Yesterday Chase introduce a new rule on the Chase Sapphire Reserve and Chase Sapphire Preferred stating that you’re not eligible to sign up for the card if you’ve received a sign up bonus on either card within the last 48 months. Previously you were restricted if you received a sign up bonus within the last 24 months. A few readers asked why such a rule might have been added and the answer is relatively simple. The Chase Sapphire Reserve card was introduced on August 22nd, 2016 (although it was available in branch on the 21st and via a leaked link before that).
That means a lot of existing cardholders have now had the card for 24 months and would be eligible to cancel the card and then sign up again to get the bonus (assuming they were eligible under the Chase 5/24 rule). Chase is still struggling to recoup the costs involved with acquiring customers, especially those who signed up early when the bonus was 100,000 points. They have long pointed to the high retention rate of 90%+ and they fact they would be able to convert Sapphire Reserve customers into other product holders that are more profitable (e.g home loans/investments). They just launched Sapphire Banking in an attempt to convert Sapphire Reserve cardholders to deposit account holders but with no sign up bonus it’s hard to see that gaining much traction. They also launched You Invest which offers fee free trades in the first year.
Chase has always been unusual in that they restrict when you’re eligible for the sign up bonus based on when you last received the bonus. American Express simply restricts you to one bonus per card per lifetime & Citi bases it on when you last opened/closed a card within that brand.
