As someone who will be looking for a mortgage after the first of the year and has been carefully making sure my credit was in order, I was a bit dismayed to be automatically upgraded from the Platinum VISA (which I barely used, but showed a high available credit limit) to the Signature VISA (which does not report a credit limit, just highest balance).

I activated it, since it appeared I had little choice if I wanted to keep any card on that account and show available credit, and kept my old Platinum card, which expires in June 2008. Amusingly, now both new and old cards show up in my online BofA account.

I've made several calls to Bank of America trying to figure out what impact this may have on my credit score. But either they didn't have an answer, didn't understand the question, or blamed the credit reporting agencies and said I'd have to contact them. (Great customer service.)

It appears my only recourse is, when I decide to apply for a mortgage, to have each of the three credit reporting agencies include a statement from me indicating there was a forced upgrade by BofA from Platinum (with reportable credit limit) to Signature (with no reportable credit limit). As I said, not the most customer-friendly action BofA could take.

By the way, it turns out the only option other than accepting the Signature upgrade, according to two BofA credit analysts I spoke with, was to be downgraded to a VISA Gold card that reports credit limits accurately. Both told me the Platinum was being phased out.