The Chase Sapphire bank account is going to have a 60,000 Ultimate Rewards signup bonus starting in October, which is what many of us have been waiting for before being able to be properly “excited” to consider a Chase banking relationship.
Chase announced Sapphire banking last month, an account which requires a $75,000 combined balance at Chase to avoid fees but which comes with a variety of benefits, such as rebates on ATM fees at other bank’s ATMs, 100 free trades on a variety of US-based stock, fund, and ETF products using their You Invest platform, no wire transfer fees, no FOREX fees with your ATM card.
It’s a competitive bank offering, especially considering how Citi has really let their CitiGold and now CitiPriority products wane. This account is roughly similar to the “new” CitiGold which requires $200,000 on deposit.
But we all knew a signup bonus was coming – and now it has been announced. CNN states it will be 60,000 points and available in October. It’s not clear it it will be October 1 or later in October, nor is it yet clear if this will be available online or only in-branch. I’ll signup when it’s available and see. Note that my assumption is that there will be a 1099 for the points and that we won’t be able to find out how they value the points until we get the 1099.
I don’t see any indication that you need to have a Sapphire card for this, however, you’d only be able to cash out at 1 cent per point compared to the 1.25 cent/point return you get with the Chase Sapphire Preferred or the 1.5 cent / point return you get with the Chase Sapphire Reserve (apply for Travel Rewards Credit Cards here).
As well, keep in mind that the $75,000 minimum doesn’t have to be met with cash, which wouldn’t get a good yield in a Chase account. But transferring in $75,000 worth of stocks or funds should do the trick after you’ve opened the account. (Open with cash, transfer stock, remove cash). In that case you could accomplish this bonus for almost no opportunity cost – provided you have the equities. If you ACAT your stocks/funds, there is no effect on your stock purchase price basis.
Will you open this account? Let me know here, on Twitter, or in the private MilesTalk Facebook group.
New to all of this? My new “introduction to miles and points” book, MilesTalk: Live Your Wildest Travel Dreams Using Miles and Points is available now.
