Approved for a Chase Sapphire? Why That’s A Bad Thing

Yesterday I wrote the not so shocking news that I was rejected by Chase for what may be the best credit card of all time, the Chase Sapphire Reserve. Since I will never know of its brilliance, I am dedicating this post to the rest of us who were promptly rejected.

For years, we were indoctrinated into believing that the app-o-rama (I hope to meet the person who invented this saying and give him the punchline to ‘what did the five fingers say to the face?’) was the way to excel at the points game. For years, it was. Then the economy began to recover and banks which not too long ago had begged for bailouts became greedy again.

While the pompous bankers count their profits on Wall Street, the rest of us on Main Street are agonizing over our AwardWallet balances. The surplus of the good days has been eviscerated by mergers, devaluations, and now, stupid rules on churning.

Enter Chase 5/24.

The 5/24 rule as it is called borders on violating the 8th Amendment of the Constitution. How else can restricting our access to fly Upper Class be described apart from ‘cruel and unusual’? Let’s not forget that it was Chase that conditioned us to apply for new cards every 90 days by approving one INK card after another. And now, after years of faithfully paying my bills on time, after spending tens of thousands of un-manufactured dollars on their cards, all I get is a ‘sorry we can’t approve you at this time’ lame explanation?

Well fellow rejects, I’m here to tell you that the persona non grata status coupled with our precarious points balances means that we are winning in this points pastime. Those who were approved for the Sapphire clearly were passing up on dozens of other offers (a number greater than 5) that we chose to pursue. Do you remember last year when Amex had 100k Platinum Personal, and 150k Amex Platinum Business? Do you recall how many times you applied for a CITI AA card? And how many of those Alaska cards did you end up getting?

Better still, do you remember what you did with the fruits of your points labor? I booked a flight on Emirates in Shower Class from JFK-DXB-PVG. I stayed true to TPOL’s Churn & Burn Philosophy and booked first class on Cathay to Bangkok for this New Year’s, business class on Cathay from Hong Kong for the return , business class to DFW from Tokyo to cap off my Tahiti Triumph Trip Report, and even an Etihad Apartment flight pre AA deval. Today, it would be impossible to duplicate this performance.

Of course I’d love to have 100k URs to transfer to SQ, Hyatt, or United, (if flying to Oceania from Asia) but I wouldn’t trade my rejection yesterday for 100k points today. I did too much the day before to be that upset.