Feb 12, 2016, 8:56 am
Last edit by: beltway
This is the general 2016-2019 thread for weighing the relative merits
of keeping, downgrading, or canceling Chase-issued credit cards.
Post-2019 discussion continues in this thread.
of keeping, downgrading, or canceling Chase-issued credit cards.
Post-2019 discussion continues in this thread.
What's the main reason people product change (PC)?
The benefits offered by a particular card, might suit you better than the card you are holding. Many people, unable to qualify for a new Chase Sapphire Reserve application, upgraded from the Sapphire Preferred to the Sapphire Reserve, because the benefits of the CSR's cash reimbursements made the annual fee a nominal difference the first year. And vice versa- the onerous $450 yearly fee of the CSR makes an appealing case to downgrade to the Sapphire Preferred, and eventually to the no-fee Sapphire or a Freedom card.
Many people product change to avoid the annual fees on the premium versions of the card. Keeping the card open, via a product change, keeps the account open. This allows you to retain the seasoned account, and the banking relationship that the older card has established with Chase.
Why not just cancel the card and be done with it?
This may be the right choice for you, but others want some of the card benefits without having to reapply. Also, Chase has become very restrictive for new card applicants. For Chase cards, you must wait 24- 48 months since the last time you received a bonus before reapplying. Please see the threads on the individual cards for updated overlay rules.
An additional (and more stringent) overlay is the infamous 5/24 rule, which Chase instituted in May 2016 as a counter-measure against churning, or, as they refer to it, "Serial Starters." The 5/24 rule is that you won't be eligible for most Chase card products if you've opened more than 5 credit cards in 24 months. For more on this and other application-related issues, see the current "Applying for Chase Credit Cards " Master thread.
Finally, canceling certain cards--those earning Chase Ultimate Rewards--may deprive you of the ability to exchange UR for miles/points in air & hotel programs. See Ultimate Rewards transfer partners, times & rules.
Is there any way I can keep a card without paying the annual fee?
See Chase Retention Bonuses: June 2015-Present
Are there any restrictions on product changes?
Product changes are only allowed within the same card "family," and are not permitted between business and personal cards. Also, Chase cites the federal CARD Act to deny product changes on any account less that one year old.
Will a product change count as a new card?
No, you will keep your same card number, "opened on" date, credit line, automatic payment arrangements, etc. A product change does not count against Chase's 5/24 limitations on new cards.
Will I get a signup bonus when I change?
No, product changes do not result in point bonuses. Signup bonuses are reserved for new applicants only. For the complete list of public sign up offers, check the Chase sitemap here: https://creditcards.chase.com/sitemap
Is there a place I can look to compare cards?
Go here: https://creditcards.chase.com/credit...D=177087865887
Click: All cards
Place a checkmark in the Compare box for up to three cards.
Click: Compare cards...and you should see a side-by-side display.
I've figured out what I want to switch to. How do I product change my card?
Call the number on the back of your card.
Product changes for the Ultimate Reward Business and Personal Card Family
The UR family of cards includes the Chase Ink business cards, the Freedom Unlimited, the Freedom Card, and the Chase Sapphire Preferred, Reserve and Sapphire.
The Slate (personal) card is also available to downgrade to. It has no annual fee and does not earn any type of reward points. It offers a low fee (currently 0% for the first 60 days) balance transfers and APR.
Personal Cards
- Freedom: 5X points in rotating quarterly categories up to $1500 spend per quarter. If you max out the $1500 every quarter, it totals 7500 UR per quarter, or 30,000 UR per year.
- Freedom Unlimited: 1.5X for all spending, no bonus categories. $20,000 in spend would net 30,000 UR per year.
- Sapphire Reserve: $450 annual fee, $300 annual travel credit, 3X points for travel and dining. Books travel through the UR portal for 1.5 per dollar. Lounge access and other goodies. See the thread here for details.
- Sapphire Preferred: $95 annual fee, 2X points for travel & dining
- For discussion specific to the Sapphire Preferred Card, see Chase Sapphire Preferred - Keep, Downgrade, or Cancel?
