(See update here)
Chase is unofficially giving 115 days to meet signup bonus requirements, longer than the stated 3-months.
The standard language with Chase and most other banks to meet a signup bonus requirement is to spend $xx amount of money on the card within 3-months of approval.
The important date is the approval date, not the application date and not the date you activate the card.
I recently applied for the business version of the Southwest Premier credit card on 2/29/16 and got an approval email from Chase on 3/8/16. This week, I sent them a Secure Message, “Hi, I recently opened up a Southwest Airlines credit card. I recall that there was a bonus offer for signing up to the card. I think it was to get 50,000 Southwest points if I’d spend $2,000 within 3-months. Do I have the details correct? And, what date do I need to complete the $2,000 in spend by?” They replied that I need to spend $2,000 by 6/30/16 to get the 50k points.
June 30 is 115 from the date of approval, and, apparently, Chase is unofficially giving 115 days to meet the signup bonus requirement. Moneymetagame also tweeted out that he got the exact same number of 115 days for his Chase INK Plus card. And reader T confirmed that the 115-day time frame applies to personal cards, like Chase Freedom, as well.
Note that both of us got this on business cards (INK and Southwest). It’s possible that Chase personal cards do not have this leeway. Let us know if you have information on this. The 115 time-frame has been confirmed for personal Chase cards as well.
Other Issuers
A while back we reported that Citi gives a 14-day grace period on the three months time-period. At the time, we reached out to Chase and Amex about their policy and we were told that they do NOT offer any grace period. Apparently, this extra ~25 days is an unofficial leeway. They don’t want to push people to the day and then have disgruntled customers.
Since the terms say three months, be sure to get the end-date in writing if you plan on pushing it to the end. And, of course, it’s always better not to push it to the last moment anyway in case something goes wrong with charges posting, returns, etc; we’ve heard many such stories.
- Chase – 115 days from approval
- Citi – 104 days (90 + 14) from approval
- Amex – 92 days from approval
- Bank of America – 3 months from card approval
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