There is no anniversary date per se for your Chase cards from the billing of AF standpoint if this is your concern. Chase always bills the AF on the 1st of the month. In years past I got billed for my Continental card on the SAME date I was instantly approved the card, that was 1st of the month. The card showed up online, WITH the $75 annual fee already billed, while it took another week before I received the card!

From that on, for any Chase fee-based card that has the first year fee waived, I applied within the first week of the month, but never on the 1st of the month. This way, the AF of the 2nd year would be billed on the 1st of the FOLLOWING month.

Example, applied a Marriott card on 2nd of June. It was approved the same day via recon. Marriott considered the 2nd of June was the anniversary date and issued the anniversary cert on 2nd of June the following year. Chase on the other hand, billed the 2nd year AF on 1st of July. The implication of this is, it allows you extra time to hopefully get a retention offer or takes time to think about whether you want to keep a card or not.

Conversely if you apply your card on the last few days of the month, you would NOT get the full 12 months free on your first year as Chase would bill you on the 1st of the calendar month when you initially applied, so you in effect lost a few weeks of time for fee-free. I had an IHG card applied on Oct 26th. Chase billed the AF on Oct 1st the following year and I did not get my IHG anniversary cert until the last week of October, usually on the anniversary date Oct 26th.

Hope the above examples would help you understand when to apply could make a difference a year later on when you receive your anniversary benefits, and when you are billed the AF.