Originally Posted by
Diplomatico
Of note, I downgraded my CSR to a Freedom prior to the annual fee posting and received a pro-rated credit for the month of September.
I'm not sure that's of any note since whenever one downgrades, it's always prior to the next annual fee (whether that's 11.5 months or 30 days away).
The pro-rated refund is a function of how much time has past since the last annual fee. Using Diplomatico's example to illustrate, the last annual fee was 10/1/16 so s/he used 11 months and got 1 month refunded (September 2017).
My recommendation to those in the same situation is to wait until late December to downgrade, that would be <60 days from the 10/1/17 annual fee posting, so the $450 that would be paid in October would be fully refunded.
Ultimately, in this example, the opportunity to monetize the full $300 2018 travel credit would have only cost the $37.50 that was refunded yesterday.