Chase removing Sapphire family rule, expanding 48 month rule & allowing new cards without welcome offers

Yesterday’s news was dominated by the announcements of a revamp of the Chase Sapphire Reserve card, the upcoming launch of a Sapphire Reserve for Business card and upcoming changes to redemptions in the Chase Travel℠ portal.

There were some other Chase-related tidbits relating to these cards that were flagged by View From The Wing. On the positive side of things, Chase will be getting rid of the Sapphire family rule and will now allow you to get one of those cards without a welcome offer being attached. However, there will be algorithmic changes which could affect your ability to earn the bonuses from welcome offers in the future, plus the 48 month rule on the Sapphire family of cards will be expanded.

Sapphire Family Language

Previously, you couldn’t get a new Sapphire Reserve card if you already had a Sapphire Preferred card (and vice versa). There was a workaround in that you could have one of those cards and upgrade one of the Freedom family of cards to the other premium Sapphire type that you didn’t have, but getting a brand new Sapphire Preferred or Sapphire Reserve while already being a cardholder of the other wasn’t possible.

That’s going to be changing. Chase confirmed to View From The Wing that if you have a Sapphire Preferred card at the moment, you’ll be able to apply for the Sapphire Reserve card (and vice versa):

Beginning June 23, 2025 you will be able to have both the Sapphire Reserve and Sapphire Preferred cards. New account bonus offer eligibility for either card will be based on factors including previously earned bonus offers and the number of cards opened and closed, among others.

That latter sentence sounds much like Amex’s popup prison policy, so perhaps we’ll have to call this ‘Chase card confinement consideration’ (or something a little more snappy). It’s potentially concerning though because it could mean that even if you’re under 5/24, you could be denied for a welcome offer based on other factors.

It’ll be interesting to see if this policy will be expanded to other card families. For example, when it launched something like seven years ago, it was possible to get the IHG Premier card even if you already had the IHG Select card (which itself is no longer available for new applications). That policy remained for a while, but eventually Chase changed the rules to disallow people from getting the IHG Premier card if they still held the IHG Select card. It would be great if that policy was loosened for people who still have the legacy Select card but not the Premier.

Get A New Sapphire Card Without A Welcome Offer

The 5/24 rule means that many people aren’t able to get new Chase cards. That means that you can’t get the card even if all you want it for are its benefits rather than the welcome offer of x points/miles after $x spend.

For the revamped Sapphire Reserve card at least, that policy will be loosened. Per Chase:

Consumers applying through most channels will be notified during the application process if they are not eligible for a bonus offer and given the choice to continue the application or cancel the application with no impact to their credit score.

Given the $795 annual fee and plethora of coupon book credits, I wouldn’t want to apply for the Sapphire Reserve card without any kind of welcome offer attached. However, I imagine there’s a small subset of people who can easily redeem the various credits for more than $795 of value and so might appreciate having the card regardless, especially for other benefits such as rental car insurance, lounge access, 4x earning on flights and hotels booked directly, etc.

We’ll try to find out if that policy will extend to other cards in Chase’s portfolio, particularly cobranded cards. For example, the World of Hyatt business card is popular with some big spenders who value Globalist status due to its ability to earn 5 elite night credits for every $10,000 spent on the card. However, if you’re over 5/24 then you can’t get that card at the moment, even if you’re most interested in it for that benefit rather than any kind of associated welcome offer. If it was possible to apply for the card without the welcome offer, I’m sure there’d be some people who’d jump at the chance to earn status more easily.

48 Month Rule Being Expanded

Some other bad news in all of this is that it might become harder to be eligible for new card welcome offers. At the moment you have to wait 48 months from the last time you earned the bonus from a welcome offer on a Sapphire card before you can earn the bonus again.

That’ll be changing based on this statement from Chase:

We are transitioning away from the family of cards every 48 month eligibility to a same product premium eligibility. The timeframe will be longer than 48 months but we aren’t able to share additional details.

That’s disappointing because it’ll now potentially be even harder to be eligible for the welcome offer on a new Sapphire Preferred or Sapphire Reserve card.

The post Chase removing Sapphire family rule, expanding 48 month rule & allowing new cards without welcome offers appeared first on Frequent Miler. Frequent Miler may receive compensation from CHASE. American Express, Capital One, or other partners.