And for both the Explorer card and the Chase Sapphire Preferred (another no foreign transaction fee card), there's no annual fee for the first year, so one could/would just cancel after one year and reapply, all while keeping the old Plus card untouched with the long credit history. BTW, if the old card is still used, it might be beneficial to send Chase a Secure Message when the annual fee pops up and say that you aren't happy with the annual fee and that you're wondering if they could offset it somehow for being a long time customer. They might pleasantly surprise.