Chase Survey Regarding Investment Bonuses [1.5¢ Cash Out Option & More]

In addition to offering bonuses for mortgages, another cross selling opportunity Chase has identified is targeting credit card holders for investment products. They have sent out a survey to some people asking their opinion about a few different options. The options were as follows:

  • Earn 500 Ultimate Rewards points when you purchase a diversified fund/ETF. Link your credit card to your Chase investment account and earn money (directly into your investment account) when you make purchases at select merchants (e.g. Starbucks) Earn 5,000 Ultimate Rewards points per year when you make zero withdrawals from your Chase Investment account over a 12 month period Please select which offer you like MOST and LEAST within each set of offers shown below:
    • Earn 1,000 Ultimate Rewards Points for each friend you refer to Chase Investment (max 10 friends per year) Earn 5,000 Ultimate Rewards Points per year when you make zero withdrawals from your Chase investment account over a 12 month period Earn a 50% booster on Ultimate Rewards points when converted to cash into your Chase Investment account Link your credit card to your Chase Investment account and earn money (directly into your investment account) when you make purchases at select merchants (e.g. Starbucks) Same question as above but with new options:
    • Earn 1,000 Ultimate Rewards points when you set up monthly recurring contributions of $100+ to your Chase Investment account from another institution Earn 5,000 Ultimate Rewards points when you successfully complete 6 monthly recurring contributions in a row (from another institution) Earn 1,000 Ultimate Rewards points for each friend you refer to Chase Investment (max 10 friends per year) Earn 5,000 Ultimate Rewards points per year when you make zero withdrawals from your Chase Investment account over a 12 month period

There was then a lot of more variations of the above, with different groupings of the benefits. Some other options included: Then a lot more variations of this, usually showing different groupings of the offerings so

  • Getting 500 UR for making your first deposit into the investment acct and/or buying your first stock.
  • 5,000 UR when you use a portfolio allocation tool for the first time and when you deposit your tax refund in your investment account you’d get 1,000 UR for every $1,000 of your refund.

Interesting Points

  • Offering a 50% booster on Ultimate Rewards redemption would make it easy to cash out points at 1.5¢ each. This is better than the 1.25¢ that Charles Schwab offers in conjunction with American Express. For me personally this is a killer feature. You can only have so many miles and points, being able to cash out at 1.5¢ also makes the Chase Freedom & Chase Ink Cash cards crazy (7.5% cash back on 5% categories? Yes please).
  • Offering points that are directly deposited into your investment account for purchases made at select merchants could be the reason why they scrapped Chase offers
  • Bonuses for making no withdrawals seem good, even if you have a small balance in a low fee fund

Personally I’m pretty excited about some of these possibilities. I just hope the 50% booster is an option as that is the biggest benefit in my opinion. Others won’t value it as highly depending on how much they value Chase Ultimate Rewards points.

Hat tip to reader zXFDz
    William Charles
  • On March 29, 2018, 10:00

View Comments (20)

  • I like the bofa rewards where I cash out 1.75/1 so chase would be killer at 1.50

  • The whole thing highly depends on the brokerage fees and the available funds. I want Vanguard or Schwab or similar funds or ETFs for free.

    If that happens (doubt), I will reconsider closing my CSR, as for me the point value boost what makes it a keeper.

    • I'd keep a minimal amount in the investment account to get the 1.5 cpp. I seriously doubt I'd ever use them for investments. So having no low balance fees would be critical. I rarely buy stocks, ETFs or mutual funds -- 100% of my transactions this year have been options. And no, it's not always riskier --- selling a put is actually less risky than buying the stock 100% of the time.

      • There is a $50 annual fee if you have less than $25,000 equity in the account and no trading activity.

    • If the points are transferred into your Chase brokerage as cash, does it even matter? From there just move the money into whatever checking or brokerage account you already use if you.

      • There will be annual fees and/or commissions, I'd bet large sums on that. The question is, what do you need to do, what funds, what balances you need to waive them, and what is the opportunity cost compared to, say, holding VTSAX at Vanguard instead.

  • Could be in combination with the other survey recently, restricting combining the Freedom UR’s to the CSR.

  • I would want more details on the Chase Investment Account before getting too excited about the 1.5 cpp cashout. Do they have a discount brokerage option at all?

  • Well I would sadly need to cash out at 1.5. I love Hyatt but I would have no explanation for saying no to 1.5. Would be a bittersweet day.

  • Will be the first to cash out my 700k UR if they give me 1.5cpp.

    I have so many miles/points from co-brands that my UR and MR just sit there.

  • I'd take 1.5cpp cash in a heartbeat. There's maybe a handful of redemptions that can reliably beat that, and my organic consumption of those special routes is rare enough that I'm not crunching through the 150k+ UR I have anytime soon.

  • I don't do much travel, and cash out my points for cash more often than not. The 50% would be killer for me.

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