By United℠ Explorer Card Review (2020.11 Update: 70k Offer!)
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2020.11 Update: The new offer is 70k! This is the best ever public offer on this card.
2020.10 Update: The offer is lowered to 40k now.
2020.8 Update: The 60k offer ($3,000 spending in 3 months) is back~
Application Link
Benefits
- 70k offer: earn 60,000 United miles after spending $3,000 in the first 3 months; earn additional 10,000 United miles after spending $6,000 in total in the first 6 months. That’s 70,000 miles in total.
- We value UA miles at 1.4 cents (Airline Miles Value). So the 70k highest sign-up bonus is worth about $980! See A Beginner’s Guide to UA Miles to check for details about UA Miles.
- Earn 2x UA miles on United, restaurants and hotels. Earn 1x UA mile per dollar spent on all other purchases.
- Get 2 United Club one-time passes each year.
- First checked bag free on United flights when purchasing tickets (or paying the tax and fees for award tickets) with this card..
- Group 2 boarding on United flights when purchasing tickets (or paying the tax and fees for award tickets) with this card.
- Earn 25% back on in flight purchases.
- Get 25% bonus miles on MileagePlus X purchases.
- More award availability (XN cabin) with this card.
- Up to $100 Global Entry or TSA Pre✓® Fee Credit.
- No foreign transaction fee.
- Refer a friend (targeted): You can earn 5,000 bonus UA miles for every approved account you refer, up to a maximum of 10 approved referrals (50,000 UA miles) per calendar year.
Disadvantage
- Annual fee $95, waived for the first year.
Recommended Application Time
- [5/24 Rule] If you have 5 or more new accounts opened in the past 24 months, Chase will not approve your application on this card, no matter how high your credit score is. The number of new accounts includes all credit card accounts, not only Chase accounts. See this post for details about how to possibly bypass this rule.
- You are not eligible for this sign-up bonus if you received a sign-up bonus on this card within 24 months. Note that what matters here is the time you got the sign-up bonus, not the time you opened or closed the account.
- Don’t apply for more than 2 Chase credit cards within 30 days, or it’s highly likely that you will get rejected.
- We recommend you to apply for this card after you have a credit history for more than a year.
Summary
The sign-up bonus on this card is usually very nice, so it is worth applying. However, the reward rate of everyday spending is not very impressive, which makes it hard to justify the $95 annual fee. If you fly UA a lot so that you can take advantage of those UA related perks, then this credit card is worth keeping. Otherwise you can consider downgrading it to the no fee Chase United Gateway card after one year.
Related Credit Cards
Recommended Downgrade Options
After Applying
- Call 800-436-7927 to check Chase application status. This is an automated telephone line, and the information has the following meanings: Receive decision in 2 weeks means your application is probably approved; Receive decision in 7-10 days means your application is probably rejected; Receive decision in 30 days simply means your application requires further review and there’s nothing to tell you for now.
- Chase reconsideration backdoor number: 888-270-2127 or 888-609-7805. Call it if you didn’t get approve immediately. Your personal information will be acquired and they will then review it. You seldom answer questions, instead, just enjoy the music and then you get approved or rejected, or further information is needed to be hand in to the branch or faxed.
Historical Offers Chart
Note: Sometimes there are offers such as 40k+25k on this card, but the spending requirement for the latter 25k is huge. Therefore, we don’t treat them as sign-up bonus; instead, we treat them as spending bonus instead.
