Diplomatico

Speculation started on r/churning this morning, now Doctor of Credit has published the internal Chase memo.

"A Chase insider sent over an important memo which Chase is sending out to their employees that as of August 27 (that’s yesterday) it’s no longer possible to get more than one Sapphire card."

and

"If an account is closed, a customer will not be eligible for any Sapphire-branded credit card if they have earned a cardmember bonus on a Sapphire-branded product within the last 24 months."

Read the whole memo: https://www.doctorofcredit.com/chase...-cant-get-csr/

mia

This has a similar effect to Citi's year-old policy disqualifying bonuses if you have earned one from a related card in the past 24 months. Will Chase implement the same policy with FREEDOM or INK cards?

Diplomatico

Be interesting to see how they treat product changes. If it's counted as an account closure, then you truly have a 24 month waiting period. If PCs don't count as closures, then you could theoretically rotate from CSR to CSP each year by downgrading the previous year's card to a Freedom/FU.

krazykanuck

Perhaps Chase thought that they'd see many people applying for the CSP and then cancelling or downgrading their CSRs since the first wave of annual fees will be upon us very soon.

Sucks because I was hoping to get one through an in branch pre approval for an easy 50k points.

Troopers

And the language is up on Chase.com.

And this:

BuBu4

Lucky for me, i got both cards. But what alarms me was the instant changes without any time for customers to get in.

This really got me scared of the Chase putting Freedom cards as cash only(removing the transfer to CSR/CSP/Ink line). They could change this policy instantly without warning...

Moved it all to CSR/Ink+ for me right now.

pallhedge

The bonus eligibility change only affects new applicants. Any change in one's ability to combine points would affect existing cardholders. That's very different and should require notice.

RNE

I don't let my points accumulate in my Freedom accounts either, but I'm not worried Chase is going to pull the plug without warning.

lss250

What a bummer. I just got the CSP last week and was planning on applying for the CSR once the bonus from the first card posted.

I guess now my choices are to a) upgrade to the CSR, forego the second signup bonus but get the CSR additional benefits or b) wait 24 months after the first CSP bonus, downgrade the CSP to an ultimate freedom, and apply for the CSR?

Does that sound right?

mhdena

Do the people who implement the policies just copy what other banks are doing, or is there a more thought out process involved where the banks might even share their findings and propose ways to combat churners?

BofA, Barclay, have tightened up things also.

pallhedge

Chase won't let you do A until you've had CSP for 12 months (CARD Act rule).

Also, there is a choice c) do both A and B. Wait 12 months PC CSP to CSR. Then wait until 24 months since the bonus. PC CSR to Freedom. Then apply for CSR again.

Diplomatico

That's the ticket, especially since the annual fee is waived for the first year of CSP.

jn in ca

+1

I don't think there is any chance that the timing is coincidental. Chase can see that a huge wall of CSR annual fees are about to hit.

lss250

Makes sense, thanks for pointing this out.

Someone on Reddit also pointed out another area of ambiguity in that PC-ing is different than "closing" an account. The memo refers specifically to no eligibility for 24 months after closing an account, so perhaps it would still be possible to downgrade the CSP to a Freedom as soon as the CSP bonus posted and then be approved for a CSR with eligibility for a CSR bonus. You haven't technically closed any accounts in that scenario, nor would you be holding multiple Sapphire products at any time.

I personally doubt it, as the intent seems to be to prevent double dipping bonuses (or at least wait a few years before doing so) and this is a fairly obvious workaround. But will be interesting to see.

Edit: whoops, Diplomatico made the same point upthread! Should have read closer

penner42

I was planning on waiting until October to apply for the Ink Preferred. No particular reason, really. I haven't gotten a new card since Aug 22, 2016 (CSR) and just dropped back to 4/24. Was just going to give it a couple more months. But now I'm worried they'll add this language for the Ink, too, and don't want to give up my Ink Bold. So I just applied. (Got 30 day message, fingers crossed.)