Author Topic: Just got Chase Sapphire Reserve - What to do with Preferred?  (Read 5400 times)

dfree86

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Just got Chase Sapphire Reserve - What to do with Preferred?
« on: December 19, 2016, 06:34:52 AM »
Hi All,

So I just changed our primary credit cards to Chase Sapphire Reserve - we had been on the Preferred before. My question now is what's the best course of action for our CSPs. A lot of the benefits are redundant so no need to keep them both.

Currently I'm thinking we "product change" them to Chase Freedom Unlimited cards. No annual fee, obviously. We can use the CSR for Travel & Dining and the CFU for all other purchases since it's automatic 1.5% back.

Does that sound like the smartest plan? I'm open to other ideas.

Thanks!

Roots&Wings

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Re: Just got Chase Sapphire Reserve - What to do with Preferred?
« Reply #1 on: December 19, 2016, 07:26:20 AM »
When my free year ended with the Preferred card, I called and downgraded it to the free Chase Sapphire card, which was simple to do (and maintained benefits like appliance warranties that I had originally purchased on the CSP). Unsure about doing a product change, but if you purchased anything on your CSP which had an associated warranty, dowgrading to CS might be worth considering.

NextTime

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Re: Just got Chase Sapphire Reserve - What to do with Preferred?
« Reply #2 on: December 19, 2016, 07:36:18 AM »
I also downgraded to just the Chase Sapphire with no annual fee.

Catbert

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Re: Just got Chase Sapphire Reserve - What to do with Preferred?
« Reply #3 on: December 19, 2016, 12:10:22 PM »
I downgraded to the regular Chase Freedom for the rotating 5% categories.  This quarter it's dept stores, drug stores and Costco.  Next quarter it's gas and commuter transportation.

dfree86

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Re: Just got Chase Sapphire Reserve - What to do with Preferred?
« Reply #4 on: December 21, 2016, 11:19:38 AM »
Any other thoughts? Thanks!

Mr. Green

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Re: Just got Chase Sapphire Reserve - What to do with Preferred?
« Reply #5 on: December 21, 2016, 12:08:26 PM »
If you intend to spend your money on other cards (for the bonuses) and you also have a card or two with a substantially longer credit history, is there any reason to keep the CSP card open or downgrade it? Why not just close it?

Schaefer Light

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Re: Just got Chase Sapphire Reserve - What to do with Preferred?
« Reply #6 on: December 21, 2016, 01:29:01 PM »
I had a CSR card for about a year.  Wife got a CSP, so I transferred my points to her account and simply closed out my CSR card.

dfree86

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Re: Just got Chase Sapphire Reserve - What to do with Preferred?
« Reply #7 on: December 22, 2016, 06:41:15 AM »
If you intend to spend your money on other cards (for the bonuses) and you also have a card or two with a substantially longer credit history, is there any reason to keep the CSP card open or downgrade it? Why not just close it?

I'm worried about the effect of closing the CSP on my credit score. Hence wanting to product change it to Freedom Unlimited. Is that irrational? The fear of its effect on my score, I mean.

Ynari

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Re: Just got Chase Sapphire Reserve - What to do with Preferred?
« Reply #8 on: December 22, 2016, 01:35:43 PM »
dfree, depends on the rest of your credit history. I'll probably close mine when the year is up, instead of downgrading it, because I have an older (no-fee) credit card, and I already have the Chase Freedom Unlimited (so my total credit limit is high enough). It wasn't worth it to downgrade because of the $150 Freedom sign up bonus for getting a new card. If you have a similarly solid credit card history, and a high-enough credit score (and/or no reason to use your credit in the near future), closing the card shouldn't be a big deal. If you're worried, some credit score reporting services (I know Credit Karma, but I don't use them anymore, so not sure who else) have "What would happen if I did X?" calculators where you can get a rough estimate of where your score will be.

Mr. Green

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Re: Just got Chase Sapphire Reserve - What to do with Preferred?
« Reply #9 on: December 22, 2016, 02:19:22 PM »
If you intend to spend your money on other cards (for the bonuses) and you also have a card or two with a substantially longer credit history, is there any reason to keep the CSP card open or downgrade it? Why not just close it?

I'm worried about the effect of closing the CSP on my credit score. Hence wanting to product change it to Freedom Unlimited. Is that irrational? The fear of its effect on my score, I mean.
It can affect your score in two ways I believe. One is length of credit history. If you have another card that is older then closing the CSP card doesn't affect your length of credit history. The other is the % of total credit you're using. Any amount over a certain % (used to be 30%, maybe still is), and it's a negative. So if your total credit on all your cards added up to 50k then you could have 15k on cards before there was any decrease to your score. If you routinely put 3k a month on credit cards and your total credit from all cards is 50k, and say your CSP is 10k of that, closing it doesn't hurt you.

dfree86

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Re: Just got Chase Sapphire Reserve - What to do with Preferred?
« Reply #10 on: December 22, 2016, 03:40:06 PM »
If you intend to spend your money on other cards (for the bonuses) and you also have a card or two with a substantially longer credit history, is there any reason to keep the CSP card open or downgrade it? Why not just close it?

I'm worried about the effect of closing the CSP on my credit score. Hence wanting to product change it to Freedom Unlimited. Is that irrational? The fear of its effect on my score, I mean.
It can affect your score in two ways I believe. One is length of credit history. If you have another card that is older then closing the CSP card doesn't affect your length of credit history. The other is the % of total credit you're using. Any amount over a certain % (used to be 30%, maybe still is), and it's a negative. So if your total credit on all your cards added up to 50k then you could have 15k on cards before there was any decrease to your score. If you routinely put 3k a month on credit cards and your total credit from all cards is 50k, and say your CSP is 10k of that, closing it doesn't hurt you.

This is helpful. Credit History is no problem because I have another card that is almost 15 years old. the CSP is only about 2 years old.

I would say we routinely put between $2k - $4k/month on our cards because we use them to purchase just about everything. (Free points!) - and then pay them off in full each moth. We had been putting basically all of that on CSP but it will now all go on the CSR.

If we were to close CSP and open up CFU then we would probably split that $2k-$4k of expenses between CFU and CSR (for dining and travel).

So how do you think closing the CSP would affect credit score given that info? thanks!