Exactly. The fairly major implication down the road is something that the poster should get this resolved with Chase once and for all despite he may never want to do business with Chase again.

Chase may, and often, initially approve a card application only to abruptly close it days / weeks later, when its system catches up the "previous unsatisfactory relationship".

The failure on making AutoPay is very likely programmed into behaviors that show "unsatisfactory relationship".

The poster thinks only abusing award system / suspicious transaction getting banned, obviously has very little or no knowledge in the bigger world outside the miles and points earning subset.

Years ago I have made constructive suggestions to help an FTer who reached out to me on something Chase did to her account totally not her fault but a faulty ATM at a Chase branch (it all started when the ATM took her emergency after hour cash deposit without giving her a receipt.)

All her cards incl a brand new CSP (just introduced at that time, that was how many years ago) she was in the middle to meet the spend. Long story short, after all the necessary actions (all have suggested in this thread), she was contacted by a staffer at the Exec Office. Eventually Chase restored her standing in Chase system (meaning she would not be blacklisted) but still would not reinstate the cards, though issued a check to the equivalent of the CSP 50K sign up bonus even she only finished slightly more than 50% of the spend.

Bank accounts were restored. She also was able to get new Chase cards months later and no more incident.