How popular are Chase credit cards? Nearly half of all U.S. households do business with Chase. While a popular credit card issuer, the company also offers personal and business banking accounts, mortgages and loans, investments and private client services for high net worth customers. Read more
Chase is a part of JPMorgan Chase, one of the oldest financial institutions in the country. Its history dates back to 1799, when many of its founding institutions were established in New York City.
But here’s a fun fact, especially for Hamilton fans. Aaron Burr was Chase’s founder. It wasn’t called Chase back then; the bank that eventually, through a lot of twists and turns and bank acquisitions became Chase, was first called The Manhattan Company. Burr started The Manhattan Company on September 1, 1799. It was New York City’s second bank. Burr had been involved with founding the first bank with some other bigwigs of the day, including his frenemy, Alexander Hamilton.
But we digress. Today, JPMorgan Chase serves clients globally and has assets of more than $2.6 trillion.
JPMorgan Chase is still headquartered in New York City today, but it operates nearly 4,900 Chase branches to provide personalized service to customers. For consumers who aren’t near a branch, the bank offers easy access to accounts online and via mobile apps.
CardRatings has named several Chase credit cards to its best credit cards of 2021 lists, including:
Chase provides more than two dozen credit cards. These include cards for business, travel and cash back. The Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card is considered by many to be one of the most valuable travel cards available. It gives cardholders access to Chase Ultimate Rewards®, where they can book travel or transfer points to other rewards programs. New cardholders can also earn a welcome bonus worth up to $1,000 in travel. Earn 80,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first three months from account opening.
For cash back, the Chase Freedom Flex℠ is a popular choice thanks to the 5% cash back it offers on purchases in rotating quarterly categories (up to a spending cap each quarter). Ink Business cards offer rewards for small business owners along with perks such as free employee cards and account monitoring tools. An added benefit of the cards above, as well as many other Chase credit cards, is that they have no or a low annual fee.
What are Chase Credit Card Benefits?
There are a lot of benefits that you may be unaware of – but be sure to read over the “offer details” as well as the “terms and conditions” of any card before apply. Not every Chase card is going to have these benefits, but along with the usual welcome offer and rewards, many of them do have the following:
Travel insurance. Worried about a flight being cancelled or having to pay for a fender bender with a rental car? You may not have to worry if you have a Chase credit card. Many of the cards will cover those expenses – provided you paid for the flight or the rental car with your Chase credit card.
Cell phone protection. So you accidentally dropped your cell phone in the bathtub? Or you were sitting at a table at an outdoor bistro when suddenly a thief darts by, grabs it and is never seen again? Fortunately, many of the Chase cards offer cell phone protection for phones damaged or stolen – as long as you’re paying your monthly bill with your Chase credit card.
Purchase protection. If you buy something with your Chase credit card, and it’s broken or stolen, you’ll probably be covered – meaning that Chase will pay to have the item repaired or replaced. You may be picking up on a theme here. If you pay for something with Chase, and things don’t go well, often, you’ll receive compensation. There are exclusions that are important to note (buying pre-owned items at a store, those aren’t covered), and you’ll also want to know that you get up to a maximum of $500 per claim and up to $50,000 per account, and the claim needs to be within 120 days from the date of purchase.
Extended warranties. Some Chase credit cards will extend the time period of a U.S. manufacturer’s warranty by an extra year – assuming the item was purchased with an eligible Chase credit card. If your card has that protection, it’ll be covered up to $10,000 per claim and $50,000 per account. As always, there are exceptions; Chase’s extended warranties won’t extend your car’s warranty, for instance.
Travel upgrades. Many of Chase’s credit cards, especially any with travel rewards, offer opportunities for hotel and flight upgrades, complimentary in-flight meals and hotel breakfasts, plus free checked bags and annual travel credits.
Chase Credit Card Approval Odds
Is it hard to get a Chase credit card? Sometimes, yes, and sometimes, no. We hate to sound wishy-washy, but it all comes down to your credit score. Typically, if you’re going to get a really good Chase credit card with a lot of rewards and perks, you need a really good credit score. So far, Chase hasn’t issued any secured credit cards, which would make it easier for somebody with bad credit to get a Chase credit card.
