I agree, this is a very good question. Although I will reluctantly acknowledge that 5/24 likely doesn't affect a large portion of the population, it is impossible for anyone here to know, even remotely, just how many it does affect. I'm fairly confident that it would take a much greater number of undesirable applicants than what most here seem to believe to convince Chase to implement such an aggressive and inflexible rebuffing countermeasure for those in the unenviable position of having too many accounts opened in the past 24 months.
That being said, I don't foresee many banks going down this road. I do believe that these undesirable applicants have probably been a necessary evil for many years to help reach various measures and quotas for new card issuances. There's probably a number of banks out there that would love to see even a percentage of the volume of interest and subsequent applications that Chase gets for their products.
Quite frankly, in my opinion, most banks out there don't have the kind of cards that would interest the kind of people Chase is attempting to keep out, so I doubt it will be a large enough problem for them to contend with. Simply put, a 5/24 rule isn't really necessary if a bank already can't get enough people to apply for their products currently. It's probably a luxury to be so selective and implement a 5/24 rule! After Citi and AmEx, honestly, what else is there really left that would result in many disgruntled applicants in a similar fashion as Chase? "Craps, I can no longer get that 1% card with no sign up bonus or Visa/MasterCard Platinum with no rewards from that obscure bank!" Please.
Personally, I have a self-imposed rule for banks like Wells Fargo, Suntrust, BB&T, TD Bank, etc due to their crappy cards, so they'll never have to worry about me applying.
