The Sapphire Preferred's 100K Bonus
Isn't Dead — It Just Moved to Referral

If you spent July watching the countdown clocks on the Chase Sapphire Preferred's highest-ever welcome offer, here's the update: the clock ran out. Chase's public 100,000-point promotion ended on July 30, 2026, and the offer on the card's own landing page slid back to 75,000 points — the number you'll see quoted across most roundups right now.

Except that's not the whole story, and the part everyone's skipping is the useful part. The 100,000-point offer didn't fully disappear. It moved channels. Chase's Refer-A-Friend links — the ones existing cardholders and points bloggers share — have continued to carry the full 100,000-point welcome bonus for the same $5,000 spend, even after the public version retired. So the honest answer to "did I miss the 100K?" is: through the front door, yes; through a referral link, not yet.

What Actually Changed on July 30

Back in mid-June, Chase raised the Sapphire Preferred's public welcome bonus to 100,000 Ultimate Rewards points after $5,000 in purchases in the first three months — one of only a handful of times the card has ever gone six figures. We covered the whole thing when the clock was still ticking, in our breakdown of the July 30 deadline. As promised, Chase pulled the public offer on schedule. The deal-tracking site Doctor of Credit flagged the exact cutoff — 9 a.m. ET on July 30 — and, importantly, noted that the offer stayed "available via referral" the entire time.

That's the sentence most people scrolled past. When a public credit-card offer expires, the assumption is that the whole promotion is dead. But Chase runs the public landing-page offer and the Refer-A-Friend offer as two independent tracks. They frequently match — and sometimes they don't. This is one of the times they don't: the public track dropped to 75,000, and the referral track kept the 100,000-point figure it launched with.

None of the underlying card terms changed at the same time. It's still a $95 annual fee, still $5,000 in spend over three months, still the same refreshed 2026 card with 5x on Chase Travel, 3x on dining, online groceries, streaming, gas and EV charging, and vacation rentals, plus the up-to-$100 hotel credit and the Global Entry/TSA PreCheck credit. The only thing that moved was the size of the welcome bonus on the public page — and the door the bigger bonus is now behind.

Why the Referral 100K Outlives the Public One

Here's where most coverage of this card gets it half-right. The mainstream card roundups — the ones that rank offers by "current welcome bonus" — updated their pages to 75,000 points the moment the public offer ended, and moved on. That's technically accurate and practically incomplete. If you read only those, you'd conclude the 100K is over. The deal-tracking community that actually watches referral links — Doctor of Credit, Frequent Miler, and others — has been reporting the opposite: the 100,000-point offer is still live where it counts.

Both camps are describing the same card. The difference is which door they're looking at. And it creates a genuinely odd moment where "the 100K offer ended" and "you can still get the 100K offer" are simultaneously true — a distinction that's easy to miss if you only check the public application page.

The mechanics are simple once you see them. Chase's Refer-A-Friend program lets an existing cardholder share a link. When someone new applies through it and is approved, two things happen: the new applicant earns the welcome bonus attached to that link — currently the 100,000-point version — and the referrer earns a separate referral bonus of 15,000 points per approval, up to 100,000 points per year, per the current program terms. Nobody's bonus comes out of anybody else's. It's genuinely additive, which is exactly why bloggers and friends are happy to hand you their link.

The reason the referral figure lingers after the public one dies is partly just timing — Chase updates the two tracks on different schedules — and partly incentive: a live referral offer keeps existing cardholders promoting the card. It won't last forever. Referral offers can revert to match the public 75,000 at any time, with no notice. But while the gap is open, it's real money.

How to Claim the 100K Through a Referral

Getting the referral version instead of the public one isn't complicated, but the order of operations matters. The single most important habit is to verify the offer before you apply — never assume the number.

