is the chase the only company which will stop issuing credit cards if they feel that they are being taken advantage of or the other companies (which ones please) do it as well?

I've beeen a chase credit card user for a few years. Started out with the freedom card that was my primary card for the longest time and also have a chase checking account. Applied to Continental 50k last year before I was aware of churning. Over past 6 months, got the SWA personal 50k, SWA biz 50k, United 50k, and chase sapphire preferred 50k along with a few other credit cards (Hawaiian airlines 70k, us airways 40k) for 310k miles. Now that I've met spending requirements for all of them, I'm back to usual spending habbits and will have freedom/sapphire combo for majority of purchases and pull out the other cards as needed.

Don't feel that I need the SWA personal or biz or Mileage plus cards now that I can transfer UR to UA or SWA. I will definitely be renewing SP. When the annual year is up, should I:

1) Cancel the SWA and MP cards and don't transfer to credit line to decrease my percentage of credit card line to annual salary?
2) Cancel SWA and MP cards and transfer the credit line to freedom or SP?
3) Cancel one SWA, keep other SWA, and cancel MP?

When will best time be to reapply? Eyeing the Ink Bold

The best way to avoid Chase cancellations is to stop applying for new cards.

Unless the existing cards have an annual fee that you don't want to pay, I wouldn't cancel any of the cards. Keeping them open is good for your credit rating.

Chase has been on a rampage as of late, shutting down people's CC's left and right for "abuse," "rewards program not used as intended" and other extremely vague reasons. I would recommend laying low for a while.

Or maybe it just seems like it, because people are hysterically posting about closed accounts like lemmings.

I'd like some cold, hard stats before I buy into Chase Rampage 2012.

As for the OP, I'd say: Don't do anything illegal and don't do anything that egregiously gouges Chase and you should be fine.

But as for your options, #2 sounds like a good plan to me. Especially if you're using SP and Freedom as your main go-to cards, you're probably listed as a "profitable customer".

As for when to go for Ink Bold, hard to say since you have had so many Chase cards. Might be a tricky sell, but I'd say it depends on your spending patterns (how much do you spend/spend on Chase cards) and the value Chase sees in the relationship. And your credit rating/report, of course. But if you haven't picked up a new card in the last 3 to 6 months, I'd say go for it. The worst they can do is reject you.

To expand on this, I suspect Chase has been hitting a lot of folks whose spending patterns demonstrate an intent to run spending through a card solely for the purpose of earning points in whatever program the card promotes. Before you laugh too much and say, well, that's what we do here at FT, I'd suggest looking at a credit card statement you had before you started taking cards for miles.

I'll bet you'll see charges for gas every week or so, groceries every week or so, restaurant meals, an internet order or two, a charge at a bricks-and-mortar department store, tickets for a play or a ball game, a purchase at Home Depot.

I'm going to bet that the cardholders Chase shut down had significant gift card purchases--in some cases, probably little other than gift card purchases. If not gift card purchases, then money charged using all the other little mechanisms we discuss here to jack up spending.

If you use those mechanisms now, monitor your statement to make sure other spending reaches your card, too. And slow down the applications. It's easy to get caught up here in the excitement, but recently, even experienced pros like the Frugal Travel Guy have reported getting denied on applications. Keep in mind that these incentives got put out there as a way for the financial institutions to attract credit card customers at a time when the pool of good customers was getting smaller. The signs point to a change in that area (flattening or reduction in signup bonuses, the increases in spending requirements) which means that institutions are more likely to decline credit applications now than they were a year ago.

Fair enough, although I am sure that we both realize that there is no possible way for any of us to receive any hard facts, as Chase is the only one with that information and it'll never release it unless it is forced to do so.

That has been the problem, though. It looks like Chase has been shutting down people's cards for high levels of regular spending (not rewards churning).

Well, the worst they can do is have a credit analyst take a look at all the credit exposure and the obvious pattern of opening up credit cards to take advantage of account opening promos and then shut down all existing Chase cards for "abuse." I have seen a number of posts out there about this.

