Chase has an entire assortment of “cash back” cards that, in reality, earn Ultimate Rewards points. When paired with a premium card like the Chase Sapphire Preferred® or Chase Sapphire Reserve®, they can be transferred to travel partners.
Because of that, we tend not to think of Ultimate Rewards as cash, but rather as a transferable currency whose best uses come from moving them to partners and then using them for award travel. However, they can also be redeemed for a statement credit or deposited into a U.S. bank account at 1 cent each.
However, Chase is about to limit that cash-out ability to its own accounts.
Over the last week, many of us have received the following message from Chase in our online accounts:
Beginning 3/27/26, you will no longer be able to redeem for a cash back deposit from your Chase Freedom®, Chase Sapphire®, or Chase Ink® credit card(s) to an account held by a financial institution other than Chase. You can continue to redeem for a cash back deposit to an eligible U.S. Chase account or redeem your rewards for an account statement credit.
Right now, anyone can redeem Ultimate Rewards for cash into almost any U.S. bank account, but starting March 27th, you can only redeem for cash back into a Chase bank account. Alternatively, you could redeem points for a statement credit (which I assume is more common), but that’s obviously limited to Chase credit cards. As a result, all of the bank’s “cash back” cards will only earn cash back when points are redeemed within the Chase ecosystem.
Quick Thoughts
This isn’t a massive change, but it will be irritating.
Chase obviously wants to capture as much customer activity as possible, and sending customers’ cash to other banks isn’t as fun as keeping it within its own network. Folks who have been redeeming cash rewards to their non-Chase accounts for years will now have to either open a new account or settle for redeeming points for statement credits.
Like most people reading this, I’ve never redeemed Ultimate Rewards for cash, simply because I get much better value through using them elsewhere. That said, I imagine that it’s an extremely common use for many cardholders.
A lot of points and miles peeps are justifiably hesitant to open a Chase deposit account; for some reason, it makes you much more susceptible to a shutdown, where all credit cards and bank accounts are closed involuntarily. That’s not going to be a concern for the average Jane and Joe, but if there’s any hanky-panky in your credit card spending, I’d think twice about opening a checking or savings account.
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I believe residents of HI and AK can’t open bank accounts with Chase, I’ve tried before online and it wouldn’t let me. This would mean those residents of those states don’t have cash back as an option through Chase unless I’m missing some work around.
To be clear…if we’re transferring cash back points to a Reserve, Preferred, or ink preferred, and NOT cashing out into ….well….cash, this does not affect us right?
That is correct. Only if you are getting the actual “cash in hand”.