Chase 50,000 Point Signup Bonus Offer Really Does Appear to Be Going Away

Link: 50,000 Point Signup Bonus for Chase Sapphire Preferred That Still Works.

Yesterday I wrote that Chase had reduced the standard signup bonus for a new Sapphire Preferred card from 50,000 points after spending $3000 within 3 months to 40,000 points.

But that this link still generates a 50,000 point offer (it also earns me a referral credit).

There’s been much handwringing in the blogosphere and on frequent flyer forums over whether the 50,000 point offer is ‘really’ going away or not. Which somewhat misses the point, because for the general public it already has.

Is this your last chance to get the card with a 50,000 point signup bonus? Put another way, if you wait are you walking away from 10,000 free points?

There’s no guarantee that Chase won’t bring back 50,000 points again in the future. But I do not expect my link, or those others may have, to continue to work for long.

Because Chase is telling reporters that

  • 40,000 points is the new offer, they intended to pull the 50,000 bonus miles with the end of winter.
  • Television ads are changing, in fact I saw the newly edited commercial now showing 40,000 points on TV last night.

So they don’t intend to offer 50,000 points, and there’s certainly no reason to believe they will continue to offer links that are even more costly to them (i.e. those that pay referrals) with the higher bonus.

I explained yesterday why I believe that Sapphire Preferred is, in general, the best rewards card out there:

I reviewed the card extensively here. It’s my favorite rewards card:

  • No fee the first year
  • 50,000 points after $3000 in spend within 3 months
  • Double points on travel (air, hotel, car, taxi, toll, etc)
  • Double points on restaurants
  • 7% bonus on all points earned (including the signup bonus)
  • No foreign currency transaction fees
  • Points transfer to United, Hyatt, British Airways, Korean Airlines, Southwest, Amtrak, Marriott Priority Club
  • Access to the Ultimate Rewards shopping portal, which is often the most lucrative mileage mall

I use this card everywhere that takes Visa but not Amex, for all restaurant and travel expenses (though I’ll often put airfare on my American Express Preferred Rewards Gold card which earns triple points), and for all non-U.S. spend. Which seems to be the bulk of my spend.

Having actually heard Chase’s point of view on this, I thought I should pass it along, because the information we have suggests it’s not alarmist at all.

Update: the offer is now 40,000 points. Still one of the very best out there in my view.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

More articles by Gary Leff »

Pingbacks

  1. […] Sapphire–First of all, love the 50,000 sign up bonus (though it may be on its way out).  Then you get a 7% bonus each year, including the sign up bonus.  Double points on travel and […]

  2. […] I’ve gotten distracted a bit, by work, by travel, and a conference. And I’ve spent my credit card energies on the Chase Sapphire Preferred card whose 50,000 point signup bonus was pulled from the general public but is still available through my link (disclosure: offers me referral credit). Then following up to confirm Chase’s intent that that bonus go away. […]

Comments

  1. I still see a 50K bonus offer when accessing an application via the ‘credit cards’ section on chase.com (even after I cleared out cookies from my browser).

  2. I got the Chase United Mileage Plus Explorer card a few months ago. Given that, do you think I’ll still be able to get this card from Chase?

  3. Tried it this morning, the link works, but it then redirects you to a page that indicates that the offer has expired when trying to submit for the offer.

  4. The link on this page is down for me too. Says “Sorry – The Requested Offer is No Longer Available”

  5. I used the link at the top of the column (the one that “still works”) and was successful.

  6. I’ve had different luck with different browsers and times of day, for the first half of the day I got the expired message when clicking on Gary’s link, but now I was just able to get through to the 50k.

    Thanks for posting Gary!

  7. For what it’s worth, I, too (like @Amit), still get the 50K offer through the link at Chase.com (which is where I go to access my online account) — even if I clear all cookies, etc..

  8. Gary I used your link a couple of days ago and was expecting immediate approval–however I received the message that they would get back to me. I was so upset that I called yesterday and wanted a reason why I wasn’t approved upon submitting my application. I have excellent history with Chase and wanted to know why there was a delay–I was told that it was because of other credit lines with Chase cards. I have $5,000 with the AMTRAK card–$20,000 with Hyatt card and $20,000 with BA. I told them to allocate $15,000 from BA to Chase Sapphire Preferred card immediately and after a couple of questions and on hold for about 4-5 minutes I was approved. I”m planning to cancel the BA card in a couple of days since the annual fee is due.The next issue was to make sure that I signed up with the 50,000 point link (yours) and was told then you should get it. Let’s hope I do. Thanks for your help the last 3/4 years.

  9. Wasn’t there something about being able to get a Sapphire MasterCard instead of a Visa? (And being able to get both the MasterCard _and_ the Visa, and the bonuses for both?) I’ve already got the Visa, but would totally get the MC too if I can…

  10. hi, Gary, I have applied for the CSP visa card about 5 months ago and got the bonus, but then switched to the master card. Am I entitled to get the bonus if I apply the visa again?

Comments are closed.