You know, I rang and cancelled my First USA British Airways Visa card last week. I of course braced myself ahead of time... the last time I cancelled a card, an Amex product, I had to wait out 45 minutes of wrangling and wheedling and fake computer crashes.

This time, however, I got through to First USA, told the CSR I wanted to cancel and was just confirming the final-payment figure, and she said:

"I presume you're cancelling because you don't wish to pay the annual fee."

Me: "Oh, not, not at all. I'm cancelling because of changes to the British Airways Executive Club."

Her: "Oh. What changes are those?"

Me: (Details same.)

Her. "Ah, I see. All right then. Your account is cancelled. Thank you for calling First USA."

She was very responsive, but couldn't have cared less whether I kept the card or not and offered no inducements.

For the record, it was a fairly high-spend account; large payoffs used to trigger automated we-hope-we're-still-your-primary-card mailings; I was surprised they made no effort at all to retain my business.

Not that it would have done any good.