Anecdotal reports indicate that Chase has tightened up on approving applications for INK business cards, especially since last month (October 2024).
I’ve been grumbling about this for a while now (I had been seeing anecdotal evidence of approval tightening even from before October), and there’s now a Reddit r/churning survey indicating the same. It’s not a huge sample size, but worthy of discussion.
The biggest factor seems to be that those who already have open INK cards are less likely to get approved for a new one. Here are some stats:
- Those with zero INK cards had an 87% chance of getting approved for an INK card. (14)
- Those with one INK card had an 68% chance of getting approved for an INK card. (19)
- Those with two INK cards had an 57% chance of getting approved for an INK card. (28)
- Those with three INK cards had an 18% chance of getting approved for an INK card. (40)
- Those with four INK cards had an 0% chance of getting approved for an INK card. (14)
Some other factors that seems to have an effect of approvals:
- Have an open Chase business deposit account had a mild positive effect on approvals.
- Preemptively lowering credit limit had a negative effect on approvals. (This is quite surprising as previously lots of evidence suggested that have a lower credit limit would greatly increase the chances of an instant automated approval.)
- Floating large balances on your Chase cards had a negative effect on approvals.
- Other factors like business revenue, years in business, and spend volume on cards did not necessarily have much effect on odds of approval.
There isn’t much data on other Chase business cards outside of the INK family, but it seems those might also be getting tougher on approvals.
Thanks again to r/churning for the data, you can read the discussion on Reddit at this link.
I got a third Ink last month. Initially denied (I look over 5/24 at first glance but am really 4/24). With recon I was approved by moving credit from one Ink to the new one.
I have 7 inks. Gonna lay off apps for a while to see how this plays out
Now is there a drawback to closing cards before 1 year? We could stay at at a 3 month velocity by closing cards after 3-6 months to only have 1 or 2 open at the time.
General advice has always been to keep cards for a year. I don’t know of anything specific with Chase and with INKs.
Time to close some cards if have 3 or 4?
What do you recommend?
close any card that’s over 365 days old
I’ve never pushed it past two at a time.
Lately I’ve kept the CIC for the gift card churning and close / reopen the other products for bonuses.
They are definitely tightening up. 4 Inks per year was quite possible. I don’t think 3 Inks is possible anymore. I don’t think a business deposit account has any impact. Mostly I suspect this is manual training at Chase underwriting as overwhelmingly these denials are after review but it may also be programming to send applications to review that would have previously been auto approved. We just got Inks in August after four months with three open each, instant approvals. We tried again in October after two months but were denied. We’ll try again next month as it will have been four months and we’re each closing an Ink this month. I am going back over 4/24 for the first time in years next month. I can’t justify giving up personal bonuses for two Ink cards per year. I also continue to believe they could patch the 24 month language to all Ink applications. Those are my reasons for leaving 4/24.
My single CIP’s AF just hit, planning now on closing it instead of PCing it to a second CIC. Did apply for a CSP but I haven’t applied for an Ink this year so far after a couple last year. I’ll be lurking in the churning sub for the next couple of weeks to monitor this trend. Thanks for this post Chuck.
I have the ink cash. Will probably be the ink unlimited next year for 90-120k. I don’t plan on cycling inks hard. One per year.
Was approved for 5th ink last week. Opened an ink in September and had to move credit to get approved. So approved automatically while holding 4 inks
You should enter your DP in the survey! They are still taking data. I’d classify it as approved on recon if you had to move credit. But you’d be the first to report approval at 4 since August.
I also got my 4th ink through recon late September. Had to reallocate cl. Chopping cl in advance is highly advised against. Every biz card for me w ink has to go through recon. Was at 3/24 when I applied. Not a churner but not w legit business 🙂
I tried multiple times this year but was repeatedly declined. Closed cards, reduced credit limit, paid off balance, called recon, nothing worked. Now I am hesitant to try again wasting credit pulls.
I got a USB biz card, a Wells Fargo biz card and a BOA biz card this year. I am thinking to apply for a new card, what cards would you guy recommend me to try?
You could guinea pig Signify with a different TIN… there’s a reasonable chance and somebody has to test it. You can’t get 2 with just SSN though.