• Open the referral link, not the public page. A Refer-A-Friend link routes you to a Chase application that carries the referral offer. Going to chase.com directly, or Googling "Sapphire Preferred," lands you on the 75,000-point public page instead.
• Confirm it says 100,000 on the application. Before entering any personal details, check that the on-page bonus reads "100,000 bonus points" after $5,000 in spend. If it shows 75,000, the referral offer has reverted — don't apply expecting the higher number.
• Check your eligibility pop-up. Chase displays an eligibility message before the hard inquiry posts. If it says you're not eligible for the bonus, you can back out with no credit impact.
• Then apply and plan the spend. Once you've confirmed the 100K and cleared eligibility, submit — and map your $5,000 across three months before the card even arrives.

Where should the link come from? Ideally someone you actually know who holds the card — that way your bonus is bigger and a friend picks up 15,000 points. If you don't have anyone, using a link from a points site or blogger you've found helpful is the polite version of the same trade: you get the full 100,000-point offer rather than the public 75,000, and you support the person whose guide got you here. Doctor of Credit, which famously doesn't use affiliate links itself, literally suggests readers "find a blogger with affiliate links to support by using their link to sign up." We'll take them up on that below.

Is It Worth It? The Value and Eligibility Math

A bigger number is only better if the underlying deal is good and you actually qualify. On value, the case is strong. The Points Guy pegged Chase Ultimate Rewards at 2.05 cents per point in its June 2026 valuations, which puts 100,000 points at roughly $2,050 versus about $1,540 for the public 75,000-point offer. That $500-ish gap is for the exact same $5,000 of spending you'd do either way. Redeemed well — a lie-flat business-class seat to Europe, several nights at a resort, or a family's worth of domestic flights — the real-world value can climb higher still, because Chase points transfer to 14 airline and hotel partners. If you're new to how that works, our Chase Ultimate Rewards beginner's guide walks through earning, pooling, and redeeming from scratch.

Eligibility, though, is where the referral angle changes nothing. A referral link carries a bigger bonus; it does not bend the rules. Two gates still decide whether the points are yours to earn:

• Chase's 5/24 rule. If you've opened five or more credit cards across all issuers in the past 24 months, Chase will almost certainly decline you — referral or not. Some authorized-user and business cards count toward that tally.
• Once-per-lifetime bonus eligibility. You can earn the Sapphire Preferred's welcome bonus only once, ever. Recent rule changes removed the old "one Sapphire at a time" and 48-month restrictions, so having or having had the Sapphire Reserve no longer blocks you, and authorized users can apply in their own name. A past referral bonus doesn't count against you — but a past welcome bonus on the Preferred permanently does.

And the spend is the spend. $5,000 in three months is about $1,667 a month; if that only clears by buying things you don't need, the bonus isn't a fit today, no matter how big the headline number is. For the fuller framework on matching a card's spend to your actual budget, our guide for moderate Chase spenders lays out the thresholds. If you already hold a no-fee Chase card like the Freedom Unlimited, its everyday points pool into the same Ultimate Rewards balance once you have a Sapphire, so ordinary spending still feeds the account the bonus lands in.

The Bottom Line

The "last chance" on the Sapphire Preferred's 100,000-point offer came and went on July 30 — but only for the public offer. The referral channel quietly kept the bigger bonus alive, and for now that means the same card, the same $5,000 spend, and about $500 more in points if you walk through the right door. It's not a trick or a loophole in the sketchy sense; it's just two Chase promotions running on different clocks.

Reduced to a checklist:

• Use a referral link, not the public page — that's where the 100K lives.
• Confirm the page shows 100,000 points before entering any details.
• Clear 5/24 and the once-per-lifetime rule — the bonus size doesn't change eligibility.
• Only chase the spend you'd make anyway — $5,000 from real purchases, never manufactured ones.
• Move sooner rather than later — the referral offer can revert to 75,000 without notice.

If those boxes check, this is one of the rare moments where the "expired" deal is still quietly available at full strength. If they don't, let it go without regret — a 75,000-point offer is nothing to sneeze at, and the right bonus at the right time beats the biggest bonus at the wrong one. Either way, start from the fundamentals of how Chase points work so the points you earn turn into the trip you actually wanted.