Hi there, it's Ernest from Trip Astute. In this video, we're discussing Chase's 5/24
credit acceptance rule, and how you can see whether you're affected.
(light chiming music)
One of the biggest problems that you may run to in the points and miles hobby is getting
accepted for new cards, especially if you have several new accounts. Chase, for
example, has an unofficial rule called "5/24", which refers the amount of card
accounts and you've opened in the last two years. According to the 5/24 rule, it's
extremely unlikely that Chase will approve your credit card application if
you've opened five or more credit card accounts in the last 24 months. There are
many different ways to see whether you're affected by this rule. I know a
lot of people in the points and miles hobby track their accounts using a
spreadsheet. However, there is an easier way to see how many credit card accounts
you've opened in the last two years. You can use a free credit score monitoring
site like Credit Karma to see the number of accounts. I'll walk you through the
process so you can see how it works. The first thing you want to do is go to the
Credit Karma page and then simply log in. If you don't have an account, it's
definitely worth setting one up. Credit Karma is a really great tool for
checking your credit, and I actually use it every week just to check my credit
score. Once you log in, you'll see two credit scores listed. One is from
TransUnion, and the other is from Equifax. Both are major consumer credit bureaus
in the US, and your score should be similar from both agencies. At this point,
you'll want to go to "View score details". Once you're at the TransUnion
score details, you want to scroll down and look at your Credit Age. Under Credit
Age is going to be a "View details" option. Go ahead and click on that. And
this is where you can actually see all of your open accounts and how old your
accounts are. So, if I look down here, what you want to do is you want to look at
the right side and see if there's anything within the last two years or 24 months.
So if you look on my account, you can see that I've got three accounts that were
opened within the last two years. Now the trick with this is that
these only include the open accounts. You're going to also want to check your
closed accounts as well, in case you opened a credit card within the last two
years but then cancelled it. To do that, all you do is scroll back up and click
on "View all accounts". From here, you're going to want to scroll down and
select the "Show closed" under credit cards. And this will show you all the
closed credit card accounts. So you're going to want to click on the plus sign to
see more details, and you can look into the Opened area to see when you actually
opened the account. So, in this case, this one was opened over six years ago, so it
doesn't really apply. But then if I look at this one,
you'll see that this one was opened in June 27, 2015, so it's two years and three
months. So luckily, this is excluded from the 24 month rule. But this is what you
want to look out for. You want to look out for any accounts that may have been
opened within the last two years. Any of the accounts found in the closed section
that were opened within the last two years should be included in your 5/24
status counts. One additional thing that I would do, just to be safe, is to
check both of the credit bureaus. So, for example, in this one we have just checked
TransUnion. I would switch over to Equifax and just double-check and see if
Equifax has anything listed in there in addition to TransUnion. You shouldn't
find any discrepancies between the two, but if you do, you may want to address it
with the credit bureaus. And that's our quick way of finding our 5/24 status
using Credit Karma. So, in addition to seeing your open and
closed accounts, here are some tips for checking your status. Number one: Business
Cards. Most business cards do not count against the 5/24 rule since most do not
appear on your personal credit report. However, if you happen to have one that
does show up on your personal credit report, then it will count toward your 5/24
status. For more information on business cards, check out our video on
the topic. Number two: Apply for Chase credit cards first. If you're new to the
hobby, you may want to consider getting your Chase cards first before you get
disqualified by the 5/24 rule. There are so many great credit cards out
there, but it helps to start planning which ones you want to target first to
avoid getting restricted by these policies, particularly from Chase, as they
seem to be the strictest at the moment. For more information on applying, check
out our "Tips and Tricks on Applying for a Credit Card" video. How do you keep
track of your credit card accounts? Please let us know in the comment
section below. Also, let us know if you have any questions. We've included
referral links to some of the popular Chase cards. Trip Astute does get a
commission if you use our links. It doesn't cost you anything extra, but it
does help us to continue creating content for this channel. If you enjoyed
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