Chase Sapphire Preferred is a great credit card to keep in your pocket for all things travel. With the excellent new welcome offer of 80,000 points, along with the 2-points-on-travel, you can really put together some fantastic trips with the points you’ll be accumulating. There are some points to take into consideration before you try to apply. Read on to see if this card is suited for you.

The 11 Points To Ponder Before You Apply

1. It’s Under The Chase 5/24 rule

The Chase Sapphire Preferred card is under the Chase 5/24 rule. Meaning, if you’ve already opened 5 personal credit cards, any personal card with any bank, within the past 24 months, then Chase will not approve you for this card.

Most business cards are not included in this rule since many banks don’t report business cards to the credit bureaus. A credit card that is reported gets counted into the 5/24 rule. That means, banks like Capital One and TD, who do report business cards to the credit bureaus, will have also their business cards, not just personal cards, under the 5/24 rule.

Also, if you are only an authorized user on a card, you can call into the reconsideration department at 1-888-609-7805 to point out the authorized user status and they will disregard the card.

2. Only One Sapphire Card

Chase will not approve you for this card if you already have any other Sapphire card open, or if you’ received a bonus on any Sapphire card (Preferred or Reserve) within the past 48 months.

3. Up To 2 Cards Per 30 Days

Besides for the 5/24 rule, Chase has another rule where you can only get approved for up to 2 Chase credit cards per 30 days, with personal and business cards counted separately. That means you can open 2 Chase personal cards within 30 days and 2 Chase business cards within 30 days.

4. Upgrade Only After 13 Months

If you really want the Chase Sapphire Reserve card but you opt to apply for the Preferred in order to earn the higher welcome bonus of 80,000 points and then upgrade to the Reserve card which has a lower welcome bonus of 50,000 points, but rewards for 3 points on travel, versus 2 points for travel, and many other great travel benefits. If that’s your intention, know before you apply for the Preferred that you can only do the upgrade 13 months after you get the Chase Sapphire Preferred card.

5. One Year Credit History

Chase will usually only approve you for the Chase Sapphire Preferred card if you have a credit history of at least 12 months. Credit history should be on your own credit card, not an authorized user. Your credit score should preferably be a minimum of 700-720.

6. Reconsideration Option

If you apply for the card and get declined, you will have the option to have the application reconsidered. What you do is, once you get declined (do not call if not declined as the rep might give your application a tougher approval process), you call the Chase Underwriting Department at 1-888-609-7805. If you call within 30 days from when you sent in the application, Chase won’t do another hard credit pull to get your application reconsidered. You’ll ask them to please have another look at the application. They have a friendly group working in the department and they’ll do that gladly.

You may want to ask to reallocate an existing Chase credit limit from another Chase card (you can only do personal to personal or business to business)

If they tell you you’ve been declined because you have 5 or more cards opened within 24 months (Chase 5/24 rule) they will not reconsider the application. The only exception is, is as I’ve mentioned above, one of the 5 cards is an authorized user card. Then you can point that out to them and they will remove it from one of the 5 cards. In that case, if it’s then less than 5 cards, Chase may reconsider your application.

7. Application Status

You can always check the status of your application once you submit it. You can either call  1-888-338-2586 or check the status online. To check online, login into your Chase.com account, go to Customer Center on the right-hand side, and click on Check My Application Status. This tells you if your application has been received, is still pending, has been declined, or has been approved.

8. Credit Bureau Pull

When you submit an application for the Chase Sapphire Preferred card, Chase bank will pull your Experian report.

9. Annual Fee Is Not Waived

Some cards don’t have an annual fee. Some cards have an annual fee that is waived the first year. The Chase Sapphire Preferred card has a $95 annual fee that it is not waived the first year. This should not put you off because the welcome offer of 80,000 points, far outweighs the $95 annual fee you’ll be paying from the start so it’s well worth it.

10. Express Card Available

Once you’re approved for the card, you can get the credit card real quick. You can ask Chase to overnight the card and you’ll have the actual credit card by the next day.

11. Approvals In Numbers

Chase is approving generously for the Chase Sapphire Preferred card. Within the past 30 days, there have been 25 approvals and 4 declines reported on our credit card forum. The credit scores of the applicants who applied and were approved range from 689 to 824. The credit limits they were approved for range from $5,000 to $21,000.

Good luck with making your decision and may you get great results. Happy traveling once you do get the Chase Sapphire Preferred!