Navigating the Chase 5/24 Rule: Tips and Strategies

Transcript

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It's a mistake to skip over understanding Chase's 524 rule because, while the rule itself is fairly straightforward, it has a lot of implications for your overall points strategy.

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If you don't understand it, you can unwittingly make mistakes that will prevent you from getting some of the very best credit cards for points.

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Welcome back to Points for Normal People.

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I'm Katie and I believe that travel isn't just for the rich.

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That's why I'm here to help you learn the secrets that my family has been using for over a decade To use everyday expenses and credit card welcome offers to supercharge your points earning, and when you learn to do this, you can cover entire vacations every year.

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This is not the most exciting episode, but it is so important to understand the Chase 524 rule.

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After this episode, I'm hoping that you will be able to internalize this rule so much that you could explain it to a stranger on the street.

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That's how important this rule is.

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You need to really get it.

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More likely, you might have to explain it to a spouse or a partner who you are roping into this hobby as well.

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It's not super complicated, but there are a few nuances and I want to make sure that you really get it.

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After I explain what the rule is.

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I'm going to go over how it affects your card opening strategy, as well as some overall strategy tips in regards to the 524 rule, as well as touch on what you need to do when you're over 524.

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Now, as I mentioned in episode four, I have a really straightforward strategy.

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You can follow my three-year plan.

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This strategy lays it all out for you for your first three years and means that you don't have to create your own strategy.

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But there are a few things that you need to understand about the Chase 524 rule before you proceed with the three-year plan beyond the first few cards.

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So what is the Chase 524 rule?

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First, you need to understand that this is an unpublished rule.

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It first came out in 2015.

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In fact, due to my age and longevity not really, I just turned 40, but I have been in the TravelPoint space for a long time, so I remember the days before 524.

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And when it came out, we had to revamp our strategy to account for it.

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This happens.

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Rules change, banks change the way they do things.

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As I mentioned in episode four, people who are into travel points are not the bank's ideal customers.

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We aren't profitable customers, so banks need to find ways to limit travel points nerds, and they will continue to do this.

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But if there's one thing I've learned in all of this time being involved in this hobby, it's that there's always a way, there's always going to be a deal and there's always going to be another way to get one.

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So Chase's 524 is a guiding principle that Chase has as a bank for when someone has too many new credit cards and they don't want to give them anymore.

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It's written out as 5 slash 24.

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In this number, the 5 is referring to the number of credit cards that you have opened and the 24 is a time period in months.

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So in this case, 5 slash 24 means five new credit card accounts in the past 24 months.

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It's written as 5-24 because those are the specific numbers that guide Chase's rule.

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Chase will rarely approve you for a credit card if you have opened five or more credit cards in the past 24 months.

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This doesn't refer to the total number of credit cards that you have opened.

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It doesn't refer to the total number of credit cards that you have opened.

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It doesn't refer to the number of applications.

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It is the number of new credit card accounts in the past 24 months.

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People use this shorthand in other ways as well.

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So you may see a reference in a blog post that you're reading that a different bank has a 1-slash-6 rule, so in that case, this refers to one card in the past six months.

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People also use this same terminology to describe how many cards they have opened in a given time period.

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This is most often in comment sections, where people are sharing data points.

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If I say I'm 124, that means I have opened one new credit card in the past 24 months.

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If people have opened a lot of credit cards, you might see them say that they are LOL slash 24, which means that they have opened way more than they care to count.

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Let's talk first about how you figure out what your score is.

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You need to know your own score so you can keep track of it.

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My three-year plan assumes you're coming in at 024, which is not likely the case for most people.

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While there are some programs that can help you automate this, I'm going to recommend that this first time, you manually count it yourself.

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You're going to go to annualfreecreditreportcom and get a free copy of your credit report.

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You are going to count up every new credit card account for the past 24 months.

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While you're at it.

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You should look at every account on there to make sure it's familiar.

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Anything that's appearing as a credit card account with an open date in the past 24 months counts.

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I suggest writing down the account and the date you opened it, whatever appears on your credit report.

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Make a note of these because you'll want to know when these accounts fall off your 524 count.

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This includes bank credit cards from all banks.

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This isn't just Chase cards.

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This is any credit card from any bank.

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This includes charge cards, like if you have an Amex gold card.

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This includes store credit cards.

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If you were at Kohl's and they offered you a 30% code if you applied for a new credit card, that counts.

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After the 524 rule came out, it really squashed my ability to get those discounts at the register.

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If the card is listed on your credit report because you're an authorized user, it counts.

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Add it to your score and count it.

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There is a nuance with authorized users I will go into in a minute.

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This includes all of this includes cards that are now closed but were opened in the past 24 months, so don't forget to check the closed accounts as well.

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Student loans, mortgages, car loans those do not count.

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You need to get your score and understand when different card accounts will fall off.

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By fall off, I mean when it gets to the point where those cards have now been on your report for more than 24 months.

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They won't count anymore.