- Sapphire: Not available to new applicants. Available as a product downgrade/change only, must tier down from the Sapphire Reserve to Sapphire Preferred to Sapphire or Freedom cards. No annual fee. Some Customer Service Reps are citing that the original product (i.e., the CSR), must be held for one year before downgrading. Please provide data points in the thread if this happens to you.
Business Cards
- Ink Plus: $95 annual fee, 5X office supplies, 5X cellular/landline/cable; 2X gas and hotels
- Ink Preferred: 3x on travel, shipping, internet/phone/cable, & some online advertising.
- Ink Cash: No annual fee, 5X office supplies, 5X cellular/landline/cable; 2X gas and restaurants
If you still have a legacy Ink Classic or Ink Bold business card, neither of which is available for new signups, you can product change to one of the other Ink cards.
Considerations for downgrading/upgrading:
Can I combine my UR points?
Yes, UR can be combined freely across the cardholder's own personal and business accounts.
What about transfering my UR to another person's Chase UR account? To their air/hotel partner account?
With restrictions, UR from a personal card can be transferred to a person living at the same address. Business cards allow transfer to owners of the company listed as authorized users.
However, be warned that there are transfer restrictions. Unauthorized transfers have resulted in shut-downs. Review the Chase T&C for details before planning a transfer. For discussion, see http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/chase...-accounts.html.
The Freedom cards, no-fee Ink Cash, and no-fee Sapphire cards do not allow UR transfer to airline/hotel partners. If you are downgrading from a premium UR card and will only have no-fee cards left, it may be prudent to transfer your points to the partner of your choice beforehand.
I know I can use UR to pay for travel directly (as opposed to transfering points into a travel partner program). Do the Chase UR cards differ on this?
Only the Sapphire Reserve books travel on the UR portal for 1.5. So you can stack your card bonus opportunities when your UR points are combined into your CSR account and used for booking travel. If, for instance, you earned 5x on your Ink Plus on your phone bill, and combine those 5x Ink earned points into your CSR's UR account, you'll now get an additional .5 in value when you redeem them on the travel portal.
Product Changes for United Airlines Cards
There are options to downgrade or upgrade UA cards.
- United Mileage Plus Card- no annual fee, 1 UA mile per $2 in spend
- United Mileage Plus Explorer Card- $95 annual fee, 1 mile per dollar earning, additional award inventory on UA, free checked bag, 25% bonus on the shopping portal.
- United Plus Club Card- $450 annual fee, 1.5 miles per $1, many additional premium card benefits
- Business Cards for the Mileage Plus and Club Card give you a choice to upgrade or downgrade between those two.
Southwest Airlines Cards
The difference here is a nominal $30/3000 points per year.
Personal cards
- Plus Card- $69 annual fee, 3000 bonus points upon renewal
- Premiere Card- $99 annual fee, 6000 bonus points upon renewal
Chase Product Change/Card Conversion: Downgrade, Upgrade, Keep or Cancel? (2016-2019)
Mar 3, 2018, 2:56 pm
#706
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: New York, NY, USA
Programs: UA 1K - 2.1MM, HH LT Diamond, IHG Diamond, Bonvoy LT Titanium, Hyatt Glob
Posts: 766
No; you can’t product change between a Co-branded card and a Chase branded card. You also can’t PC between different co-brands. You can PC your card to a Marriott card only.
Mar 4, 2018, 12:43 am
#707
Join Date: May 2012
Location: HNL
Programs: AS MVPG, HA Plat
Posts: 1,268
Called to downgrade a MP Explorer card and was offered the free 1mile/$2 card, which I accepted. Credit posted for prorated fee a few days later and I’m still getting 25% bonus on MileagePlusX. Happy with that outcome.
Mar 4, 2018, 7:53 am
#708
Moderator
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: Miami, Mpls & London
Programs: AA & Marriott Perpetual Platinum; DL & HH Gold
Posts: 48,954
Mar 4, 2018, 12:39 pm
#709
Join Date: May 2012
Location: HNL
Programs: AS MVPG, HA Plat
Posts: 1,268
Last weekend (2/24). I'd seen those reports and was expecting to get offered the Travel Bank card, so I posted the contrary datapoint.
Last edited by WrightHI; Mar 4, 2018 at 12:56 pm Reason: Added exact date.
