the Sapphire Preferred.

Unfortunately, Chase is not currently offering a refer-a friend bonus for the Sapphire Reserve so I can’t give you my link. There are other links out there and you can go to Frequent Miler’s site to get their affiliate link for the Sapphire Reserve that has the 24 month language.

FREQUENT MILER SAPPHIRE RESERVE PAGE

Here’s my review of the Sapphire Reserve.

Final Thoughts

Please forgive the article about credit card referral links. I’m generally not one to write a post just about credit card sign up links. However there are times when referral sign up links, like the ones I have, are better than the general offer available. I just hate to think that someone will sign up for a card and not get the most they can from the sign up bonus.

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This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary

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