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Technically speaking, a card falls off on the first of the month that follows whenever the 24 months are up.

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So let me explain that for a minute.

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If you got a card on March 15th 2020, in two years that would fall off in 2024.

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But it doesn't seem to fall off on March 15th 2024, exactly two years after it seems to fall off on April 1st 2024.

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As best we can understand it, when the Chase computer algorithm looks at your credit card application, it scans your credit card report and this is what it is doing.

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It is adding up how many new card accounts you have in the past 24 months.

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If that number is five or more, you are very likely to get rejected.

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There are naturally a few nuances here.

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Nuances are fun, right, because they're a little bit like loopholes.

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First nuance I want to discuss on this is the authorized user nuance.

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If you are an authorized user on somebody's card, it technically doesn't add to your 524 score, but the Chase computer algorithm is kind of dumb and if you apply for a card, it runs through and adds up all of your new accounts, whether you are the authorized user or the primary user.

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If you have only one card where you are the primary user and if you had four cards where you are the authorized user, the computer will deny you.

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It thinks that you're at 524.

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At this point you can call in and make your case that four of these are not really your accounts.

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You are only an authorized user.

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Now, if you're right at 524 with all of those accounts, the customer service rep at the reconsideration department may be able to look into it and approve you anyway.

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They can do this manually, but they typically seem to only subtract one authorized user account from your account.

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If you have a lot of accounts on your credit report, or even one to two where you are an authorized user, don't panic, you can get these removed.

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When the 524 rule came out, we had to go and do this because we always used to put each other as authorized users on all of our cards.

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Now the process for getting an authorized user account removed from a credit report can vary a little bit by bank, but I will give you a quick overview here and link some more resources in the show notes on how you can do this.

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There are two parts to removing an authorized user account from a credit report and, just so you know, it can take a few months for it to fully come off.

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You'll have to cancel the authorized user card and then you will have to get that account removed from the credit report entirely.

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If you just cancel the authorized user account, it may stay on the credit report as a closed account.

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That would still add to your 524 count, so we really don't want to do that.

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Sometimes you can do this all at once.

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For some banks the starting point would be to call or send a secure message and ask that the authorized user account be closed and then, at the same conversation, ask them to remove this account from the authorized user's credit report.

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If that doesn't work, what we were able to do multiple times was dispute the account directly with a credit bureau.

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There, that doesn't work.

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What we were able to do multiple times was dispute the account directly with a credit bureau.

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There are some of those disputes that you can do directly in Credit Karma and some that you can do with Experian For TransUnion and Equifax.

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You can do those disputes with Credit Karma and with Experian.

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You can do it directly on their website.

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It'll give you a drop down of why you're disputing that account.

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I think I used the option of something like I'm not financially responsible for this account.

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After we went through the process of disputing them, we saw that within a few months that these had been removed from all three credit bureaus.

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This leads to an important strategy tip here, which is do not add your spouse or partner as your authorized user automatically.

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Do not add them automatically because that's messing up their 524 status.

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Going forward, I recommend that you only add authorized users to your credit cards if you have a very specific reason.

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So that's the authorized user nuance.

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It sort of counts, but it's just easier to not add them when possible, because it's going to help you avoid some phone calls to Chase.

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The next nuance on your 524 count is business credit cards.

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A fun fact about business cards is that most of them don't actually show up as an account on your credit report.

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So while the Chase computer is scanning your credit report to calculate your 524 score, it only counts accounts that it sees on your credit report If you've gotten a business card and it doesn't appear on your credit report, it doesn't count.

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Guess what bank has a whole bunch of business cards.

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I love that.

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Don't get put on your credit report, chase.

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This is a little bit counterintuitive, because Chase's system has to know that you have those cards, but because they aren't listed as accounts on your credit report, the Chase computer that's evaluating your application doesn't count them when you go to apply for a card, and so those Chase business cards don't actually add to your 524 count.

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Amex, citi and Barclay all have business cards that likewise don't get reported to your personal credit report, so none of those count either.

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But again, to find your 524 score, the most foolproof way is to get your credit report and go through all of the cards that appear that you have opened newly in the past 24 months.

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Cards that you've had for more than 24 months don't count, but be sure you count any closed accounts, so cards that you opened within the past 24 months but have since been closed.

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As you move forward you're going to want to keep tabs on where you're at with your Chase 524 status.

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In my three-year plan I have it mapped out so that you stay under Chase 524 that whole time and both people in that strategy will stay under 524.

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So in the three-year plan, I've done some of that work for you.

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You might be starting at a different point, though.

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You might be starting and you're already at 324.

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I don't know where you're starting, but you want to really keep tabs on that.

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Now there are some exceptions.

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Occasionally we'll see data points come up where some cards seem to be approving applications for people above 524.

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But generally speaking, this is true for pretty much all Chase cards at this point.

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So I'll say it again because I want you to understand it so that you can teach a random person on the street if you need to.

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If you have five or more new cards in the past 24 months from any bank, you are most likely going to be denied by Chase.

