Full information to downgrading and product-changing to earn welcome bonuses on Chase Sapphire playing cards

The Chase Sapphire Most well-liked® Card and Chase Sapphire Reserve® are two of our favourite journey bank cards at TPG.

They each earn worthwhile Chase Final Rewards factors, providing you with entry to a few of the finest resort and airline switch companions within the enterprise. You may take pleasure in entry to the easy-to-use Chase Journey℠ portal that permits you to redeem factors for all kinds of journey bookings, together with rental automobiles, accommodations, flights, excursions and actions.

Each playing cards embody extra perks that may simply justify their respective annual charges ($95 for the Sapphire Most well-liked and $550 for the Sapphire Reserve).

Lastly, each playing cards additionally supply beneficiant welcome bonuses:

• Chase Sapphire Most well-liked: Earn 60,000 bonus factors after spending $4,000 on purchases within the first three months of account opening
• Chase Sapphire Reserve: Earn 60,000 bonus factors after spending $4,000 on purchases within the first three months of account opening.

However do you know you may earn the welcome bonus on each Sapphire playing cards and even earn a welcome bonus greater than as soon as on every card?

Right here is learn how to do it — and why downgrading and product-changing Sapphire playing cards ought to be in your radar.

Associated: Chase Sapphire Most well-liked vs. Sapphire Reserve: Must you go mid-tier or premium?

Overview of Chase software restrictions

Chase has three essential restrictions in the event you want to be authorized for both of the Sapphire playing cards:

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• The 5/24 rule: To be authorized for any Chase card, you typically can’t have opened 5 or extra private bank cards throughout all banks within the final 24 months. Most journey playing cards issued by Chase are topic to the 5/24 rule for approval, together with cobranded playing cards. This implies that you must be beneath 5/24 to be authorized. The 5/24 rule solely applies to getting authorized for playing cards issued by Chase, however your 5/24 rely contains private bank cards from all banks.
• The 48-month rule: You will not be capable of earn a bonus on a Chase card in the event you at the moment maintain that card in your pockets or in the event you earned a welcome bonus on that actual card within the final 24 to 48 months.
• You will need to not at the moment have any Sapphire playing cards open.

Do not forget that 5/24 is just not the one issue figuring out whether or not your Chase bank card software is authorized — your credit score rating, earnings, debt ranges and many different variables are additionally thought-about.

The simplest method to test your 5/24 standing is to enroll in the free credit score report service at Experian (be sure you do not by accident join a paid service).

Open the credit score part, then faucet to view your Experian credit score report. From there, faucet on “Accounts” after which “Views” on the prime proper to kind by the date you opened your account. From right here, rely something opened inside the final 24 months.

Chase solely seems to be at whether or not an account was opened — it does not matter in the event you’ve since closed or downgraded it.

Lastly, Chase has some normal software restrictions. You usually can solely open one private and one enterprise card each 90 days, and Chase will typically restrict the entire credit score they’re going to lengthen to a person borrower — so that you typically want to maneuver round credit score traces with a purpose to get authorized.

Learn extra: The last word information to bank card software restrictions

When (and the way) to downgrade your Chase Sapphire playing cards

You probably have one of many Sapphire playing cards and it has been not less than 48 months because you earned a welcome bonus on the cardboard, you might be eligible to earn one once more — however you have to be strategic to adjust to Chase’s guidelines above.

Keep in mind, you may’t earn the bonus on both card in the event you at the moment maintain a Sapphire card, so that you have to be “Sapphire free.” As we talk about beneath, there are numerous the explanation why you need to downgrade an current Sapphire card fairly than canceling it outright.

The nice information is that you simply needn’t wait two years after canceling or downgrading to be eligible for a welcome bonus; the time counted is from if you acquired the bonus beforehand.

For instance, suppose you earned the welcome bonus on the Sapphire Reserve card in August 2021. In that case, 48 months may have handed by September 2025. Offered you’re beneath 5/24 and meet the opposite normal credit score standards outlined above, you might downgrade your Sapphire Reserve and thus grow to be eligible for the welcome bonus on both the Sapphire Most well-liked or the Sapphire Reserve at the moment.

Requesting a card downgrade is pretty easy: Name the customer support telephone quantity on the again of your card and converse to a Chase agent to inform them you wish to downgrade to a card with a decrease annual payment or no annual payment. It’s also possible to contact Chase by way of a safe message portal on its website, however studies recommend that product-change requests have to be remodeled the telephone.

