Doctor of Credit is reporting that there’s a new modification to Chase’s famous 5/24 rule.
In this article
A reminder on the Chase 5/24 Rule
The rule states that if you have opened 5 new personal credit cards – from any issuer – in the last 24 months (plus any Capital One or Discover business cards, since those get reported to your personal credit profile) you will not be approved for a new Chase card.
Business cards (other than Capital One or Discover) you’ve applied for shouldn’t affect 5/24, since they don’t report to your personal credit file.
But it DOES apply to applying for a new Chase business card if you are already over 5/24.
The Tightening Credit Environment
All banks have been tightening credit severely during COVID-19 (and with good reasons, given the double digit unemployment) to guard against defaults.
Chase won’t even let you apply for a Chase Business credit card without already being a Chase customer (bank account or other Chase credit cards) these days and approvals from all issuers are way down, meaning even those with 800+ credit scores are seeing denials.
On top of that, issuers have been recently lowering people’s credit lines without warning – sometimes to less than half what it was. Pure risk management.
Does 5/24 Now Include Credit Line Increases?
It seems so!
The DoC reader said that he applied for a Credit Line Increase (so, to be clear, not a new card).
They were denied and the reason given was “Too many credit cards opened in the last two years associated with you”
An interesting question is if a Chase CLI would count as a 5/24 slot now – and I don’t think we have that data yet (if you were 4/24 and had a CLI and then got denied for a Chase card, that would be the data point we need here).
It’s also not clear if this is a new hard and fast rule or not.
If you have a data point, please share!
Let me know below in the comments, on Twitter, or in the private MilesTalk Facebook group.
You can find credit cards that best match your spending habits and bonus categories at Your Best Credit Cards.
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I was just approved today for the WOH chase card, which puts me at 4/24 (until August).
Chase has been raising my CLs this years, not by a lot, bit about 10% for each card.
AmEx has also raised all CLs, just this week.
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