No offense, Brad. 😉

You get a brand new credit card with an amazing welcome bonus and you’re eager to meet the minimum spend ASAP. The quickest way to do that is to add your spouse or “Player Two” as an authorized user, right? Well… you might want to reconsider that thought based on your long-term strategy.

Chase 5/24 Rule

Probably the most notable unofficial, unspoken rule in the points and miles world is the Chase 5/24 Rule. This very real (but very not-official) Chase rule states that: You will no longer be eligible for any Chase travel rewards credit cards once you’ve opened five personal credit cards from any bank in the last 24 months.

🤔 What does this have to do with adding an authorized user?

Not only do you use one of your five “slots” to count toward 5/24 when opening the card, but when you add an authorized user it also takes up a 5/24 slot for your authorized user! By doing so, your “Player Two” has used up one of those precious 5/24 slots without even opening a card! Chase Ultimate Rewards are some of the most valuable points in the points & miles hobby. For us, we don’t want to lose out on earning Chase Ultimate Rewards simply because we added the other person as an authorized user.

Referral Bonuses

What do we want? REFERRAL POINTS! When do we want them? NOW!

When you refer your Player Two to a card, you have the opportunity to earn additional points that you otherwise would not have received.

REAL LIFE EXAMPLES:

💳 Situation 1: Victoria opens a new Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card and adds Brad as an authorized user.

• Victoria earns 60k points from the welcome bonus on her new card,

• No other points are earned from adding Brad as an authorized user.

• Total Points Earned: 60k points
  
  
  

💳 Situation 2: Victoria opens a new Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card.

• Victoria refers Brad to the same card to earn an additional 10k points.

• Brad earns the same welcome bonus of 60k points.

• Total Points Earned: 130k points! 🥳

By NOT adding Brad as an authorized user Victoria more than DOUBLES the amount of points earned by referring her spouse to the card.

Travel Rewards

In this house, we love a free night certificate. 😍

Hotel cards like the The World of Hyatt Credit Card or the Hilton Honors American Express Surpass® Card (and many others) come with Free Night Certificates on the renewal date of the card. By each having our own card to our favorite hotel brand, we can double up on the free night awards earned each year.

Occasionally, we will open two different cards and work on the minimum spends separately, so that one of us is earning flexible rewards or airline miles, while the other is earning hotel points. This helps our long-term strategy for having access to a diverse pool of points to choose from!

“But sharing the card sounds like a chore…”

Shout out to TECHNOLOGY for helping sharing a card become easy peasy. 🙌

As soon as we get a new credit card, the first thing we do is add the card to our Apple Wallet on our phones and watches.

If you were considering adding your partner as an authorized user simply to cut down on needing to swap the physical card back and forth, adding the card to both of your Apple Wallets will be a game-changer. Since so many businesses now utilize Tap-to-Pay, not to mention how much of our shopping we do online, sharing a card has never been easier.

Random Tip: We typically immediately call the bank after we get approved for a new credit card and request the card to be expedited. On some very limited occasions, we’ve waited 2-3 days before remembering to call about the expedite service. Whenever this has happened, we’ve ended up with two copies of the exact same card in our mailbox. We’re assuming this is because the first card was already in the process of being issued, and then it was printed again once we requested an expedite. We then each ended up with a copy of the exact same card to keep in our wallets.

This has now happened 3 times in the past 12 months, so maybe give it a whirl yourself to test our new theory.

However, we still have yet to be in a position where we both needed the physical card at the same time. The Apple Wallet continues to remain king. 👑

😰 “Oh no! I already added my spouse as an Authorized User!”

Not to worry— If you’ve already added your Player Two to your card and want to undo it, you can! ⤵️

1. Call the bank and ask to have the person removed as an authorized user from your account

2. Call all three credit bureaus (Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion) and request to have the person removed as an authorized user from your account.

Personally, all the phone calls sounded like a hassle to us— for goodness sake, we’re MILLENNIALS 🙅‍♀️☎️ —so it’s just another reason we’ve decided to not bother adding each other as authorized users to begin with.

“Are there any benefits to adding an Authorized User?”

Yes. 🤪 There are definitely pros you might want to consider.

For us, the benefits of referral points, welcome bonuses, and available 5/24 slots outweigh the need to add each other as Authorized Users. However, you may read the pros and cons of adding an authorized user and decide differently. Then go for it! While it may be our recommendation and personal preference to not add each other as AUs, this is not a hard and fast rule for everyone.

• You’d rather just keep track of one card to keep it simple (🗣️ psssstttt— to keep it even simpler, we use the free app Travel Freely to keep track of all of our cards!)

• Many cards offer free authorized users. If you’d rather not spend the $$ on two annual fees by referring your partner to the same card, it may be worth it to add a free authorized user instead.

• The bank may run a promotion and award bonus points for adding an authorized user.

• You may have a Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card card, which gives up to four free authorized users free lounge access through Priority Pass. Since each cardholder can bring 2 guests for free into the lounge, if you have a large family it may make sense for you to both have this benefit to bring all your kiddos into the lounge too.

• You may want to add your partner as an authorized user in order to build their credit and boost their score.
  

⚖️ Bottom Line

You and your “Player Two” can decide what works best for you. Weigh the pros and cons of adding each other as authorized users.

The good news: you can always change your mind (it just may involve making a few phone calls). Maybe at this point in time, you’d like to rack up some additional points via referrals, but in the future you decide to add your partner as an authorized user due to a certain card benefit/incentive.

As for us, we’ve decided that for our points & miles strategy, we won’t be adding each other as authorized users anytime soon.

Our sights are set on getting the most amount of points possible, which means referral and welcome bonuses for both of us! 🤩

Editorial Disclosure: Opinions expressed here are the author's alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, hotel, airline, or other entity. This content has not been reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed by any of the entities included within the post.