Yesterday’s news was dominated by the announcements of a revamp of the Chase Sapphire Reserve card, the upcoming launch of a Sapphire Reserve for Business card and upcoming changes to redemptions in the Chase Travel℠ portal.
There were some other Chase-related tidbits relating to these cards that were flagged by View From The Wing. On the positive side of things, Chase will be getting rid of the Sapphire family rule and will now allow you to get one of those cards without a welcome offer being attached. However, there will be algorithmic changes which could affect your ability to earn the bonuses from welcome offers in the future, plus the 48 month rule on the Sapphire family of cards will be expanded.
Sapphire Family Language
Previously, you couldn’t get a new Sapphire Reserve card if you already had a Sapphire Preferred card (and vice versa). There was a workaround in that you could have one of those cards and upgrade one of the Freedom family of cards to the other premium Sapphire type that you didn’t have, but getting a brand new Sapphire Preferred or Sapphire Reserve while already being a cardholder of the other wasn’t possible.
That’s going to be changing. Chase confirmed to View From The Wing that if you have a Sapphire Preferred card at the moment, you’ll be able to apply for the Sapphire Reserve card (and vice versa):
Beginning June 23, 2025 you will be able to have both the Sapphire Reserve and Sapphire Preferred cards. New account bonus offer eligibility for either card will be based on factors including previously earned bonus offers and the number of cards opened and closed, among others.
That latter sentence sounds much like Amex’s popup prison policy, so perhaps we’ll have to call this ‘Chase card confinement consideration’ (or something a little more snappy). It’s potentially concerning though because it could mean that even if you’re under 5/24, you could be denied for a welcome offer based on other factors.
To determine your 5/24 status, see: Easy Ways to Count Your 5/24 Status. The easiest option is to track all of your cards for free with Travel Freely.
It’ll be interesting to see if this policy will be expanded to other card families. For example, when it launched something like seven years ago, it was possible to get the IHG Premier card even if you already had the IHG Select card (which itself is no longer available for new applications). That policy remained for a while, but eventually Chase changed the rules to disallow people from getting the IHG Premier card if they still held the IHG Select card. It would be great if that policy was loosened for people who still have the legacy Select card but not the Premier.
Get A New Sapphire Card Without A Welcome Offer
The 5/24 rule means that many people aren’t able to get new Chase cards. That means that you can’t get the card even if all you want it for are its benefits rather than the welcome offer of x points/miles after $x spend.
For the revamped Sapphire Reserve card at least, that policy will be loosened. Per Chase:
Consumers applying through most channels will be notified during the application process if they are not eligible for a bonus offer and given the choice to continue the application or cancel the application with no impact to their credit score.
Given the $795 annual fee and plethora of coupon book credits, I wouldn’t want to apply for the Sapphire Reserve card without any kind of welcome offer attached. However, I imagine there’s a small subset of people who can easily redeem the various credits for more than $795 of value and so might appreciate having the card regardless, especially for other benefits such as rental car insurance, lounge access, 4x earning on flights and hotels booked directly, etc.
We’ll try to find out if that policy will extend to other cards in Chase’s portfolio, particularly cobranded cards. For example, the World of Hyatt business card is popular with some big spenders who value Globalist status due to its ability to earn 5 elite night credits for every $10,000 spent on the card. However, if you’re over 5/24 then you can’t get that card at the moment, even if you’re most interested in it for that benefit rather than any kind of associated welcome offer. If it was possible to apply for the card without the welcome offer, I’m sure there’d be some people who’d jump at the chance to earn status more easily.
48 Month Rule Being Expanded
Some other bad news in all of this is that it might become harder to be eligible for new card welcome offers. At the moment you have to wait 48 months from the last time you earned the bonus from a welcome offer on a Sapphire card before you can earn the bonus again.
That’ll be changing based on this statement from Chase:
We are transitioning away from the family of cards every 48 month eligibility to a same product premium eligibility. The timeframe will be longer than 48 months but we aren’t able to share additional details.
That’s disappointing because it’ll now potentially be even harder to be eligible for the welcome offer on a new Sapphire Preferred or Sapphire Reserve card.
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I thought if you’re over 5/24, you would be automatically denied for any new Chase card not just ineligible for the welcome offer. That paragraph that you quoted doesn’t say anything about 5/24 and just seems to mimic what Amex does with pop-up prison. The way I read it, 5/24 is unchanged. So if I’m over 5/24 I cannot get the Hyatt Biz card with or without a welcome offer.
I’m probably going to downgrade my CSR to another Freedom Flex and then apply for the CSP. I haven’t had the CSP before so this change is a welcome one for me.
I already have the Ink Preferred, but I would like to get the CSP for the SUB and possibly keep it for the rental car insurance. Loss of the fantastic rental car coverage is the only thing I am going to miss from the CSR. I haven’t done a detailed comparison but it seems like the CSP rental car insurance is better than the Venture X and only slight inferior to the CSR.
With every new announcement Chase seems to be saying “ we want to be more like Amex “
What is a same product premium eligibility rule? Seems like a word salad.
It means the 48-month SUB spacing only applies to the specific card you are applying for. If you’re applying for the CSP, have you received a SUB on a CSP in the past 48 months? Or, applying for the CSR, received a SUB on a CSR?
The current rule applies if you’ve had any card within that family. If you are applying for any Sapphire card, have you received a SUB on any Sapphire card in the past 48 months?
That’s how I read it… Stephen says this is negative, but I read it as mixed.
Negative: If I want to apply for a CSP and I got a CSP bonus 49 months ago, moving from 48–>? Is bad.
Positive: if I want to apply for CSP and previously had the bonus for the CSR (but not the CSP, now I can do that where previously I was restricted within 48 months.
Do I have this right?
I wonder if we’ll start seeing NLL on the CSR, like with Amex cards?
The language from Chase here is really interesting and raises at least as many questions as it answers.
-What does this mean (if anything) for 5/24?
-Is this only for Sapphire cards or will it be expanded to other “families?”
-What kinds of things will the algorithm care about?
-Will Chase start sending out targeted “expand your membership” and/or variable SUBs like AmEx since they seem to be taking so many other cues from them?
-Will the timeframe between same card SUBs *always* be longer than 48 months or can/will the algorithm overrule that? (Also, does this apply only to Sapphire cards or all cards moving forward?)
-What, if anything, does this means for Inks that have effectively had no restrictions at all for the last few years?
I suspect we won’t know for sure until the DPs start coming in on the 23rd
Stephen, you said it: Some who are over 5/24 might want to get a card for the benefits even without a SUB. How many people are there who are LMAO/24 who would like to get a Chase card? It might not be the CSR. It might be some other card. Say the Freedom Unlimited. IF this is a more generalize relaxation of the 5/24 rule, this might be a big help.