Yesterday Chase introduce a new rule on the Chase Sapphire Reserve and Chase Sapphire Preferred stating that you’re not eligible to sign up for the card if you’ve received a sign up bonus on either card within the last 48 months. Previously you were restricted if you received a sign up bonus within the last 24 months. A few readers asked why such a rule might have been added and the answer is relatively simple. The Chase Sapphire Reserve card was introduced on August 22nd, 2016 (although it was available in branch on the 21st and via a leaked link before that).
That means a lot of existing cardholders have now had the card for 24 months and would be eligible to cancel the card and then sign up again to get the bonus (assuming they were eligible under the Chase 5/24 rule). Chase is still struggling to recoup the costs involved with acquiring customers, especially those who signed up early when the bonus was 100,000 points. They have long pointed to the high retention rate of 90%+ and they fact they would be able to convert Sapphire Reserve customers into other product holders that are more profitable (e.g home loans/investments). They just launched Sapphire Banking in an attempt to convert Sapphire Reserve cardholders to deposit account holders but with no sign up bonus it’s hard to see that gaining much traction. They also launched You Invest which offers fee free trades in the first year.
Chase has always been unusual in that they restrict when you’re eligible for the sign up bonus based on when you last received the bonus. American Express simply restricts you to one bonus per card per lifetime & Citi bases it on when you last opened/closed a card within that brand.
I closed my CSP last year after having it for 2 years and then got a CSR last October. With the new rule does it mean I wont be able to apply for any of these cards in next 4 years? or can I still apply for CSP?
Go back up to the top of the post and re-read the very first sentence. It answers your question.
hey doc check out this yahoo news u made it in https://finance.yahoo.com/news/credit-card-super-users-searching-150319333.html
:D, credit goes to chuck on that one.
Doc, your name is mentioned:
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/credit-card-super-users-searching-150319333.html
🙂
I read the reddit megathread mentioned in the article with lots of chase shutdowns and almost all got reinstated.
I am under 5/24 and still working on my ink cash bonus. Should I go ahead and apply for CSP before the referral links also become 48 months? I can get the bonus with 24 months but not 48 months.
Chase may not like that I am asking for credit again so soon.
IIRC I think that you guys proffered that Chase might have a Biz version of CSR they are mulling or working around the release of the CIU. Perhaps taking a few game plays from Amex (Per/Biz Premium cards).
Granted this could just be a response to the 25% drop in card income from 2015-2017 as well Chase’s rewards liability has grown 31% over past 18 months (2016-Q2/2018) from $3.8 Billion to $5.5B (Chase current cash-out value of URs on their books). Swipe fees help offset the cost of reward points, that said Churners/MS’r are outliers and normally don’t carry a balance, generate BT fees or much if any interest income compared to “traditional or profitable” card holder’s that maintain a balance or fail to pay off BT during grace period.
Hopefully a Business CSR version could help balance out the 48 months as well as minimize the churn – but that then changes this to a long game strategy, that you have to factor 5/24 into.
Thoughts?
I think more likely scenario is overwhelming majority of users are not necessarily churners, but are definitely savvy maximizers, who cherry pick categories, only use the best redemptions, and never fall for Chase’s overpriced crap products like mortgage/banking when they can get much better deal on those elsewhere.
Essentially everyone becomes unprofitable because they all come from the same pool of blog readers / travel hackers. I know of very few friends who even know about Sapphire who are also not into some kind of travel rewards.
So, effectively with Chase, the bonus is now restricted to 4 years with change (since you’d get the bonus a month or two after opening the card), and it’d take 8 years to get both CSP and CSR (unless you double-dip and if that still works).
With AmEx, the lifetime is 7 years (not too sure since what event, though), so, basically, one might as well argue that the Sapphire bonus is now even MORE restricted, time-wise, than the lifetime bonuses at AmEx.
Here’s for AmEx learning from Chase! Not!
7 is still greater than 4. Using 8 is not a fair comparison since that is for 2 cards not 1.
But if the bonus is restricted to one per family, then CSP and CSR are effectively the same, so, sure, you can get the bonus on CSR every 4 years, but then CSP is not available for you anymore; with AmEx, you can still get bonuses on all different versions of similar cards so far (e.g., BCE + BCP etc, Gold + Plat etc, Plat vanilla + Plat branded etc).
Didn’t I recently read that Amex had started limiting the bonuses on the Platinum cards so you couldn’t get separate bonuses for regular Platinum, Schwab Platinum, Ameriprise Platinum, etc?
Is there any chance in-branch approvals bypass this?
You can bypass this by using someone’s referral link then it is still 24 mo. I have one if you need
I just have a feeling that Chase is going cut the travel credit on the Sapphire Reserve sooner or later. I bet that it gets slowly reduced in increments ($300 to $250), ($250 to $200), etc .
That would drive me away. My three criteria for keeping CSR are: net annual fee of $150, 3x points for travel/dining, and ability to transfer those points 1:1 to United. If they change any of those three things, I’m gone.
I doubt that. That would lose that 90% retention they have on this card. This is a ‘profitable’ card to them because it brings customers into other Chase offers, investments and so forth. It’s all about keeping people in a platform. It was a success. Many of us continue with it and are afraid of canceling due to the 5/24 rule, and then not getting approved again.
This doesn’t affect product changes, does it? For example, if I downgrade my CSP to a regular Sapphire, then want to upgrade it later to the CSR (no signup bonus involved, of course), would Chase allow that?
no Data points yet, but they have no restrictions on product changes other than needing 10k CL to get CSR, and have the card open for 12mo (due to CARD act/law). I don’t imagine they’ll target product changes, as they’re not giving away a sign-up bonus, and a very small amount of people utilize PC’s.
It’s based on when the bonus posts, so downgrading wouldn’t have any affect.
Money is the root of all evil.
Therefore points/miles/cb from spending (which are just discounts on purchases/aka rebate) are okay! 😉
Actually, I believe it’s the love of money is the root of all evil.