What you are describing sounds like the practice of card issuers making retention offers. These are not limited to any specific anniversary of a given card.

For a long-running discussion of Chase retention offers, see http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/chase...all-cards.html

Downgrading and 24-Month Policy
 

Hi All,

First post here and yes, I read the wiki! I'm considering ditching my CSP at the next annual fee posting and reapplying after the 24-month bonus clock runs. Is it necessary to cancel or would a downgrade suffice? Per the wiki:

If you still have your old card of the same type, you're ineligible.

Am I reading this correctly to exclude CSP cards downgraded to Freedom/Sapphire? If that's the case, as I could use another no annual fee card, wouldn't it make sense to just downgrade CSP instead of outright canceling? I could not find clarification after skimming the posts in this thread.

Thanks in advance.

Yes, you can downgrade and it will no longer count as you having the CSP. You would then not be able to get the bonus for the Freedom while you are holding it, so if you wanted to get a bonus for the freedom card, you would want to apply for it before the downgrade.

I'm wondering if that is true. Yes you do have to wait 24 months after receiving a sign up bonus to get one again. But if you downgrade a card, you haven't gotten a sign up bonus, so maybe you can still apply for a second Freedom card, and get a bonus for that.

Much more important, have you been reading this thread for awhile? Chase will not give you a CSP, Freedom, or Slate, whether or not you have had one of them before, if you have opened more than 5 ccs in the past 24 months. Some people even seem to get denied if they have only opened 5 ccs in the past 24. And this is not just Chase cards, this is cards from any bank at all. And if you also have AU cards, those will count against you as well, unless you close them first.

Make very sure you understand the new Chase policy on UR cards before closing a CSP. Once closed you may not be able to get another one. :eek:

Yep, I should be ok on the 5/24 policy. I've been holding out on apps for a while due to an upcoming refinance, so the timing happens to work out well for me to get another round of CSP/Ink after the loan closes. I'll go the downgrade route. Thanks for the clarification.

It's not just about the 24-month wait. As discussed explicitly in the wiki, Chase has for some time had an apparent policy of rejecting applications made by people who already hold the applied-for card.

Unless there's good reason to believe that policy has changed, or that it is more nuanced & less stringent than previously believed, I think your recommendation is not a sound one. I'd be happy to be persuaded otherwise.

I read recently (up-thread I believe) where someone was easily able to upgrade their Slate or Freedom card to the CSP. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Why do I frequently feel like I'm in a court of law having to define what the word "is" means? :p Yes, it's always possible to upgrade one card to another. But the OP was wanting to close a CSP and apply for another one, in order to get another sign up bonus. If one upgrades a Slate or Freedom to a CSP, one does not get a CSP sign up bonus.

Yes, you would have to close the downgraded card before applying for another one. I was just saying you probably wouldn't need to wait 24 months after doing the downgrade to get a sign up bonus on a new card.

Which, as I said, really doesn't matter for most of us, since if one has opened (more than) 5 cards in the past 24 months, they are not going to get approved for a CSP, Freedom, or Slate anyway.

But we do have to make an exception for the 3 people reading this thread who haven't opened (more than) 5 ccs in the past 24 months. :p

Sorry Brugge! I wasn't poking at you.

Your bold red text and phraseology make it seem as if there is some considerable risk in closing (or even downgrading) your CSP. I was just pointing out to folks who don't understand things as well as others that the consequences of closing your CSP are not so dire.

I did the red because there are new people who come to this thread, ignore the wiki, or don't even know there is a wiki, merely skim thru the last page or two here, and then merrily go about canceling their CSP in hopes of getting a new sign up bonus. I wanted to get their attention because I totally disagree about the risk in closing a CSP.

The consequence of closing a CSP, if one has UR points still in ones Chase account, and especially if you also have a Freedom that is accruing more points over time, is that unless you have a SO with an open CSP, you don't have a way to transfer those UR points to airline and hotel programs.

That happened to me. I closed my CSP back when getting another one only required 24 months from the last bonus, fully expecting to get another CSP and the bonus as well. Chase had some "limited time offers" for some of their co-brand cards, so I applied for those first, and by the time I was ready to reapply for a CSP, Chase had changed their policy to 5/24. Since I am usually 5/3 :p that meant I was SOL for getting another one.

Luckily in my case, DW still has her CSP open, so I can transfer my 20K + UR points a year from my Freedom bonused spend thru her. I probably could upgrade my Freedom to a CSP ( not enough data points on that to be sure) but then I'd lose all of those 5X per $ Freedom bonuses. The CSP just is not that compelling anymore, now that I can get everything that the CSP is 2X per $ for 3X per $ with the Premier card. But having a way to transfer out the UR points is a big deal for me. :)

Still Waiting For News On Wife's Marriott App
 

DW and I applied for the 80K Marriott offer on August 30th. We have both had the card before, but canceled them well over a year ago. Unlike up until recently, our apps didn't get instant approval, and we followed the advice here to avoid calling Recon. I just occasionally called the automated line. After a week that line said I'd been approved, and a day or two later the card appeared on my Chase cc webpage (but I have yet to actually get the card in the mail).

Now 2 weeks later, the auto line still says DW will get an answer in the mail in "about 2 weeks", which would be today. But I'm quite confident nothing is getting delivered on a Sunday. The long delay for approval has me impatient/anxious. We don't really want the card for spending, but the extra 80K points will really help out for hotel stays in Europe next Summer, now that you can't get HH and HH Res cards over and over any more.

That's a good point Brugge! I have an Ink Plus and an Ink Bold so I didn't consider the potential loss of transferability. Now if we can just get Citi to include Hyatt as a transfer partner.

No thanks. I don't want Hyatt points to be devalued.

Lucky you. DW has a real full time business, just over a year old, for which AMEX gave her a Bus Gold card. But 2 apps for an Ink, 6 months apart, were both turned down, and that was before the latest shenanigans began. :rolleyes:

She is applying for a SPG Bus with the enhanced 30K sign up bonus today. We'd much rather have 1.25 SPG points than 1 MR point. Please everyone, wish her luck. :)