The Chase Sapphire Most well-liked® Card and Chase Sapphire Reserve® are two of our favourite journey bank cards at TPG.
They each earn useful Chase Final Rewards factors, supplying you with entry to among the finest lodge and airline switch companions within the enterprise. You will take pleasure in entry to the easy-to-use Chase Journey℠ portal that lets you redeem factors for all kinds of journey bookings, together with rental automobiles, inns, flights, excursions and actions.
Each playing cards embrace further 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 provide 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’ll be able to 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 how one can 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: Do you have to go mid-tier or premium?
Overview of Chase software restrictions
Chase has three predominant restrictions in the event you want to be accredited for both of the Sapphire playing cards:
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- The 5/24 rule: To be accredited 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 it’s essential to be beneath 5/24 to be accredited. The 5/24 rule solely applies to getting accredited 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 have the ability to earn a bonus on a Chase card in the event you presently maintain that card in your pockets or in the event you earned a welcome bonus on that precise card within the final 24 to 48 months.
- You could not presently have any Sapphire playing cards open.
Do not forget that 5/24 shouldn’t be the one issue figuring out whether or not your Chase bank card software is accredited — your credit score rating, revenue, debt ranges and many different variables are additionally thought-about.
The simplest strategy to verify your 5/24 standing is to enroll in the free credit score report service at Experian (ensure 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 high proper to kind by the date you opened your account. From right here, rely something opened throughout the final 24 months.
Chase solely seems 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 sometimes can solely open one private and one enterprise card each 90 days, and Chase will usually restrict the whole credit score they will lengthen to a person borrower — so that you typically want to maneuver round credit score traces with a purpose to get accredited.
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 at the very least 48 months because you earned a welcome bonus on the cardboard, you could possibly be eligible to earn one once more — however you should be strategic to adjust to Chase’s guidelines above.
Bear in mind, you’ll be able to’t earn the bonus on both card in the event you presently maintain a Sapphire card, so that you should be “Sapphire free.” As we focus on beneath, there are numerous the reason why it is best to downgrade an current Sapphire card reasonably than canceling it outright.
The nice information is that you simply need not wait two years after canceling or downgrading to be eligible for a welcome bonus; the time counted is from once you obtained 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 could possibly downgrade your Sapphire Reserve and thus change into 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 simple: Name the customer support telephone quantity on the again of your card and communicate to a Chase agent to inform them you need to downgrade to a card with a decrease annual payment or no annual payment. You can too contact Chase through a safe message portal on its web site, however reviews recommend that product-change requests should be revamped the telephone.
Be aware that you will need to stay within the Chase-branded household once you downgrade a Sapphire card — and you may’t swap a private card for a enterprise one. Because of this, the preferred choices for a downgrade embrace the Chase Freedom Limitless® and the Chase Freedom Flex®.
Should you’re fortunate, you may even get a prorated refund of your annual payment once you downgrade to a card with a decrease annual payment (particularly in the event you achieve this inside 30 days of the annual payment posting to your assertion). Chase is not going to have to carry out a credit score verify because you’re sustaining your current account as an alternative of opening a brand new one.
You’ll retain the account quantity, stability and due date of your previous product once you downgrade your card. You will obtain a brand new card with the title of the brand new product inside just a few days, however for the reason that card quantity would be the similar, you’ll be able to proceed to make use of your previous card beneath the phrases and advantages of the brand new one earlier than and even after you are issued a brand new card.
Why it is best to downgrade and never cancel
The age of your credit score accounts makes up 10% of your complete credit score rating. So, maintaining this account open would proceed to buoy your credit score rating.
Downgrading as an alternative of canceling will even help you preserve your total 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 preserve your rating excessive.
Alternatively, canceling your card can dent your common age of accounts and lift your credit score utilization ratio by reducing your total credit score restrict. It could actually additionally delay your skill to use for a brand new Sapphire card.
At the least one TPG employees member canceled his Sapphire Reserve card outright, and when he utilized virtually per week later for the Sapphire Most well-liked card, he was denied. He was instructed by a number of Chase representatives, together with in particular person 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 need to apply for a brand new Sapphire card with out a prolonged delay, contemplate downgrading an current Sapphire card reasonably 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 at the very least 30 days from the closure date to redeem the factors in case your account is in good standing.
The one large drawback of downgrading a card is that you simply sometimes will not get a welcome bonus for the cardboard you are downgrading to. Nonetheless, in the event you plan to earn an enormous 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 price 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 accredited. In different phrases, Chase checked out their total monetary image and determined it had prolonged them as a lot credit score because it was going to.
However by talking to representatives and agreeing to maneuver among 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 revenue and mortgage data to be accredited. Though there have been just a few further 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 ultimately accredited for the Chase Sapphire Most well-liked.
Backside line
Though it will possibly get a bit difficult, you’ll be able to 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 in every of them. You simply have to be strategic and versatile and get by Chase’s software restrictions for the 2 playing cards.
Begin by taking a look at 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, contemplate whether or not you’ll be able to downgrade to a different Chase card after which apply for the brand new card once you’re prepared. When you might be able to get accredited inside just some days of downgrading, it is safer to attend at the very least just a few weeks earlier than making use of for a brand new one — simply to ensure you’re not flagged as an current cardholder.
Apply right here: Chase Sapphire Most well-liked
Apply right here: Chase Sapphire Reserve
