Extra Chase Preferred - Downgrade or Cancel?

[HaloAurelio]

Spouse and I both already had Chase Preferred cards, which have the $95 a year annual fee - so now that our finances are combined, we want to get rid of one!

I'm also looking into a long game of setting up the Chase Trifecta by adding a Flex and an Unlimited. We have some big purchases coming up soon and I feel like it would be a great time to snap up those welcome bonuses.

However, I've never cancelled a card before and am unsure what this might do to our credit score. I found some info saying that you can downgrade within the Chase system… But do I then lose out on those sweet welcome bonuses?

Also, next question… between the Flex and the Unlimited, which should I grab first? And how long should I wait between them? Part of me is tempted to get one soon and then wait a year to get the next one so that I can have two years with a guaranteed 5% back on gas by stacking those reward bonuses (assuming they stick around). Does that make sense, and if so, which one should we grab first?

What's the best strategy here? I use my credit card points when I travel, but I'm otherwise a big newbie. Hoping to get way more optimized soon!

[FLBiker]

Personally, I would never carry multiple annual fee Chase UR cards.  I've been out of a game for a couple of years (we moved to Canada two years ago) but I used to just cycle through them -- I'd get a new one, transfer the UR to it, and then downgrade the old one.  I always downgrade cards if I have the option, but cancelling them isn't the end of the world.  You just don't want to always do that.

I don't know much about the Flex or the Unlimited -- I tend to focus just on sign-up bonuses (e.g. 60000 UR for a $4000 spend in the first 3 months) rather than % cash back.  With Chase, you can only get 5 cards every 24 months, though.  As long as you're staying within that, I wouldn't say the order is particularly important.

One suggestion I have is to consider business cards as well.  I've never had a real side business, but I had a website related to my profession for many years, and I would use that as a business.  It never earned money, but I did get invited to be a speaker internationally a few times as a result of it.  And I never had trouble getting business credit cards for it (although sometimes I had to speak to customer service).

In the US, one of my favorite travel hacks was to get both a Southwest personal and a Southwest business card, which could easily get you to a Companion Pass.  My wife and I alternated doing that every two years, which meant that one of us was almost always free on Southwest.

Chase Ultimate Rewards are great, though.  I'm planning to start getting them again, using a US mailing address.

[Catbert]

If you're going to churn credit cards I would not waste a credit pull/Chase 5/24 slot on either the Flex or Unlimited.  The signing bonuses aren't that large and I'd prefer to get something more lucrative.  I'd downgrade to the Unlimited (1.5% on everything). 

If you just want to get the Chase Trifecta, I'd see what current sign up bonuses are and get either the Flex or Unlimited.  Then I'd cancel my CSP after transferring my points out of that account.

This assumes you've held the CSP for at least a year.  I never cancel anything until at least the first annual renewal fee posts.
 

[HaloAurelio]

Personally, I would never carry multiple annual fee Chase UR cards.  I've been out of a game for a couple of years (we moved to Canada two years ago) but I used to just cycle through them -- I'd get a new one, transfer the UR to it, and then downgrade the old one.  I always downgrade cards if I have the option, but cancelling them isn't the end of the world.  You just don't want to always do that.

@FLBiker Interesting – so the new card that you're getting is always the Chase Sapphire Preferred? That makes sense if so, given that the welcome bonus is so much higher…

If you're going to churn credit cards I would not waste a credit pull/Chase 5/24 slot on either the Flex or Unlimited.  The signing bonuses aren't that large and I'd prefer to get something more lucrative.  I'd downgrade to the Unlimited (1.5% on everything).

If you just want to get the Chase Trifecta, I'd see what current sign up bonuses are and get either the Flex or Unlimited.  Then I'd cancel my CSP after transferring my points out of that account.

This assumes you've held the CSP for at least a year.  I never cancel anything until at least the first annual renewal fee posts.

Yes, I've had my separate CSP for several years now! I'm less interested in heavily churning credit cards (at least for now), so I'm not too worried about the 5/24 issue - the goal is more about finding the most lucrative way to end up with the Chase Trifecta, given that my spouse and I now have an extra CSP that we don't need.



Given these two responses, I'm now wondering if what we should do is BOTH downgrade our old Chase Sapphire Preferred cards to the Flex and Unlimited respectively, and then open a new CSP immediately thereafter to get that heftier welcome bonus? Then we would get a bunch of extra points and also have the Chase Trifecta going forward, unless I'm missing something?




 

[FLBiker]

Personally, I would never carry multiple annual fee Chase UR cards.  I've been out of a game for a couple of years (we moved to Canada two years ago) but I used to just cycle through them -- I'd get a new one, transfer the UR to it, and then downgrade the old one.  I always downgrade cards if I have the option, but cancelling them isn't the end of the world.  You just don't want to always do that.

@FLBiker Interesting – so the new card that you're getting is always the Chase Sapphire Preferred? That makes sense if so, given that the welcome bonus is so much higher…

So, if memory serves, the way we used to do it is that we'd cycle through CSP and Ink Business Preferred, reapplying for each after two years had elapsed (so we'd qualify for the bonus again) but timing it so that our annual fees would overlap as little as possible.  Personally, I wouldn't BOTH downgrade and reapply at the same time because I'd try to stagger my annual fees.

[Catbert]

Personally, I would never carry multiple annual fee Chase UR cards.  I've been out of a game for a couple of years (we moved to Canada two years ago) but I used to just cycle through them -- I'd get a new one, transfer the UR to it, and then downgrade the old one.  I always downgrade cards if I have the option, but cancelling them isn't the end of the world.  You just don't want to always do that.

@FLBiker Interesting – so the new card that you're getting is always the Chase Sapphire Preferred? That makes sense if so, given that the welcome bonus is so much higher…

So, if memory serves, the way we used to do it is that we'd cycle through CSP and Ink Business Preferred, reapplying for each after two years had elapsed (so we'd qualify for the bonus again) but timing it so that our annual fees would overlap as little as possible.  Personally, I wouldn't BOTH downgrade and reapply at the same time because I'd try to stagger my annual fees.

OP double check how long you have to wait to get the bonus again.  It use to be 2 years but I'm thinking it's 4 years now.  I'm also reasonably sure that it's x years since bonus was received, not x years since you last got the card.  The info is always buried deep in the tiny print.