garykung

Per various reports, 5/24 rule is pretty much a non-negotiable policy and can't be circumvented. So the churning strategy is basically being responsible in churning or you totally skip Chase for good.

It is a very on-topic discussion.

What I believe is you are trying to look for ways to circumvent the 5/24 rule, which practically does not exist.

Chase relies on your consumer reports to tell if you meet the 5/24 rule or not.

Unless those business cards start reporting to a CRA (which are not currently), Chase will have no way to know if you have a new business card.

biggestbopper

garykung:

Yep, you're right. I would like to find a way around 5/24/ And, I suspect that some FTer somewhere will figure it out and let us know.

In the long run IMHO the new Chase policy is likely to collapse as the number of opened accounts drops significantly.

Luckily, with the help of my fellow FTers I have stockpiled a lot of Ultimate Rewards points. Guess it's burn time so I don't have to keep an INK or Sapph Pref card open to retain my miles.

Non-Chase business cards huh? Already got my little brain going!

flyer4512

UNLESS changes the way it gather credit pulls.

I'll stick to my current strategy of one person being the Chase person

I also have over 1 million hotel points and 1 million airline miles. Those of us who prepapared for tougher times have more leeway going forward

garykung

There is actually a know exception:

1. You must be rich enough to be a Chase PC client; and,
2. Your PC banker must be willing to help you.

To do both (especially #2), a minimum balance of $225K, as advertised, will NOT be enough.

Well...in the past, Chase's policy was 1 bonus lifetime per product. Look at the policy now. It has definitely improved.

Unless for premium redemption, it is actually the worst time to burn, given the airfare has been dropped significantly.

biggestbopper

garykung:

Still agreeing with you.

I looked into the Private Client thing a week or so ago. Had a nice chat with the Private Banker salesman. He told me I could test the water with a $125K for the first year or so. Had some not so great experiences with Citigold a while ago and suspect Chase PC might have its own problems. But, I haven't given up on PC yet. I wonder if one can transfer a Vanguard or Fidelity fund holding to Chase to meet the threshold without incurring capital gains taxes or hefty fees?

As to Chase future churning policy--who knows?

And as to burning--more agreement. So far this year used AA miles for F on BA to Europe and UAL miles for biz to Europe. I actually paid (oh, the horror! ) for an Air France flt from Prague to Paris because it was only around $80).

Eagerly awaiting for FTer input on striking back against 5/24.

happyvoid

I thought with Chase business cards still go thru 5/24 rule so if you had more than 5 cards within 24 months you won't get approved for a Chase ink card

garykung

1. The key is to make the PC Banker willing to help you, which I don't think I need to say more on how to do so.

2. You can transfer your holding, providing that Chase can liquidate for you (marketable securities).

ralphs

I think the real value is in transferring good holdings (e.g. Vanguard Target Retirement 20XX) and NOT liquidating it. Assuming Chase lets you hang onto the securities, and assuming Chase doesn't charge you 1% or whatever AUM, then I think it should work out?

But that's not really worth churning 2-3 extra Chase products.

pritomd

Pre-approval in branch worked for me to bypass 5/24 a few days ago for Freedom Unlimited (I was at 8/24). Make sure it's a pre-approval in branch and not just applying regularly in branch. I have no other Chase accounts besides CCs and did not inquire about any checking/savings accounts at the same time as checking my FU preapproval.

tev9999

There is no predicting the future. I don't think I'm going to pause to meet Chase's 5/24 rule. I'm currently at 14/24. I won't be back to 4/24 for 19 months, but I'll be eligible for several Citi TYP and AA bonuses in six.

Do I really want to gamble that Citi won't pull an Amex move and go once per lifetime nine months from now? Are we sure that Chase isn't losing market share due to 5/24 and will kill/modify it in 12 months? Are Amex and <insert your favorite travel provider here> working on launching new products in six months that will have more value than a Chase churn? We just don't know.

I'm continuing with my strategy of grabbing good signup bonuses as they come along, aligned with any major expenses to eliminate MS whenever possible. If that means Chase is out of the picture, oh well. I've got plenty of places I want to travel, so I have no problem basing my vacations on the points I have vs. basing my CC applications on the points I need to get to XYZ.

mikex163

My thoughts exactly tev9999. I love Chase, and it has been my main source of CCs signups for the few years I've been doing this game. But they are not that much more valuable that I'll stop everything to be with Chase.

sdsearch

One two-week vacation a year to halfway around the world for someone who's taller can mean 125k or more in miles (and maybe hard to predict which kind of miles until booking time) for a business class round trip, and enough hotel points (or certs) for a dozen nights or more (if the location being visited has expensive hotels for which you don't want to pay cash).

In programs that only give 30k miles per card signup, that requires 4 to 5 churns a year for the airline miles, and gosh, it's darn hard to even get two weeks worth of hotel points a year no matter how much you churn (given the limits on churning most hotel cards).

So it all depends on specifics. (Yes, if it's a single three-hour coach flight a year for a weekend visit to family, that's quite different that a single business class trip to the other side of the world and a long stay in an expensive area there.)

sdsearch

Nothing safe about it. More probable than Chase starting to non-Chase business cards is Chase changing 5/24 to 5/36 (like Citi without warning went from 18 months to 24 months).

There's no reason to expect that 5/24 will necessarily work in 2 years the way it does now. Now, there's no way to know how it might change, so there's not much you can rely on except how it's worked up to now, but there's nothing I see "safe" about extrapolating the future from the past.

5/24 itself came with no warning. 5/24 being expanded to business and partner cards came with only a few months of warning.

Over at Amex, the once-in-a-"lifetime" rule came with no warning.

Over at Citi, the 18 month language came without warning to its first cards (though it didn't come to all cards at once), and the change from 18 to 24 months came with no warning at all (and within days applied to all cards).

So looking in retrospect, any churning "safety" plans made two years ago for today (two years from two years ago) would be useless today.

And so how likely is it that nothing more will change in the next 2 years???

sdsearch

Citi has done something previously unthinkable to TYP signup bonuses: They've simply (intermittently?) eliminated them for most TYP cards! Preferred had a 20k bonus, then publicly it disappeared, and all that's known right now is a 10k bonus. Premier had a 50k bonus, then publicly it disappeared and hasn't reappeared yet, obscure 40k links were found a few times and each died within a week to a month or so.

How can you churn signup bonuses if there are no signup bonuses any more?

garykung

I admit there are always variable. But if you travel frequently enough, sooner or later you will realize that miles/points can't do everything. Eventually, you know someone will have to pay for a ticket.