I had this issue in the past where my CL was over 5K, but they would always deny my request to convert to a VS. The way I got around it was I did a product change to the no-fee Sapphire and during the conversion I confirmed with the representative that it would be a VS. Once I received the no-fee sapphire VS I called again to convert to the Freedom. Since the account was now a VS the Freedom that I got was now a VS. BTW - my account number never changed with all the conversions. I guess you sort of have to go through about a month where you are not getting the category spending bonus, but if you do it early enough in the quarter you can make it up.