Chase’s NEW 3/24 Rule + NEW $1000 Credit

Well, we have a couple of changes to a certain Chase credit card, one very good and one kind of bad, but it might not be as bad as it sounds. Then we also have some data points that the Chase 524 rule has changed to 324 for some types of applications. We'll tell you all about that, too. Hey, credit warriors, welcome to the show. My name is Ben Hedges, aka The Credit Shofu, and on this channel, I cover U.S. credit cards, personal finance and luxury travel. If you like the sound of that, do subscribe. And this video is brought to you by Max Rewards. But more on that later. So Chase has announced the first major changes to the Sapphire Reserve for business since the card launched in 2025. And interestingly, we've got one change that's actually really good and another change that technically makes the card worse, although it's probably only going to affect some absolutely enormous businesses. You'll kind of understand what I mean later. So let's get started, though, with the good news. Beginning January 1st, 2027, Chase is doubling the amount of hotel credits you can get through the edit by Chase Travel. Right now, the Sapphire Reserve for business gives you two credits of up to $250 each year when you book qualifying stays through the edit. So together, that's up to a total of $500 per year. But beginning next year, Chase is increasing that to four separate credits of up to $250 each. That means you'll potentially be able to get $1,000 per year in the edit hotel credits. And remember, the annual fee on this card is $795. This is for the business reserve, by the way. We're going to tell you whether or not this is coming to the personal version in a moment. But anyway, technically, if you use all four of these credits, you're getting a thousand dollars of statement credits from this benefit alone. OK, and there are other benefits of this card. Right. Not just this one, but this benefit alone. You're getting a thousand dollars in benefit. So that's going to be two hundred and five dollars more than the entire annual fee. Now, obviously, there's a catch. Well, actually, there are two catches. Number one is that you actually have to want to stay at hotels in the edit. OK, the edit is Chase's collection of more than a thousand luxury hotels and resorts. You have to book an eligible stay of at least two nights through Chase Travel in order to trigger each credit. All right. So you want to stay two nights at an edit hotel. If you stay there just to use the credit, you'll be spending even more money, since I doubt there are any hotels in the edit that are just 250 a night. OK, no, these are all like five hundred and up. And remember, like we said, you're staying two nights. So you're going to be spending at least a thousand dollars, OK, just to get two hundred and fifty dollars back. You'd still be down seven hundred and fifty dollars. But these bookings do come with additional benefits. When you stay at an edit property, you can receive daily breakfast for two, a hundred dollar property credit, complimentary Wi-Fi, a welcome amenity, potentially even a room upgrade. Well, hey, early check in, late check out when available, etc. But that said, you still need to be someone who would stay at one of these anyway. So if you are somebody who already stays at high end hotels several times a year for more than one night, right, for two nights in a row each time, this benefit could actually become extremely valuable. Now, there is a second catch and you might have figured that one out already. Well, that is that the credits are still split into four times two hundred and fifty dollars for the year. They're not each quarter, though, like Amex does with the fine hotels and resorts collection credit. It's once every six months you get it. But with Chase, it's just four per year. So you can use them whenever you want. But you do actually still have to stay four separate times. OK, now you could do two back to back two night stays for a total of four nights at the same hotel booking with two of the credits and two separate bookings. So you book one and then you book the next one and you've got four nights that is allowed. But let's say edit hotels cost an average of five hundred dollars per night. In reality, it's probably more. But just say five hundred dollars. Well, in that case, you would have to stay eight nights per year on four separate bookings spending four thousand dollars to get just one thousand dollars back. So you still actually have to want to stay at these places and spend some money. Now, there is also one really important additional detail here. The increased one thousand dollar edit credit is only coming to the Sapphire Reserve for business. All right. Chase confirmed that the personal Sapphire Reserve is not getting the same increase. So this actually creates a pretty significant difference now between the business version and the personal version. I guess it's probably because they expect holders of the business card to spend more so they can give richer rewards. All right. Let's now talk about the bad news, which is another change to the business reserve. And then we'll talk about the new three twenty four rule. But first, if you're serious about getting every little bit of value out of your rewards credit cards, you've got to check out the app Max Rewards. Not only does it show you your balances, transactions, points and rewards balances across all your cards, even if they're from different issuers. So you can see everything in one app. But it also incorporates really useful features like the card value tracker, where you can clearly see the value you got back in a year versus the annual fee. You can see it on my Amex gold. We have the value of the points I earned, the offers I redeemed and the credits I used in the most recent update. They've redesigned the benefits page to give you a very clear picture of your coupon book style credits. You can browse across all your cards like the Amex Dunkin credit, the Lululemon credit. You can even see your spend progress towards a free night on the Hilton card. So it's very easy to see where you can maximize value and where you missed out. Look, I forgot to use my Amex dining credit in April. And that's exactly what the credit card companies want you to do. Forget about these benefits and let them reset the next month so you lose them. This really lets you outsmart the corporations. In addition, the offers page still lets you search your offers across all of your cards from different banks. There's the for you tab, which finds offers that are