Unofficially, Chase doesn’t like to approve credit card applications where the applicant has opened 5 or more cards with any bank in the past 24 months. This is known as the 5/24 Rule. In the recent post, “How to count your 5/24 status,” I asked the question “Do Chase Business cards add to your 5/24 total?” I wrote:
Chase business cards do not appear on personal credit reports, but obviously Chase knows if you have opened those cards in the past 24 months. The question is whether Chase includes those cards in the total for 5/24 Rule purposes? If you have first-hand information that would help answer this, please comment below. Ideal evidence one way or another would be if Chase tells you during a recon call how many cards you opened in the past 24 months. You can then compare that number to the number you calculate yourself with and without counting Chase business cards.
In response to this, a number of readers replied via comments, email, and Facebook. Here are some examples:
“Chase Business cards do count”
Here’s my experience, others might have a different experience. Last month I was at 4/24 for personal cards and applied for the Freedom Unlimited. I was denied for too many new accounts in last 24 months. I opened an Ink Plus card back in March and when I called recon three times they all told me that I had opened 5 cards in the last 24 months. YMMV, but I struck out three times!
“Chase Business cards don’t count”
I applied for the reserve with 3/24. If you include the Chase business cards I’ve applied for then I would be 5/24 (southwest and ink plus) so i don’t believe it counts towards the actual 5/24 limit. I was not instant approved because I had too much “exposure” as they put it, meaning I had to much credit availability. I was however able to get he card by moving credit around. The minimum for opening a line on this card is $10,000.
I had opened 5 cards in the past 22 months. One card was the Southwest Business card. I was instantly approved for the CSR. In my case, a chase business card did not count.
I didn’t get my “count” from Chase (didn’t know you could do that), but can confirm anecdotally that I have opened 4 personal cards plus 1 Chase Ink business card in the last 24 months. I was instantly approved for the CSR card yesterday.
All of the above examples are border cases. They’re compelling only if Chase draws an absolutely hard line at 5 cards in 24 months. Many have long suspected though that Chase’s cut-off number may be a bit squishy. That is, they may draw the line at 5 or 6 or even 7. If that’s true, then the reports listed above don’t tell us much. On the other hand, it may be the belief that Chase business cards count that has led people to think that the rules were a bit squishy. I don’t know.
Much more compelling was a Facebook conversation in which a reader asked a Chase reconsideration rep to list all of the cards that they included in their 24 month count. He reports that they did not list his Chase business cards which were definitely opened within the last 24 months.
Similar information was reported via Twitter by a reader who unfortunately was turned down by multiple reconsideration agents due to an authorized user card that pushed his total to 5 cards in 24 months not counting his Chase business card:
@FrequentMiler without. My SW Biz and Ink AU not counting. They said I have 5, 4 are mine and 5th is Freedom AU but still won’t reconsider
— Andy (@andyselvy) August 31, 2016
Do Chase Business cards add to your 5/24 total? Tentative answer
The results are murky, but the weight of evidence leans towards “no, Chase business cards do not count towards 5/24”. Am I sure of this? Absolutely not, but at this point I believe that it is the most likely answer. And, I believe it makes sense. In order to process an application, Chase pulls your credit report from one or more bureaus. In order to code the 5/24 Rule into their system, the easiest approach is to simply count new credit cards from that report. Yes, since they have the data they could also count Chase business cards tied to your SSN, but that would add complication with minimal gain.
Why the answer is important
In the posts “Flying under 5/24” and “Business card advantages (and a straw man plan)” I suggested an approach for staying under 5/24: Sign up primarily for business cards that don’t report to the personal credit bureaus. This includes business cards from Amex, Bank of America, Cit, US Bank, Wells Fargo, and… Chase.
Aside from Amex, Chase tends to have the most and best business card offers: Ink Plus, Ink Cash, Southwest Premier Business, United MileagePlus Explorer Business, and the Marriott Rewards Premier Business.
If Chase business cards truly do not count towards 5/24, then the idea of flying under 5/24 by applying mostly for business cards suddenly makes a lot more sense. By managing your 5/24 count carefully, you could still sign up for 2 personal cards per year. And by regularly signing up for business cards from Amex, Chase, Bank of America, etc. you can keep the points flowing.
Note: Business cards from Barclaycard, Capital One, and Discover do get reported to personal credit bureaus, so you’ll want to avoid those cards if your goal is to fly under 5/24.
Reader Input
Do you have experience that helps answer the question of whether Chase Business cards add to your 5/24 total? Please comment below.
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[…] raised this question a year ago: Do Chase Business cards add to your 5/24 total? In that post I listed evidence in both directions. There was compelling evidence that Chase […]
In case this was still open, Chase business cards DO count as the Chase CSR told me when denying me for 5/24. Not cool.
Can you give some more info? What specific cards do you have that were opened in the past 24 months? Did the CSR specifically say that you were denied due to 5/24? Thanks in advance.
