Chase Ink Bold 50,000 Bonus for 5000 Spend Changes Tomorrow 10am

Update: Current best offer is again Ink Bold Business Card – 50,000 points for $5000 spend in 3 months

Original Post

The Ink Bold offer is apparently changing tomorrow–and while the point bonus is expected to stay the same, the spending requirement will likely double to $10,000 so that you'll only receive the full 50,000 bonus after $10,000 in spend (25,000 points after first purchase and 25,000 after putting $10,000 in spend within the first 3 months). Of course, if you know you'd never be able to meet the current $5000 minimum spend, then you may opt to just take the 25,000 points for first use of the card. But that's not a very high bonus for this card. See our post below for ideas on how to meet minimum spend.

We noted a few days ago in Maximizing the Chase Ink Bold Bonus-How to Meet Minimum Spend that the offer on the Chase Web site had changed to this higher $10,000 spend requirement, so it was only a question of time until our affiliate offer changed as well.

Here are the pros and cons as we see it of the Chase Ink Bold, which I have:

Pros

• The highest publicly available Ultimate Rewards signup bonus (50,000 points), since the Chase Sapphire Preferred Visa is now only 40,000 points, and Chase Freedom Visa is now only 10,000 points 

• Ultimate Rewards points transfer instantly to United, Hyatt (best redemption options), Korean Air, Southwest, Marriott, Priority Club and Amtrak

• You need either this card or the Sapphire Preferred to be able to transfer Freedom points to the above airline and hotel partners

• 5x bonus points on office supply includes Visa gift cards. You can use these cards to get up to an effective 4.5x on ALL spend that you use the gift cards for-sweet! See our chart in Maximizing the Chase Ink Bold Bonus-How to Meet Minimum Spend In fact, you may even be able to pay your tax bill with these Visa gift certificates. If you've already paid this year, then something to consider for next year.

• 2x bonus points on all hotel and gas spend

• No foreign transaction fees

• Annual fee waived the first year

• 2 complimentary airport lounge passes

• Since it's a business card, you can apply for a Chase personal credit card the same day, for just one pull on your credit. I'd recommend either the British Airways Avios (even if you only plan to use it once for the 50,000 Avios points, which could get you 2 roundtrip tickets to Europe on Aer Lingus) or the United MileagePlus Explorer Card, since there is now a United MileagePlus Explorer offer for up to 65,000 United bonus miles The beauty of both of these cards is that you receive 50,000 Avios points or 50,000 United miles with first use, so these are good to pair with the spend requirements for the Ink Bold

Cons

• High spend requirement, of $5000 within 3 months. But this is a lot better if you apply for the Chase Ink Bold today than what it will be tomorrow, when it goes to $10,000

• Apart from the Visa gift card value above, bonus categories not as useful as the Chase Sapphire Preferred or the Chase Freedom

• Annual fee is $95 after the first year