How long will the CSP 100,000 point bonus last?

The Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card became our top recommended credit card with an annual fee under $100 when it upped its welcome offer to an exceptionally good 100,000-point sign-up bonus earlier this year. That’s right: After you spend $4,000 in your first three months of account opening, you’ll receive 100,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points. 

That bonus, according to Chase, is worth $1,250 when redeemed for travel.

But it won’t be around forever. Card issuers change bonus offers frequently; the Preferred used to offer 80,000 points, and 60,000 before that. 

That’s still a sizable chunk of points, but with 100,000 of them — which are in addition to however many you will have earned by spending money with the card — you can score a lot of free flights and hotel nights, paying just taxes and fees.   

If history is any indication, the time left to grab that elevated bonus may be running out.

“These types of offers often last two to four months,” says Ted Rossman, senior industry analyst at Bankrate (which is owned by NextAdvisor’s parent company, Red Ventures). Because the 100,000-point bonus was launched in early June, you might want to apply for the card before the end of September, if the Preferred aligns with your budget and lifestyle.   

There’s another clue that is leading Rossman to think September 30, or around that date, might be the day the sky-high bonus ends. 

“That’s the day Pay Yourself Back is scheduled to expire, although it has been extended before,” he says. Pay Yourself Back is a feature introduced last year which lets cardholders redeem their Ultimate Rewards points for things other than travel. For example, you can use them to erase from your statement grocery-store purchases — a recognition that, because of the pandemic, people weren’t likely to travel.    

And the first time Chase went with a 100,000-point bonus, five years ago? That also lasted about the same amount of time. 

Back in August 2016, Chase launched the Chase Sapphire Reserve® card, also with a 100,000-point sign-up bonus. It was “the largest type of initial bonus [I believe] the card industry had seen for a major card like that,” Eric Compton, a senior equity analyst at Morningstar, says in an email to NextAdvisor. “The demand was very high, and the bank stopped the bonus roughly four to five months later.” 

As another data point, another card issuer went with a four-month duration for an elevated bonus; the Capital One Venture card also introduced a 100,000-mile bonus this year, which lasted from March to July 19. 

A spokesperson for Chase says there is “no news to share on an end date just yet,” but there’s another thing that may hint at an end date soon: we know there are some changes coming to the card, possibly in August. These reportedly include a hotel credit of up to $50 per cardmember year when booking through the Chase travel portal, as well as earning 5 Ultimate rewards points per dollar when booking through there, instead of the current 2.

If the rumors are accurate, the 100,000-point offer may end as soon as August, according to Rossman. 

“Reducing the bonus could also be a way for Chase to add new perks while reducing the sign-up bonus expense,” Rossman says.

“We imagine the bank has certain sign-up goals in mind, and once those goals are met and they feel they have taken enough share in this consumer segment, they’ll likely end the bonus,” is how Compton sums it up.

So if you feel the Chase Sapphire Preferred is the card for you, and if it makes sense for your financial plans and current situation, now is the time to apply. 

“If you like the card and are on the fence about applying,” Rossman says, “I’d suggest jumping on it sooner rather than later.”