A lot of people ask regarding Chase’s 5/24 rule how to calculate the exact date of when you become re-eligible. For example, if you got approved for a credit card on December 20, 2016, does that card roll off your 5/24 record in 2018 on December 1, December 20, December 21, January 1 or some other date?
Upon inspecting my credit report it became clear that Experian considers any new account as if it had been opened the first day of the month. Equifax and Transunion, on the other hand, compute the exact date of approval (give-or-take a day). It’s consistent across all credit card issuers, and there’s a Reddit data point backing this idea as actually working on the ground. (and another)
If you know Chase will be pulling your Experian only, you should probably be able to apply today for a Chase card if you had a card opened on any date in December 2016. That card fell off on December 1, 2018 – if that brings you down to just 4 new accounts, you should be eligible for approval. If Chase pulls a different credit bureau or if you fear they may, calculate the account from the exact approval date (plus a day or two), and then you should probably be eligible for approval from Chase.
Hard to say anything for certain since it’s possible the reps always just add a month. Conversely, it’s possible reps always just subtract to the beginning of the month. But simply put it should depend on Experian vs. Equifax/Transunion. It’s also possible there is a difference between how the automated system calculates and how the reps calculate.
- Read: Which Credit Bureau Does Chase Pull?
- Read: Which Credit Card Issuers Will Approve an Application with a Frozen Credit Report?
You can always check your own credit reports to confirm the exact date of any given account, but a lot of people don’t like dealing with that and use their own spreadsheets to calculate eligibility, so this is useful to know.
I’d still recommend as a best practice to give a month extra leeway if you can, but sometimes there are time-limited offers, and it’s useful to know that with Experian you should assume the card got reported back at the beginning of the month you were approved, whereas with Equifax and Transunion they use the exact approval date (give-or-take a day).
Another note readers mention in the comments: In certain formats, Experian DOES notate the exact date. We don’t know which format Chase gets so it’s hard to rely on this backdating. If anyone has additional data points, drop them in the comments below.
How does relate to getting the same card after 24 months? Do you still need to wait until 24 months after your previous bonus posted?
Data point.
I became 5/24 on Dec 14 2016, thats the date that was shown on my report when I checked on creditkarma, applied today Dec 18 2018 for chase business credit card, got approved
However, if you get the timing wrong and you apply too soon, you can just recon after being under 5/24 as long as it’s within 30 days correct? Or you can just reapply (but will take another hardpull if past 30 days).
yes. i got the timing wrong and will reapply without taking another inquiry in 30 days
Experian DOES NOT report the open date as being the first day of the month in ALL formats! If you go to their website, yes, that’s what they do, but if you get the same Experian report from annualcreditreport.com, it shows the REAL day of the month your card was opened! So that’s just a WEBSITE BUG that Experian has, NOT a flaw in their internal data.
So I think it’s DANGEROUS TO ASSUME that Chase gets Experian reports in the format you see on their website rather than format you see on annualcreditreport.com. Chase probably gets your credit report form Experian in yet a different format (not a website format, but one geared specifically toward companies that do credit inquiries), but it could show the open date in EITHER of those formats.
So i would recommend you ASSUME THE WORST case, NOT THE BEST CASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I’ll add a note.
In addition to that (as mentioned in the post in the verbose way) we do not know if the actual rule is coded as DATEDIFF(m, Date1, Date2) >24 or DATEDIFF(d, Date1, Date2) > 365*2… if it is the first case then you have to wait till the 1st of the next month for this rule to return True. Since everybody (even Chase employees I talked to) refers to this rule as 5/24 (not 5/2 years, or 5/730 days), I would assume that it calculates the difference in full months.
If possible – always wait for the 1st of the next month, but if some great offer is about to expire – go for it, and call recon after 1st of the next month.
Only 19 exclamation points at the end of the comment so probably not important
My spouse applied for two BoA cards on 11/30/16. On Experian, one shows up with a 11/1/2016 date and the other shows up as a 12/1/16 date. I found that strange. The applications were submitted within minutes of each other since I had two browsers open, and submitted the 2nd app after instant approval on the first app.
Another thing I’ve noticed is that when applying for Chase cards and I get the 30 day message, on Experian it shows up as the 1st of the month that I applied but on TU it shows up as the actual date of approval (in the following month). That makes it trickier with applying the Chase 5/24-25 rule.
Nothing strange. It does not matter when you applied, it matters when the account was opened. Even though you were instantly approved it does not mean the account was instantly opened. It seems that one account was opened on 11/30 after instant approval, and therefore shows 11/1 as an open date on Experian, when another one was opened on 12/???… and therefore shows open date as 12/1.
I have waited 2 years, but dammit if I am waiting another day.
Who cares, Doc?
It can matter when it comes to trying to get things like companion pass
Chuck, OT, which credit monitoring service is that screenshot from & how much it costs?
This is from https://www.eclubonline.net/, they have a partnership with a small bank I use. Not sure how much it is to pay or if that’s even possible.
I always trust the Chase Credit Journey more on this topic. And since on CCJ the exact date of account opening is shown, I wouldn’t risk doing it earlier than that actual date – actually I am always giving that extra month, as DoC suggested.
Chase Credit Journey uses data from Transunion. This is not the data that Chase uses for credit card approvals.
Only thing I’d add is if someone was clearly under 5/24 and didn’t have anything fishy, could always apply under assumption that they’ll go by the more leninent standard, then recon the app if necessary within 30 days and you should be approved that way.
Can you freeze certain credit reports to make Chase pull from a particular one, like Experian? I know that Capital One won’t allow you to do that and still be approved for a new card, but I haven’t been able to find anything regarding Chase.
I’ll add a link to the post https://www.doctorofcredit.com/which-credit-card-issuers-will-approve-an-application-with-a-frozen-credit-report/#List
Thanks, Chuck!
Such a timely post! Was playing around with the Experian site yesterday while comparing to my personal spreadsheet, and wondering why all the accounts reported as being opened on the 1st of the month. Thanks Doc