Decreases in Chase Ultimate Reward Cards

To see the latest, updated offer on this card and others, please visit this page.

Over the last week, the Chase Sapphire Preferred has dropped to 40,000 bonus points instead of the 50,000 point total that had been around for about a year. Now, the business card, the Chase INK Bold, is beginning to follow suit. Here is where things stand now:

Chase Sapphire Preferred

The current sign-up bonus is at 40,000 bonus points (after spending $3,000 in the first 3 months). It has come down from 50,000 points. This was a somewhat expected change that was talked about a couple of months ago, although no one knew at the time what the change was going to be. There is no temporary language in the current publicly available offer, so this might be the regular offer. 40,000 is still great – if you took it as a statement credit on your bill, it is $400! If you use it to purchase travel, it counts as $500. If you transfer it to United, that is enough for two round-trip, short-haul award tickets (sometimes the most expensive domestic tickets to purchase). To give you an example, I looked at a one-day trip to Chicago and found wide open availability for 20,000 miles. That one ticket, if purchased with cash, is $1100! That is using just half off the bonus of this card. So, this is still a great value card and one I would suggest you get. You can apply here (I do NOT earn a commission off of this card)

 

Chase INK Bold

This is the small business card from Chase. It has had a higher spend amount than the Sapphire Preferred – $5,000 spend in the first 3 months. There are many great things about this card:

• 5x points per $1 spent at office supply stores and on cellular, landline, internet, and cable TV services
• 2x points per $1 spent at gas stations and hotels
• No foreign transaction fees
• Points feed into the valuable Ultimate Rewards program

So, this is a great card to have alongside your Chase Sapphire Preferred. However, Chase has changed the publicly available offers to where you now receive 25,000 points after your first purchase and the additional 25,000 points after $10,000 spend in 3 months. That is a huge bump (a 100% increase, actually) for the required spend to get the points. Does this rule this card out as a card to get? No – especially if you are in the middle of trying to meet your spend requirements on your other cards. You now can get 25,000 points after just one purchase! However, it is that much harder to get the full 50,000 points. This seems to be a trend of business cards as of late – a higher spending requirement to receive the bonus points. It is still entirely possible to meet the spend, it just means that your outlay of cash to receive it may go up. For example, you can purchase gift cards and turn them into cash paying a small fee plus the small fee on the purchase of the card. That may add up to around $350 if you only use that method to reach the spending total. Does that negate the worth of this card? It depends on how you plan to use the points. I can get anywhere from $.03 per point to $.15 per point, so I would consider doing that. Your mileage may vary. Here is the link to the current, public offer (I do NOT receive a commission from this card)

HOWEVER, this card’s original bonus is not gone completely! Chase affiliates still have the offer. I am not currently an affiliate, so I cannot give you that better offer, but I will steer you to a blogger who I generally use for my card applications. Darius @ Million Mile Secrets still has links that will give you the bonus under the original offer.