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So how can you balance opening plenty of cards and taking this 524 rule into account?

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Again, my three-year plan takes this into account for you and balances it, so you don't have to do the mental gymnastics.

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Takes this into account for you and balances it, so you don't have to do the mental gymnastics.

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But I want to give you a little behind the scenes on some of my guiding principles and strategy tips, because as you move forward, you'll want to be creating your own strategy as well.

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The first strategy tip is opening business cards, not just from Chase, but from other banks too.

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I talked a little bit about this in episode three.

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In regards to credit score, business cards have a smaller impact on your credit score, and that's one reason to get them.

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They also typically don't impact your Chase 524 count, and that's another really good reason to get them.

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So if we can, we always open a business version of a card over the personal version.

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So if we want some Wyndham points, we're going to open the Wyndham business card instead of the personal card.

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If we want American Airlines miles, we're going to prioritize opening the business version before we open the personal version.

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Business cards are no brainers for me.

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I can open them and I know that they're not going to impact my Chase 524 count.

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Now you might be thinking you don't qualify for business cards, but you actually don't need an LLC or a brick and mortar business to qualify.

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So many people qualify with a simple side hustle like tutoring or babysitting, selling a few things on Facebook marketplace per year, renting out a property, dog walking, driving for Uber and so much more.

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I will devote a whole episode to business cards, but in the meantime I will link a blog article below if you want more information on this.

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I actually think the benefits of opening business cards are so great that I'd recommend starting a super simple business like selling a few things a year from your house on Facebook Marketplace so that you can be able to get the benefits of business cards with points Again.

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More on that in future episodes, but that's a big strategy component with staying under 524.

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Open business cards when possible.

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Next, you want to be very strategic in picking your personal cards you're opening because they are adding to your 524 count.

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There are reasons that you might want to open personal cards from other banks when you're under 524, even knowing it will add to your 524 count.

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In fact, the second card I recommend in my three-year plan is a Capital One Venture X card.

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That's not a Chase card, it's not a business card and, yes, it is going to add to your Chase 524 score.

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But even though Capital One doesn't have a clear rule like Chase 524, they are kind of finicky about card approvals and that's one of the reasons that I recommend that one early on.

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Are you giving up a 524 slot, yes, but I think that that's okay because I think that it's a really valuable card for the perks.

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If a personal card pops up that really serves a purpose for you, I think that that's worth adding to your 524 count.

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If it's just a good limited time offer but you don't really have a clear plan of how you'd use those points, I'd probably pass Overall.

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Here is how we manage the Chase 524 rule in our household.

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First, we prioritize business cards, like I mentioned, but we also take turns going over 524.

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This gives us more freedom to feel like we can have one of us opening cards from banks besides Chase, so we don't feel like we're limiting ourselves.

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This is probably more relevant as a strategy tip as you get deeper into points your first few years.

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Really, you can just follow my three-year plan.

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But in our case we each already have over 10 Chase cards each.

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So we are very particular about opening new ones because we don't want to draw too much attention to our accounts.

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So I might open a few Chase cards and then move on to other banks.

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If I hit 524, I might even apply for a few credit cards on the same day that have lower minimum spend requirements.

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I would continue on applying for cards as we can meet the spend.

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But in the meantime my husband would have stopped applying for cards.

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He would be pausing to wait until he was back under 524.

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He would be pausing to wait until he was back under 524.

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Once he's under 524, he can start applying for Chase cards again.

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At that point I'd probably stop with my applications and start waiting to get under 524 again.

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When Micah gets to 524, he'd switch over to other banks, like I had at first, and then we're just kind of flip-flopping who's under 524.

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So that's a strategy that can work if you're trying to eventually dip your hands in all these little pots and be able to get cards from a lot of banks.

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And of course, while we're stopped and waiting to get under 524, we could be opening business cards from banks that aren't Chase.

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So the 524 rule requires understanding and strategy, but it's really possible to work with it.

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Your action step for today is to figure out where you stand with Chase's 524 rule.

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I want you to go and figure out what your Chase 524 count is.

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In a few episodes I'm going to be talking about some time-saving tools and, while there are different apps that you can use to track your 524 score for this first time.

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I think it's really important to do it yourself with your credit report to make sure you're not missing or forgetting anything Again.

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You can access it at annualcreditreportcom.

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Once you get your credit report, you're going to look at all of the accounts that you have on there, pay close attention to when they were open, pay close attention to if you're an authorized user on an account or not, and add it all up to get your score.

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A secondary action step here is that if you find that you are an authorized user on a lot of accounts in the past 24 months, I recommend you start the process of taking those off your credit report.

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This process can take a few months, so you should get started doing it.

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I was so happy to spend this time with you today and I can't wait to see you next time, where we will continue unlocking the secrets of travel points.

Navigating the Chase 5/24 Rule: Tips and Strategies

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Navigating the Chase 5/24 Rule: Tips and Strategies

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