Chase made a change today whereby United cardholders can refer friends to any United card, even a version different from the one they hold. For example, if you have the United Club Infinite ($525 fee) card your friend can apply for the United Explorer ($95 fee) card. They sent out an email today about this change, and the information is showing on the Chase website as well.
Direct Link to United family referrals
New! Now your friend can choose any participating card! You can be rewarded if your friend gets any United MileagePlus® personal card, even if its a different card than yours.
Chase made this ‘family’ system first with the Southwest cards, then they did a similar thing by considering the Freedom and Freedom Unlimited one family, and now they are doing the same with United. Not quite as good as Amex where you can refer from any card to any card, but it’s certainly getting easier to earn Chase referral bonuses over time.
In the case of Southwest, you can even refer from a personal Southwest card to a business Southwest card. Yet in this new United system, the wording on the landing page implies it only works from personal to personal. Let us know.
Always remember when calculating whether to use a referral link the fact that Chase will likely 1099 you if you’ve received more than $600 value from referrals across all your cards. Signup bonuses, other other hand, are not taxable.
Hat tip to RacecarsOnIce