Mar 12, 2018, 5:58 pm
#710
Join Date: Feb 2013
Location: PHX
Programs: AA EXP, IHG Diamond, IC Amb
Posts: 5,510
Is there a definitive answer or any data points for the following scenario?
1.Downgrade my 3 year old CSP to FU today.
2. How long do I need to wait to apply for a CSR in order to qualify for the bonus?
1.Downgrade my 3 year old CSP to FU today.
2. How long do I need to wait to apply for a CSR in order to qualify for the bonus?
Mar 13, 2018, 6:35 am
#711
Join Date: Sep 2011
Posts: 1,857
Not definitive, but close enough: I've seen data points of 1 or 2 days being too soon and 1 week always working.
Mar 20, 2018, 12:37 am
#712
Join Date: Feb 2015
Posts: 64
So the SO cancelled her Reserve a week or two ago. I didn't realize that UR points get cancelled too. She does have a separate UR account for her Ink Plus card. Is it confirmed that her UR points from the reserve are about to be lost? Why are they not gone already? Should we be transferring them immediately to the other UR account?
Mar 20, 2018, 5:36 am
#713
Join Date: Sep 2011
Posts: 1,857
So the SO cancelled her Reserve a week or two ago. I didn't realize that UR points get cancelled too. She does have a separate UR account for her Ink Plus card. Is it confirmed that her UR points from the reserve are about to be lost? Why are they not gone already? Should we be transferring them immediately to the other UR account?
Mar 20, 2018, 3:56 pm
#714
Join Date: Dec 2017
Location: SFO/YYZ
Programs: AC 25K, AS MVP Gold, BA Bronze, UA Silver, Marriott Titanium, Hilton Diamond, Hyatt Globalist
Posts: 2,467
I have a FU and a CSP that has been open for 3 months (60K signup offer). Chase gave me an auto CLI to 10K and I wanted to PC to the CSR, but the reps say their system blocks the change because of the one year policy. Does anyone know if there's any sort of workaround to get the card changed such as changing to an intermediary card and then requesting another change to the CSR? I'd imagine I could downgrade it to a normal Freedom and then do a new application for a CSR but I don't think it's worth the new account + hard pull, so I'm looking to see if there's another way.
Mar 20, 2018, 4:28 pm
#715
Moderator
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: Miami, Mpls & London
Programs: AA & Marriott Perpetual Platinum; DL & HH Gold
Posts: 48,954
They are referring to a Federal regulation which prohibits changing the terms of an account in the first twelve months. It doesn't matter who initiates the change, they will not change it to anything else in the first year.
Mar 20, 2018, 4:41 pm
#716
Join Date: Apr 2014
Posts: 12
Can somebody confirm if Chase is doing a pro-rated refund of annual fee on Chase reserve card after 30 days of fee posting. My annual fee posted in Dec. and I am planning to downgrade the card to CFU. Is there any recent confirmation of pro-rated annual fee refund after 4 months.
Mar 22, 2018, 9:32 am
#717
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: JZRO
Posts: 9,169
So the SO cancelled her Reserve a week or two ago. I didn't realize that UR points get cancelled too. She does have a separate UR account for her Ink Plus card. Is it confirmed that her UR points from the reserve are about to be lost? Why are they not gone already? Should we be transferring them immediately to the other UR account?
RNE, thinking you get this nuance, but others may benefit from disambiguating this similar terminology.
Mar 23, 2018, 7:39 am
#718
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 488
I just cancelled INK plus a couple of days ago. They offered to downgrade it to ink cash but I declined. Now INK CASH has 50k point bonus! Can I apply right away or should I wait?
Mar 23, 2018, 12:52 pm
#719
Join Date: Dec 2015
Posts: 78
My wife's CSR AF just hit, 2nd year, and her 60-day cutoff is this weekend to get the full refund. We have some dining expenses next week. Can she PC to a CSP so we can at least get 2x for the expenses next week and then PC again to a CF? I assume she'll get the $450 refunded then charged $95 for the CSR, is there a minimum time she needs to hold the CSR before she can PC to a CF? And if not, I assume she would get the refund for the $95 too when she PCs to a CF, correct? Thanks.