Here I have a question about applying for chase ink cash card…
I have a chase business checking account for ~5 months. I got an email saying inviting me to apply for an ink cash card and there is an expiration date. I went to chase branch and asked the banker to search for pre-approval offer in my business account. The answer was none.
Does chase apply 5/24 rule to their business card? How should I take this invitation email, an offer, or just a flyer?
Thanks!
Yes 5/24 applies. Unfortunately those mailers do not seem to help with approval.
Thanks a lot!
I have a slightly different question and not sure if anyone has encountered this.
I am over 5/24 for my personal cards, but can I use my business EIN to apply for a Chase business credit card?
You can use your business EIN, but you have to also input your SSN in the application since you would be the primary account holder. That won’t help you around 5/24
Greg, I found this strange to have to enter in both but my main concern was whether or not by entering my SSN it would show up as a hard inquiry on my personal credit report and whether the business card would end up on the credit report? Thanks for your help.
I know this seems odd, but:
1) Yes you will get a hard inquiry on your credit report
2) No, this won’t show up as a new account on your credit report
Great mate thanks!
I was at 4/24 and applied and was approved for an Ink Plus (using my SSN) followed 24 hours later by instant approval on a Freedom Unlimited. So was then at 5/24 + 1 Chase business, forty five days later was approved for Ink Preferred.
So in my case, I was approved for a CIP, despite being at 5/24 with personal cards alone.
I believe this is because it actually take some time, close to a month, until new accounts show in your credit report. So Chase did not have a chance to see and count the new accounts.
I was 5/24 + 1 Chase Ink Plus for 51 days before applying for the Preferred. It seems like enough time to show up to me but I don’t know how Chase’s system works.
[…] some people’s experiences they do count (and Flyertalk seems to think they do), in others they haven’t–so it probably depends on your history with Chase and general credit profile. Moral of that […]
My data shows that the Chase Business cards do not count.
Cards opened last two years: Amex Personal, Citi Personal, Chase Personal, Chase Business x2 (as Sole Proprietor), Amex Business.
So that’s 3 Personal + 3 Business total.
If you count the Personal plus Chase Business it is 5/24.
But I was automatically approved online for United Personal the other day (no mailer or targeted offer).
So, I think the system just counted whatever was on my credit report– the personal cards for 3/24.
Will push it one more time when the new Ink Preferred comes later this year, as it seems I will be counted as only 4/24 then!
I had 5/24 and was approved for Chase preferred.
Accounts at time of application were AMex platinum personal(18 months), Amex Delta Plat.(7 months), Home Depot(12 months), Chase Ink Plus Business(1.5 month), Chase Reserve(2 days).
[…] week I published “Do Chase Business cards add to your 5/24 total?” I argued that I thought that they didn’t count because they don’t appear on […]
I was at 5/24 with INK (applied with my SSN) but I was approved for Chase Freedom. I applied online last week and it went pending. I did not call Chase. I checked my Chase account today and found Freedom was added! It looks like they modified my credit line on each of my existing cards without asking me (which is fine).
Great!
I am quite new to this hobby, so I do not have many credit cards. That might have helped.
Here are my cards.
Oct. 2008 Elan
Feb. 2015 Barclay AAdvantage Aviator
Feb. 2015 Chase united explorer
May 2015 Chase IHG
Nov. 2015 Chase INK Plus
Dec. 2015 Amex SPG Business (no hard pull)
Feb. 2016 Chase Sapphire
Sep. 2016 Chase Freedom
I’ve found that even though biz cards are supposed to be a completely different department, they always counted as far as the time-between-apps wait.
[…] Do Chase Business cards add to your 5/24 total? by Frequent Miler. I’m really interested in knowing the answer to this. […]
We just have a small sample size here, but I think there might be something to this:
Ink business cards from Chase are counting towards 5/24, whereas non-Ink business cards from Chase (i.e. Southwest, United, and Marriott) are not counting towards 5/24.
It will be interesting to see if other data points confirm or deny this.
I wish people would be more clear when leaving data points, indicating if they signed up for the cards as sole proprietors using a SS# instead of using another entity with a tax ID number.
That’s a good point and may well be where the discrepancy is coming from. For the record, my Chase Ink card which did not appear to count towards my 5/24 status was opened for an entity with its own tax ID number. (I’m one of the 3 in the post who were approved).
Though you don’t give a social security number to Chase for an authorized user they still get the authorized user card into the credit report. Happened to me with two different Chase cards . I guess it’s not that hard –if my husband adds me as an auth user– I’m already in the chase system because of my own cards and we have the same address.
I was not preapproved for CSR. I was initially denied at 7/24 (two are AU), one of which is Ink+. I asked the recon rep if AU count, and she said no, not if I’m not responsible for the card. So I asked if she would re-verify that I’m really over, and she agreed, and, after a while, approved me if I moved credit.
So I’m not sure if:
– Authorized users don’t count
– Chase biz cards don’t count
– My 21-month old Banana Republic Visa didn’t count
– They made an exception based on a long and mostly good credit history
– Some combination of the above
Regardless, I feel pretty fortunate!