Frequent Miler's latest team challenge, Million Mile Madness, is almost done! The last two weeks Greg, Nick, and Stephen competed to earn 1 Million SAS miles by flying 15 airlines. But who completed the challenge with the most Speed, Affordability, and Style?
The Chase Ink Business Preferred public offer recently increased to 100K points, but so the minimum spend requirement also increased to $15K in purchases in the first 3 months. Alternatively, the old 80K offer (after $5K in purchases in the first 3 months) has still been available via refer-a-friend links. However, it seems that the Chase refer-a-friend site is no longer generating new referral links for the Ink Business Preferred (and indeed it is no longer generating links for some other cards like the Chase Freedom). Many recently-created referral links have expired for other cards. It’s anybody’s guess as to Chase’s near-term plans with the refer-a-friend program, but if you were considering the 80K offer on the Ink Business Preferred, this may be a sign that it’s on its way out the door.
The Offer
Note that we’ll keep the refer-a-friend offer listed as the “alternative offer” as long as the link continues to work.
| Card Offer and Details |
|---|
90K points ⓘ Affiliate 90K after $8K spend in 3 months$95 Annual Fee Alternate Offer: There is an in-branch offer of 120K points after $8K in purchases in the first 3 months. Recent better offer: 120K after $8K spend (expired 9/4/24) FM Mini Review: Great card for welcome bonus and 3X categories. Also consider theInk Business Cash for its 5X categories, and the Ink Business Unlimited to earn 1.5X everywhere. Earning rate: 3X travel, shipping, internet, cable, phone, and advertising with social media sites (up to $150K spend per year) ✦ 5X Lyft through March 2025 Card Info: Visa Signature Business issued by Chase. This card has no foreign currency conversion fees. Noteworthy perks: ✦ Points worth 25% more when redeemed for travel ✦ Transfer points to airline & hotel partners ✦ Cell phone protection against theft or damage See also: Chase Ultimate Rewards Complete Guide |
Chase referrals on their way out?
Earlier today, Greg pointed out that the referral offer on our Best Offers page for one of the Chase Southwest business cards gave a pop-up saying it was expired. I was surprised to hear that as I had just generated that link a few days ago — but sure enough, when I went to click through on the offer on that Southwest Airlines credit card, I got a message saying that the offer was expired and I’d be redirected to the latest offer (which was exactly the same, but apparently wouldn’t have worked as a referral). I had the same issue with a Freedom Unlimited referral link I had generated about a month ago — when clicking through, it said the offer was expired and would be redirected to the current offer (which is the same offer, I just assume I wouldn’t have gotten any referral points with the now-outdated link).
I initially went to this Chase refer-a-friend site in my primary browser and got the following messages when trying to pull up referral links for the Southwest cards as well as on a variety of the Chase cards in my household.
I did double and triple check my account information on the accounts where I got the second (“unable to identify your account”) message. I had the right info, I just couldn’t generate any referral links.
Eventually, I tried in a different browser and I realized that the following Chase refer-a-friend site actually did generate links for several of my cards successfully:
https://creditcards.chase.com/refer-a-friend
At that site, Chase shows that nine Chase cards currently have referral offers and you can click through to generate a link for the specific card you want. Notably absent is the Chase Freedom (which did successfully generate a referral link a couple of weeks ago at the other Chase refer-a-friend site).
While the Ink Business Preferred shows up as one of the cards with a referral offer above, we were unable to generate a new referral link for it. Unlike the Southwest and Freedom links, our previously-pulled Chase Ink Business Preferred links are still working. They do not say expired as of the time of writing. But we couldn’t create new links for the Ink Business Preferred. We tried from:
- Ink Plus (both from Greg’s family and mine)
- Ink Business Preferred (both Greg’s family and mine)
None of our cards would generate a link for the Ink Business Preferred.
Some Chase cards haven’t had referral offers for some time. We haven’t seen a referral offer on the Chase Sapphire Reserve or Chase Ink Cash in quite some time. It is possible that Chase is simply pulling down some of the referral offers for now. Given the current economic environment, that makes some sense.
For most cards, it won’t be an issue whether or not the referral links disappear. The public offers you can get from a non-referral link on the other cards above match the same offer as the referral. The Ink Business Preferred is the exception as the referral offer requires much less spend to meet the bonus ($5K rather than $15K required for the new 100K bonus). One possible reason Chase may be pulling those referral links is that people playing in 2-player mode could have simply referred a spouse and ended up with the same 100K within their household (since referrals are worth 20K each) with only $5K spend required. Maybe Chase was looking to curtail that.
For the time being, already-existing referral links appear to still work for the 80K / $5K offer (we have one listed as the alternate offer on the card page linked to above). If you can swing the additional $10K spend for the 100K offer, that’s a worthwhile deal (an additional $10K in spend yields an additional 20K points). If you’re looking for an offer that requires less spend, the referral offer is an option worth considering that may be on its way out the door.
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Nick, I’m thinking of downgrading my CIP, but I haven’t had either of the no fee inks before. Would downgrading to say the ink cash then prevent me from signing up for a new ink cash In the future (same business) and getting a bonus?
Hi Nick, any idea, how long I can keep my links that I’ve generated for the old offer (80k/$5k) and use them to apply? I have 2 links–one generated from an email when I put in my spouse’s email. that shows an expiration of 4/22. But then I have another link that you get that you can use instead of having chase send the email to your referrals. If I use that link, it shows no expiration date, but not sure how long I can wait on it before the link goes dead. Our spending is way down b/c shelter in place so it’ll be harder to meet the min spend without having to MS, which I prefer not to do. Although meeting $5k in 3 mos is a heck of a lot easier than $15k/3 mos like the new offer requires!
sorry, I didn’t read article thoroughly enough. I just went by the headline
This is all good for those that qualify for Chase cards. When I started collecting miles/points 3 years ago, I immediately burned my bridges with Chase without knowing it because I was unaware of their cynical 5/24 and the now 48 months policy.
Someday will come, but not sure when, as there are so many other cards to get.
As a software engineer, I am just lucky to be able to work from home and to say things are ugly out there, is an understatement.
Good travel blog, though!!