appropriate for you based on your past spending. The popular tab showing you offers popular with Max Rewards users and the value tab showing you the offers where you can get the most cash back or rewards. And these are offers from all your banks. Look, here's an Amex one and the next one is a Chase one. Max Rewards will also activate all your offers for you so you never miss a deal. Some of these are premium features and require Max Rewards gold, but you can get a free trial and then a three month discount after the trial ends with my link below. Or if you download it directly from the App Store, use code Ben when you sign up for the same deal. There are also free features on the app that you can try out as well. So Chase is putting a cap on one of this card's most unusual earning categories. The Sapphire Reserve for Business currently earns three points per dollar on social media and search engine advertising. And until now, that earning rate has been uncapped. That's pretty unusual. Most business credit cards that offer bonus points on advertising eventually put some kind of annual spending limit on the category. And for some very large companies spending hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars per year on Google ads, Facebook, Instagram and other platforms, an uncapped three X category could generate a ridiculous number of Chase points. Well, Chase has apparently decided that maybe uncapped was a little bit too generous. So beginning November 15th, 2026, you'll earn three X points per dollar on social media and search engine advertising up to one million dollars in eligible spending per account anniversary year. After you cross that one million dollar threshold, you would be down to one point per dollar. Now, let's put that in perspective. A million dollars of advertising spend at three X would generate three million Chase ultimate rewards points. So I don't think the average small business owner needs to start panicking here. Chase itself says that this change isn't expected to affect the vast majority of cardholders. And I think that's probably fair. If you're spending more than one million dollars per year just on search and social media advertising, you've probably got bigger problems or you're probably making so much money you don't even need the points anyway. I'd still like those extra Chase points, though. I mean, if you do earn a lot of points, give them to me, send them over here. For the first year of this new rule, Chase says eligible advertising spending will be counted from November 15th, 2026 through to the statement when your next annual fee appears. And after that, the one million allowance resets every account anniversary year. So actually, if your annual fee was going to hit in December or from November 15th, you've got a million dollar allowance. So you could spend a million dollars on advertising, get three million Chase points after your annual fee rolls around in December. End of December, you spend another million dollars, you get another three million points. You got six million Chase points in the space of two months. Yeah, I don't think there's that many businesses that could do that. But anyway, it's a nice thought. So overall, I would say these changes are actually a net positive for the overwhelming majority of Sapphire Reserve for business cardholders. You're potentially gaining another five hundred dollars per year of hotel credits. You just need to be a big spender to take advantage of them. And the advertising thing is not that big of a deal. Right now, there's still a huge welcome bonus on the card. New cardholders can earn up to two hundred thousand Chase points after spending thirty thousand dollars in the first six months. All right. Let's now look at this apparent new three twenty four rule. So check this out from Reddit. I applied for an ink preferred last Saturday while being at 424. I got immediate rejection due to number of accounts open recently. I called recon and was told that starting this week they moved from 524 to 324 for people applying as sole proprietorship. I'm not sure if that's accurate or I just got bad luck with an agent. So I think all our viewers are familiar with the 524 rule from Chase, right? Which states that if you've opened five or more personal credit cards in the past 24 months, you cannot open a new Chase card, personal or business. And people on that Reddit thread all seem to be confirming that this new 324 rule exists. Two agents confirmed 324 today. So, yay. DW applied on 915, but they are all saying the same thing now. I don't know what DW means, but that's the date that he applied on. OK, 915. People are also wondering if Chase business cards now count towards 524. And this is what is causing people to think that there is a 324 rule. But that seems to not be the case. Hearing the same thing from Chase about 324 rule when calling for reconsideration. Zero business cards and 424 overall. So that person didn't have any business cards at all and was under 524, but over 324 and got denied for a Chase business card as a sole proprietor. And this next person says it even more clearly. This just happened to me moments ago today. I am at 324, including CSR and CSP, no business cards, got denied on basis of numbers of accounts opened recently, called for recon, that's reconsideration, got forwarded to an underwriter and the underwriter was resolute that 324 is the new policy. And he cannot reconsider the denial because 524 has moved to 324. I asked if this is a new written policy and he was unsure, but said it's a firm policy and his hands are tied. It's interesting that the reps are even mentioning 324 now, right? In the past, Chase never used to even mention 524. People just figured it out from the patterns in the data points. But anyway, it seems if you are applying for Chase business cards as a sole proprietor, i.e. using your own social security number instead of the tax identification number of an LLC, you will be faced with this problem. How to fix it? Apply for a Chase business card as a company if you have one, or just wait until you are out of 324 jail. I guess they're doing this because they're probably trying to cut down on people who don't really genuinely have a business applying for their business cards just because they want to churn them or something. Anyway, guys, that is the video for today. If you want a free trial of Max Rewards Gold and a three month discount, if you choose to continue after the trial ends, do click the link down below. Please subscribe to our channel if you're new and we'll see you next time. Bye.