I ended up doing that after all and it worked just fine, so now I have the credit in non-expiring gift card form. I checked my Chase online status and it shows the credit as received. And given all the SW points I still have to use up, I predict I'll be chipping away at that gift card $5.60 at a time for a good while, provided I can even find enough flights that I want/need to take. So in all likelihood I'll close my SW card for this next year, as I just don't really need the new benefits vs the new $149 fee.