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.
09/06/2023: Opened Chase Ink Business Cash
11/17/2024: Opened Chase Ink Business Unlimited
$0.00 balance on ink business cash at time of application for ink business unlimited. I have a Chase business checking with minimal activity, used only for faking DD’s. 3/24.
If it matters, I applied for my ink business unlimited from a targeted mailer, with the $900 for $6,000 spend offer.
Just denied for a United Biz card, and I have 3 Inks. It might extend to their co-branded biz cards as well.
Here’s my situation with chase business. Dec 2022 i got the unlimited. March 2023 tried for cash, denied. “too many accounts or too much available credit. ” Nothing in between the unlimited successful app and the cash denial. and now im over 4/24 so no chase for me until June 2025. Ive been “non chase, business only” status since august 2024. Ive hit WF and us bank since then. Next up BMO.
Does anyone have any DPs for trying to get the Ink Premier as a fourth or fifth card? I wonder whether the underwriting standard might be looser because you have to pay in full at the end of each month, plus most people probably don’t have that card yet because the SUB is not nearly as attractive as the CIU. But beggars can’t be choosers …
I’m wondering if it’s just inks they are looking at or all business cards?
I recently posted in the 90k Ink unlimited thread my DP. My dp summarized here:
4 open inks( 3 cash & 1 unlimited), most recent was from 01/24, MSR reached in March. All applied and opened with SSN. I applied for the unlimited(w/ SSN) couple weeks ago and got app pending which ultimately resulted in a denial. Letter states too much C.L, underutilized, recently opened accounts. I’m carrying a small balance on 3 of my cashes, and nothing on unlimited. 1st recon call-rep agreed with letter & won’t do anything. Closed out old ink unlimited prior to 2nd recon call-rep took down additional information about my business and noted that I even offered to use my existing CLs towards the new account. Recon was submitted and returned as another denial. Call a 3rd time(the charm right??)-only to be met with the same fate.
I kept my inks open due the multipliers/offers/separate spend but will be closing them out to improve my future odds.
Jut counted up – I’m a slower churner – I’ve opened 9 since 2017 – so only 1 a year then a couple extra – always auto approved. I knew this would happen. It was greedy kinda like the grAAvy train was. There were so many other cards to open with other issuers.
Does this affect only Ink cards or other families as well?
Could you please clarify, when you count INKs (first, second, third.. etc..) do you count them per business (EIN) or per owner aka person (SSN)?
So, if the INK application is for the same owner but for a different business, was it counted as the card Number Next, or as a separate thread? At least, did you take that into consideration when you had your statistics calculated?
Thanks in advance!
I was wondering whether two businesses under two separate EINs (SSN & EIN) can get double. IDK
I have two businesses under two EINs, one has one Ink, the other has two. When I called recon before, the underwriter counted all the Inks I had telling me “You have too many Inks”.
Good DP and that supports the conventional wisdom.
They didn’t ask that question in the survey, probably on the assumption it doesn’t matter. But maybe they should have.
Lots of the conventional wisdom just got upended so who knows what else may have changed?
I was denied for an Ink in August and September. I have 3 Inks now, one of them is older than 12 months and I suppose I can close it. Do I get better chance if I close this one before applying again? I read conflicting information, on one hand it seems one less Ink increase the chance, on the other hand recently closed Ink might add to the reasons to decline. Also it seems the new consent is to transfer the CL to other cards before closing instead of let go the CL to reduce overall CL?
I would close the >366 day old one ASAP then wait a full cycle before your next Chase app.
If you look at the survey results, the number of open INKs outweighs all other factors.
I’ve always thought it was a good idea to wait a month after closing an INK and/or transferring CL before applying but that’s just intuition. I’ve pushed it a few times and gotten away with it but not since August.
I would not transfer the CL before unless you need it on another card. Higher total CL with Chase is definitely not helpful. I think the negative association with reducing CL has more to do with the common practice of lowering CL on open cards.
With about six open Inks, I was rejected for a new one a few months ago. Since the recon person said it was because I had too much unused credit, I closed two. Applied again, rejected again.