I'm trying to figure out my best strategy for getting an EMV-compatible card for foreign travel. I currently have:
Chase United MileagePlus Explorer (my daily card)
Chase United MileagePlus (old, used for monthly auto-billed services like DirecTV)
Chase Slate (formerly MasterCard, replaced by Visa, never used)
What I want is a Chase Sapphire Preferred with the EMV chip, but I am worried that Chase will think I have too much open credit with them. My FICO is around 800 so I am an excellent risk and no delinquencies. I'd be happy to cancel the Slate Visa since it is useless. I originally got it as an M/C to be able to use at places that only took M/C and not Visa (yes, there are such places, outside the U.S.) but Chase unfortunately decided to convert all its MasterCards to Visas. (Grrr.)
If you think you already have too much open credit with Chase, what you can do is apply for the card that you want (in this case the CSP) and IF denied, call and recon the card and say that you could close the Slate and move the limit over to the CSP to approve the app.
This is assuming the only reason they would deny you is that you reached Chase's internal limit for you.