Other Credit Card Programs - United MP Chase Credit Card Closed W/O My Knowledge

I have, well had, a United Mileage Plus Chase Credit Card for the past year and about 2 weeks ago it was open and active. Now I look at my Chase Online account and it has completely disappeared.

I called Chase Customer Service and they said they couldn't pull it up and the account was closed a long time ago and I should have received a letter. Obviously, I did not receive a letter, call, or email notifying me that this was going to happen. They asked if I had used the card recently and I said I only used it once when I first opened it a year ago...and they said that is why it was closed.

Just curious, can Chase just close my account without first notifying me and is there anything I can do (not sure what I want to do) but I know this will most likely impact my credit score because it had a high credit limit, but a $0 balance on it.:mad:

Also, not sure if this will impact the responses, but I applied for the Chase Continental Presidential Plus Credit Card today.

Very frustrated with Chase, too bad I already applied to the PP card today.

can Chase just close my account without first notifying me
Yes. Unfortunately, there's no way to prove whether they tried to notify you or not. I had one card canceled last year that I hadn't used in 10+ years (AT&T Universal card). They canceled it and told me about it after the fact.

this will most likely impact my credit score because it had a high credit limit, but a $0 balance on it.
A high limit is not necessarily good for your credit rating. Too much available credit can hurt you.

Yes Chase can close an inactive account by giving notice (??but does not have to be advance notice??). Not sure of the needed period of inactivity but suspect a year would be enough.
Sometimes you can get the credit provider to re-activate the card.

do a little Googling on the subject

Thanks...it's actually a little reassuring to hear all of your responses only because I thought something else happened. I've never had a card account closed for no reason and not being notified.

Citi did the same for me once ... However, "as a courtesy" they reactivated the card. I actually received a letter after it was closed due to inactivity. The only reason I kept it open was because the card was so old. Now I just have my Tivo bill go there and it get automatically paid every month so there is activity.

When I was taking a shower last night for a party I put on the radio and Clark Horwad was on (wanted to qualify that I do not usually listen ot Clark Howard :D usually in the morning it's news and traffic).

This was his subject, that many of the credit card companies are closing affinity cards like this example, without any notice. For many travel people, it's happening in the middle of their trips.

He was recommending that you balance out use on your cards so that none of them are inactive, using each card at least every six months, and if you only have one or two cards, to get another one or two so that you have three major cards just in case.

So yes, it's happening, enough to make the call in radio shows.

A high limit is not necessarily good for your credit rating. Too much available credit can hurt you.

This is not 100% correct, the only thing FICO scoring takes into affect is the % of available vs used credit. You can have $1,000,000 or $100 of available credit but as long as you use less than 10% at any given time you will see little impact to your FICO score. A manual review (ie mortgage application) might see to much of available credit as a risk, but this is usually if it is excessive (there are some people with 100's of 1000's of available revolving credit).

The other impact could be to your average age of accounts but that won't come into play until 10 years from now when the account is dropped from your credit report.

To stay on topic, Chase just did the same thing to me, but not with my MP card but a card they acquired with their purchase of WAMU. I haven't used it in about 9 months. I actually planned on closing it myself.

Many banks are looking to reduce their overall exposure.

the only thing FICO scoring takes into affect is the % of available vs used credit.
Credit rating and FICO score are not the same thing. FICO score is a small part of credit rating. People get turned down for credit all the time for having too much available credit.

Credit rating and FICO score are not the same thing. FICO score is a small part of credit rating. People get turned down for credit all the time for having too much available credit.

Actualy, credit rating and credit score are used interchangeably. But you both are correct - having a high unused credit limit will not hurt your score, but credit score is only one of several factors lenders use in making a decision on whether to extend credit.

Please follow this in the credit cards forum.

l'etoile
UA moderator

An important case from 1978 sets out some of the issues about card cancellation. 615 F2d 191 Koerner v. American Express Company. http://openjurist.org/615/f2d/191/koerner-v-american-express-company

In the end, card user got screwed because it was a biz card, not a consumer card.

Just curious, can Chase just close my account without first notifying me and is there anything I can do (not sure what I want to do) but I know this will most likely impact my credit score because it had a high credit limit, but a $0 balance on it.:mad:


I suspect you were notified by US Mail. Approximately one month ago, I got a letter from Chase stating that if I did not use a particular long inactive Chase card by a certain date, the account would be closed. I made a charge and the account is still open. I think (my thought), you got a Chase letter as part of the zillions of recent credit card notices that we have all been receiving and you did not open or overlooked the letter. This is my guess.

Chase closed my Marriott Reward business card w/o notice. I learned about it when I found the notice of closure in the pile of mail when we returned from an extended trip. It is not a biggie to me as I actually was planning to close the card. Reason is Inactivity for 6 months demonstrated that I (my business) did not need the card any more.

Visa Signature is a non-reporting card anyway - therefore whatever high credit OP has, unless he has charged up to that limit, it would have NEVER shown on his credit report, thus NEVER goes into the calculation of his FICO. In fact, with the non-reporting cards, the utilization is always 1/1 - as the usage is being reported as the maximum balance for that month - the same as the usage. It actually could hurt your score if all your cards are the non-reporting variety. (Visa Signature, World Mastercard, many AMEX types).