Chase Sapphire and Ink lifetime bonus rules
Chase · last reviewed 2026-06
Summary
Since January 22, 2026 each Chase Sapphire product's welcome bonus is once per lifetime per product - the old 48-month family rule is retired. Ink cards carry their own lifetime rules.
High confidence: published in issuer terms and confirmed across thousands of community data points.
What it does
Chase retired the Sapphire 48-month rule on January 22, 2026. Each Sapphire product (Preferred, Reserve, Reserve for Business) now carries a once-per-lifetime welcome bonus per product: you can hold all three at once and earn each card's bonus exactly once, but a bonus you earned years ago on a product blocks that product forever, with no published reset window. These are bonus rules, not approval rules - Chase can approve the application and simply never pay the bonus, and an approved personal-card application still consumes 5/24 capacity either way.
How it works
- Sapphire: each product is its own lifetime bucket. A Sapphire Preferred bonus does not block a Sapphire Reserve bonus - it only blocks Preferred itself, permanently.
- One unresolved edge: Chase's terms say the bonus 'may not be available' if you previously HELD a Sapphire product even without earning its bonus. Community data points suggest only previously earned bonuses matter, but treat that question as unsettled.
- Ink Cash and Ink Unlimited share ONE lifetime bucket: having ever had either no-fee Ink blocks the bonus on both. The November 2025 language extends this to any no-annual-fee Chase business card.
- Ink Preferred and Ink Premier are each standalone once-per-lifetime products (November 2025) - independent from each other and from the no-fee bucket.
- Chase's other personal and co-brand cards (Freedom Flex, United, Hyatt, IHG, etc.) use a 24-month per-product cooldown from when the previous bonus posted - not lifetime rules.
- Downgrades and closures do not reset anything - bonus history is tracked on the product, not the open account.
What to do
- Treat each Sapphire bonus as a one-shot: pick the product whose bonus you want and apply when under 5/24, since the application uses a 5/24 slot whether or not the bonus pays.
- If you've already earned a product's bonus, skip reapplying for the bonus on that product - there is no published wait that restores eligibility.
- Sequence Ink cards deliberately: the two no-fee Inks are one combined shot, while Ink Preferred and Ink Premier are each their own shot.
Want to see how this rule affects your card portfolio? Open the Application Calendar - it tracks every issuer rule against your real applications and tells you when each one clears.