Word that you could stay within the Chase-branded household if you downgrade a Sapphire card — and you’ll’t swap a private card for a enterprise one. Because of this, the preferred choices for a downgrade embody the Chase Freedom Limitless® and the Chase Freedom Flex®.

In case you’re fortunate, you may even get a prorated refund of your annual payment if you downgrade to a card with a decrease annual payment (particularly in the event you accomplish that inside 30 days of the annual payment posting to your assertion). Chase is not going to have to carry out a credit score test because you’re sustaining your current account as a substitute of opening a brand new one.

You’ll retain the account quantity, stability and due date of your outdated product if you downgrade your card. You may obtain a brand new card with the title of the brand new product inside a number of days, however because the card quantity would be the similar, you may proceed to make use of your outdated card beneath the phrases and advantages of the brand new one earlier than and even after you are issued a brand new card.

Why you need to downgrade and never cancel

The age of your credit score accounts makes up 10% of your whole credit score rating. So, maintaining this account open would proceed to buoy your credit score rating.

Downgrading as a substitute of canceling can even mean you can keep your general credit score restrict, which influences your credit score utilization ratio (it helps your rating to have entry to numerous credit score so long as you do not use an excessive amount of of it). By maintaining your utilization low, you additionally hold your rating excessive.

Alternatively, canceling your card can dent your common age of accounts and lift your credit score utilization ratio by reducing your general credit score restrict. It may well additionally delay your skill to use for a brand new Sapphire card.

Not less than one TPG workers member canceled his Sapphire Reserve card outright, and when he utilized virtually every week later for the Sapphire Most well-liked card, he was denied. He was advised by a number of Chase representatives, together with in individual at a Chase department, that — as a result of accounts can legally be reopened for 30 days — he could not apply for the Most well-liked card till his present Sapphire account was formally closed a month later.

So, in the event you ever wish to apply for a brand new Sapphire card and not using a prolonged delay, take into account downgrading an current Sapphire card fairly than canceling it.

Additionally, Final Rewards factors are forfeited when your account is closed, although the phrases and circumstances point out that you will have not less than 30 days from the closure date to redeem the factors in case your account is in good standing.

The one massive drawback of downgrading a card is that you simply usually will not get a welcome bonus for the cardboard you are downgrading to. Nonetheless, in the event you plan to earn a giant bonus on a Sapphire card after downgrading, you should still come out in entrance.

What if I am denied?

If Chase denies your new Sapphire software and you’ve got complied with the above restrictions, it is value calling to ask if choices can be found.

Some TPG staffers who downgraded a Sapphire Reserve card to use for the Sapphire Most well-liked card needed to transfer round traces of credit score to be authorized. In different phrases, Chase checked out their general monetary image and determined it had prolonged them as a lot credit score because it was going to.

However by chatting with representatives and agreeing to maneuver a few of the traces of credit score from different playing cards to a brand new Sapphire Most well-liked, they satisfied the issuer’s representatives they might responsibly open a brand new card.

Others needed to name the financial institution’s reconsideration line and confirm their earnings and mortgage data to be authorized. Though there have been a number of additional hoops to leap by, in all of the instances I encountered, former Chase Sapphire cardholders who have been securely out of the 48-month window have been finally authorized for the Chase Sapphire Most well-liked.

Backside line

Though it could actually get a bit sophisticated, you may earn the welcome bonuses on the Chase Sapphire Most well-liked and Chase Sapphire Reserve — even in the event you’ve already had (or nonetheless have however are prepared to downgrade) one among them. You simply must be strategic and versatile and get by Chase’s software restrictions for the 2 playing cards.

Begin by all of your bank card accounts and decide in the event you’re out of the 48-month bonus eligibility window for these playing cards — and beneath Chase’s 5/24 restrict.

If all that’s the case, take into account whether or not you may downgrade to a different Chase card after which apply for the brand new card if you’re prepared. Whilst you might be able to get authorized inside only a few days of downgrading, it is safer to attend not less than a number of weeks earlier than making use of for a brand new one — simply to be sure you’re now not flagged as an current cardholder.

Apply right here: Chase Sapphire Most well-liked
Apply right here: Chase Sapphire Reserve