Bottom-line: For the best chance of getting approved for a Chase card, you’ll need an excellent, or at least good, credit score.
A good rule of thumb is that any score over 700, and you’re probably a pretty attractive candidate for a credit card, although as low as 670 tends to fall into the “good” credit category.
If you have a credit score of 740, credit card executives are probably going to be calling you at your house and offering to wash your car or babysit your kids for free if you’ll apply. (That may be overstating it a bit, but you get the idea.)
What Is the Best Chase Credit Card?
You’ll likely find something to like with all of them, but there are clearly some standouts. We’ll run through some of them.
Although people might not be traveling much, this is still the best Chase card for travel. Plus, it’s a great card for dining out as well.
Some of the highlights include: 5X total points on all travel purchased through the Chase Ultimate Rewards® portal; 3X points on dining, including eligible delivery services and takeout; 3X points on online grocery purchases (excluding Target, Walmart and wholesale clubs); 3X points on select streaming services; 2X points on travel purchases; and 1X point on all other purchases.
So a lot of goodies that come attached to this card, although there is a $95 annual fee that you’ll want to mull over.
Some people appreciate a credit card with rotating categories. They’d probably prefer everything be at one high cash back rate, of course, but if it’s not going to be that way, they like having some parts of the year where the cash back is especially high in certain areas of spending. Well, if that’s you, you’ll like this card.
First of all, the welcome bonus is pretty awesome. Spend $500 in those first three months of opening the account, and you’ll get $200 in cash back.
The rewards are plentiful:
– 5% on travel if you purchase it through Chase Ultimate Rewards®
– 5% cash back on up to $1,500 in combined purchases in bonus categories each quarter you activate
– 3% on dining at restaurants (including takeout and eligible delivery services); 3% on drugstore purchases; 1% cash back on all other purchases
And there is no annual fee.
If you like the idea of the Chase Freedom Flex℠, but are cringing at the idea of rotating categories and the “up to $1,500 in combined purchases…” then you probably should look at Chase Freedom Flex℠.
The rewards break down this way:
– 5% on travel if you purchase it through Chase Ultimate Rewards®
– 3% on dining at restaurants (including takeout and eligible delivery services);
3% on drugstore purchases;
1.5% cash back on all other purchases
The rotating categories are gone, and so is the “up to” language. It’s unlimited all the way, and you’ll even get a little more cash back on all the other purchases than you will with Chase Freedom Flex℠.
This card also has no annual fee.
The Chase Sapphire Reserve® is something pretty special. Earn 5X total points on air travel and 10X total points on hotels and car rentals when you purchase travel through Chase Ultimate Rewards® immediately after the first $300 is spent on travel purchases annually. Earn 3X points on other travel and dining and 1X point per dollar spent on all other purchases.
Cardholders can receive a reimbursement of up to $300 in statement credit each account anniversary to cover a variety of travel expenses including airfare and hotel charges. They also enjoy free airport lounge access at more than 1,000 lounges worldwide.
All in all, it’s a card with a lot of rewards – but it does have a $550 annual fee you’ll want to be aware of.
Ink Business Unlimited® Credit Card is a good credit card for the small business owner who doesn’t travel much and just wants a no-nonsense, straight-forward business credit card.
This card has no annual fee, and you’ll earn an unlimited 1.5% cash back on every purchase.
It does have a foreign transaction fee of 3% of each transaction in U.S. dollars, and so if you want to avoid that, you may want to steer yourself to the next card on the list.
Overall, this card is one of the best cash back rewards cards available for small business owners, especially if you don’t want to deal with categories that change.
The Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card has a $95 annual fee to be aware of but no foreign transaction fee.
You’ll earn 3 points per $1 on the first $150,000 spent in combined purchases on four categories every account anniversary year (the four categories are: travel, shipping purchases, internet/cable/phone services and advertising purchases with social media sites and search engines).
So if you have a pretty thriving business, and you travel a lot, this may be the card for you.