Chase is the most well known one that engages in this behavior, although some of it has to do with the fact that it issues such a wide variety of credit cards.

Amex takes a different strategy, by sometimes limiting the number of times that you can receive the same bonus. Amex will also conduct FR's (financial reviews) by demanding that you provide them written evidence of your financial condition and, if you refuse, shutting down all your Amex CC's.

Citi has been known to do the same thing (to deny CC applications outright).

Chase (and other issuers) are also engaged in a wholesale effort to bring themselves into compliance with Dodd-Frank requirements that consumers not be issued business accounts.

The latter do not contain all of the new consumer protections and are intended for business, not consumer abuse.

If a "business" account looks to be more consumer in its backup information and spending pattern, it's likely to be shut down and, along with it, other customer relationships.

That's right. Likewise, there are numerous posts from people with consumer Chase cards that have been shut down because Chase thought that they were running "business" expenses through them. I have no idea why a CC issuer cares about something like that.

There is zero proof of this and I don't believe it for a second. Chase shutting down people's cards for high levels of regular spending? That makes no sense and would be a horrific business model--it would mean Chase is shutting down the accounts of those who make the most money for them.

I am a mid-level spender, but have moved much of my business from Amex to Chase--increasing my spending with them. Since then, Chase has been more receptive to my requests for cards, in general checks in with me often to see if I am happy with them, and has given me higher credit limits.

So I don't buy these stories of people's accounts being closed for "high levels of regular spending". I think, as always, we're getting about 1/10th of the story from people who are posting about closed accounts--mostly in an attempt to garner pity and drum up anti-Chase sentiments because they got caught buying a zillion gift cards or other more ridiculous schemes.

Don't be stupid and silly and you'll be fine.

Yes. This is more likely. But I'd say this was a bad way of churning if all you're doing is opening a card, doing a min spend for the bonus, then closing the account. Admittedly, if Chase is only losing money on you, there's a good chance they won't want to do business with you anymore. Seems like common sense to me.

This is more likely, though I gotten business cards with different issuers post Dodd-Frank and haven't had any problems despite a healthy amount of personal spending on them. It'll be interesting to see where this goes in the future--credit card companies could more lax as that aspect of Dodd-Frank does not come into play (as in consumers aren't making a real issue over the lack of same protections with their business cards) or more stringent if a slew of lawsuits crop up from consumers over lack of protections on the card.

I suspect the former in the short run and the latter in the long run.

Huh. There has been? Can you give us a link to these numerous posts? This is the first I've ever heard of Chase shutting down personal credit cards because they thought business expenses were being put on them. I am unsure why this would be a problem or what sort of T&C it violates.

I don't know if I can easily point you to any specific posts about this, as I've seen a number of complaints about this on different boards. Take a look at the last couple of pages in the enormous AARP thread on Fatwallet, which, I believe, discusses this issue.

As far as I understand it, there is no question that T&C do not prohibit any business charges on consumer CC's. Based on the posts, however, Chase has been shutting people's CC's down for "rewards not used as indented," and, when people complained, stating that the credit cards are intended for everyday, personal use.

What many people have interpreted this to mean is that Chase did not intend to pay out more than a certain amount in rewards based on its expectation that people would be using their credit cards for regular, everyday purchases. So, when people started shifting their business purchases (and churning) to the CC's, the rewards payouts got too high for Chase's taste and it started taking the position that it can close CC's at any time for any reason without pointing to a specific T&C violation.

Chase's AARP card is (was) paying 5% cashback, so Chase was losing a lot of money on the card. This is especially true if it became apparent to Chase that a lot of those high spenders were only doing it to take advantage of the high cashback during the promo and would not (and likely could not, based on their reported incomes) sustain that level of spending after the promo was over.

You may be right, as there is obviously no way to get all the facts. I have just seen quite a few people complaining about this.