Chase Sapphire Sign-up Bonus - $100 or $150

Chase is promoting their new Sapphire credit card by offering a sign-up bonus for it. The card comes in both a free version and an annual fee version, with a $100 and a $150 sign-up bonus respectively.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like you can get both bonuses because the offer is only good for first-time cardholders who do not already have existing accounts. You can convert an existing Chase card to Sapphire, but don’t count on getting a bonus that way.

Free Version – $100 Bonus

Chase Sapphire – Regular

Getting a $100 bonus with this card is easy-peasy. Once you’re approved, all you have to do is make a single purchase of any amount and pay it off. Six-to-eight weeks later, you should receive 10,000 bonus points, which you can redeem for a $100 check, a gift card, or a credit toward a travel purchase.

After that, feel free to throw the card in the sock drawer where it belongs since there are much better cards out there. There’s no annual fee, unlike the Preferred version.

Here’s a screenshot of the offer for the sake of preservation. Click the image to enlarge.

Preferred Version – $150 Bonus

Chase Sapphire – Preferred

If you don’t mind doing a little more work, you can squeeze an extra $50 bonus versus the regular Sapphire card. To do so, you must spend $1,000 on the card within the first three months after your account is opened. Qualifying transactions include purchases and balance transfers, but not cash advances. If your normal monthly spending would not get you to that level, you could always buy gift cards or dollar coins from the US Mint.

Six-to-eight weeks after you hit the magical 1k threshold, you will receive 15,000 bonus point, which you can redeem for a $150 check, a gift card, or a credit toward a travel purchase. One advantage of the Preferred card is that points are worth 25% more when used to book airline travel through their rewards website. If you pursue this option, you can redeem your 16,000 points (15k + 1k spending) for a $200 flight credit worth $200. You could also opt to transfer your 15,000 bonus points to frequent flyer miles (1:1 transfer).

The downside to the Preferred card is the $95 annual fee, waived for the first year. The generic rewards program this card offers (1 point per dollar spent) does not make it worth paying an annual fee, so be sure to cancel sometime during the first year. You could also call and try to have it converted to the regular Sapphire card.

Other Thoughts

I admit that I have a growing dislike and mistrust of Chase, especially after they slashed and burned the savings interest rate at WaMu after their takeover, and especially after they effectively killed the Chase Freedom card. Screwing some sign-up bonus cash out of Chase feels like sweet vengeance to me.

As with all bonus offers, who know how long they will actually last? The $100 bonus for the free version has been around for several weeks now, while the offer for the Preferred card has been volatile. First, it was a 25,000 points after first purchase offer. Then it dropped to 15,000 points, but the annual fee was not waived (which totally sucked – making it worse than the bonus for the free version). At some point, Chase once again decided to waive the annual fee for the first year, but raised the spending threshold to $1,000 in order to get the bonus. That’s where the offer stands now.

Mr. B’s recommendation – The bonus for the Preferred card is only worth it if you plan to redeem it for a flight credit (to earn the extra 25% point value) AND if you remember to cancel before the end of the first year (set a Google Calendar reminder to help). Otherwise, most people should just grab the quick-and-easy $100 bonus for the regular Sapphire card.

In the end, any way to transfer some cash from Chase’s pockets to the consumer is good in my book.