The Chase 5/24 Rule: What It Is, What Counts, and Why I Wish I’d Known Sooner

When I first started getting into points I did what I think most people do, which is I just started opening cards. A hotel card here, an airline card there, a cash back card because the sign-up bonus looked good, and I didn’t have a plan at all, I was honestly just collecting them.

Then I found Chase. The Sapphire Preferred is the card everyone in the points world says to get first, because the points transfer to airlines and hotels and the bonus is solid and the annual fee is reasonable, and I had wanted it for months, so I finally applied.

Denied.

That’s when I found out about 5/24, and what really stung wasn’t so much the denial, it was realizing I had been doing this wrong for months and didn’t even know there was a rule I was breaking.

So what is 5/24?

Chase has never officially published this, but the points community figured it out years ago and it has held steady ever since. If you’ve opened five or more personal credit cards in the last 24 months, Chase will not approve you for most of their cards, and it doesn’t matter how great your credit score is or if you’ve banked with them forever, five cards in 24 months and you’re out for a while.

It’s a rolling window, so there’s no calendar year reset. If you opened a card on March 10th, 2024, it stops counting on March 10th, 2026 and the day you drop below five you’re eligible again.

That’s exactly where I went wrong. I thought 5/24 meant Chase was tracking Chase cards, so I opened a couple of Amex cards and a Capital One card and a Marriott card through Chase (which counts too, by the way), and by the time I went for the Sapphire I was already over the limit and had no idea.

What counts and what doesn’t

The business card thing is huge for families. Most Chase Ink cards and most Amex business cards and most Citi business cards don’t count against your 5/24, so Chris can open business cards all day and his personal count doesn’t move, and that’s a big part of how two-player mode works when you’re doing this as a couple.

Why does Chase even matter that much?

Chase Ultimate Rewards is the best transferable points program for most families. Those points move to Hyatt and United and Southwest and British Airways (one thing to know, Hyatt is 1:1 only from the Sapphire Reserve now, and the Sapphire Preferred and Ink Preferred send points to Hyatt at 4:3, so 1,000 Chase points becomes 750 Hyatt points). The Sapphire Preferred and the Ink business cards are what most people build their whole strategy on, including us.

But Chase is also the pickiest about who they’ll approve. So the advice I wish someone had given me early is this: go Chase first. Get the Sapphire Preferred before you open anything at Amex or Capital One that adds to your personal count, and once you have your Chase cards, then go everywhere else. (And since January 2026 the old rule about only holding one Sapphire at a time is gone, so you can have the Preferred and the Reserve together now, each one’s bonus is just once per lifetime.)

If you wait on Chase and open a handful of other cards first, you might be sitting out for two years while you wait for your count to drop, and that’s two years of the best bonuses you can’t touch. I know because I lived it.

How to check your count right now

Already over 5/24? I was too, so you’re not alone.

This is honestly the most common mistake beginners make, because there’s no obvious sign anywhere that this rule exists, and most people find out about it exactly the way I did.

If you’re over, figure out which of your personal cards is closest to the 24-month mark and put that date on your calendar, because sometimes you’re only a few months out. While you wait, focus on business cards from anyone except Capital One, since those won’t touch your 5/24 count and some of them have really good bonuses.

Amex and Citi and Capital One personal cards also don’t have a 5/24 equivalent rule, so you can still be building your points pile the whole time. You’re just doing Chase last instead of first, which is what I ended up doing too.

Two players are better than one

You and your spouse have completely separate credit files, so whatever slots you’ve used up, they haven’t. If you’re over 5/24 right now, Chris might not be, and he can be working the Chase side while you build up Amex or Capital One, so you’re always making progress somewhere even when one of you is stuck.

Once you understand 5/24, the goal is to always have at least one person in the house who’s under the limit, so there’s always someone who can grab the next Chase bonus when it comes around. It takes a little planning but once you see it you honestly can’t unsee it.

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I couldn’t undo the cards I’d already opened, but once I understood the rule I could work with it and plan around it, and that’s really all this is, a rule that’s totally manageable once you know it exists. The frustrating part is that almost nobody explains it at the start, so everyone ends up learning it the same way I did, and I’d love for that to stop with you.

xo, Amy