{"id":4500,"date":"2022-05-17T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-05-17T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/?p=4500"},"modified":"2023-04-18T11:42:11","modified_gmt":"2023-04-18T17:42:11","slug":"credit-card-conversion-shenanigans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/2022\/05\/17\/credit-card-conversion-shenanigans\/","title":{"rendered":"Credit Card Conversion Shenanigans"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Some of our favorite banks like Chase and AmEx allow you convert one credit card to another within the same card family (like converting a Delta Reserve to a Delta Gold) at any time. Other banks are a little more zany and will let you do just about anything as long as you talk to the right person, like Bank of America which will let you convert a <a class=\"ek-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.virginatlantic.com\/us\/en\/flying-club\/credit-card.html\">Virgin Atlantic Mastercard<\/a> to a <a class=\"ek-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bankofamerica.com\/credit-cards\/products\/cash-back-credit-card\/\">Customized Cash Rewards Visa<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s discuss some of the reasons a churner may want to do this:<\/p>\n<h4>Annual Fees<\/h4>\n<p>All of the banks mentioned above will prorate your annual fee when you convert a card to another card. You may want to do this if:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>You forget to close a card within the annual fee refund grace period, and you don\u2019t want the card anymore. So, you downgrade to a no-annual fee version for a prorated refund (and maybe then close the card after that posts)<\/li>\n<li>You used all the yearly credits for a card, like the Sapphire Reserve $300 travel credit, so you downgrade as soon as your credits post for a pro-rated refund<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: initial\">You don\u2019t want to reset the average age of the accounts on your credit report<\/span>, but you don\u2019t want to pay a particular annual fee any more either<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Of course for next level gaming, you can downgrade an annual fee card with travel credits and simultaneously upgrade another no-annual fee to the card with travel credits and double-dip for the same net annual fee, but that may ultimately be a risky move.<\/p>\n<h4>Getting Upgrade Offers<\/h4>\n<p>American Express in particular has card <a class=\"ek-link\" href=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/2022\/04\/11\/unlocking-locked-iphones\/\">upgrade bonuses<\/a> all the time, sometimes as quickly as an hour after downgrading a card. For example, last year I downgraded a Business Platinum to a Business Gold, and then upgraded it to a Business Platinum for 90,000 Membership Rewards the next day. <\/p>\n<h4>Bypassing Card Limits<\/h4>\n<p>Some banks have card limits preventing you from holding more than one of a particular card, and maybe you\u2019d really like to have two of them. Card conversion is often a workaround. For example, what if the Chase Freedom Flex\u2019s application terms &amp; conditions limit you to one card? Easy, convert another Ultimate Rewards earning card to a Freedom Flex and you\u2019ll bypass the limit.<\/p>\n<h4>Caveats<\/h4>\n<p>American Express <a class=\"ek-link\" href=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/2022\/04\/26\/american-express-penalty-box-getting-out\/\">rules for downgrading cards<\/a> are perhaps better understood than any other major banks\u2019 internal rules, however the advice there is likely good for keeping your accounts in good standing at any bank:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Keep a card open for a minimum of 12 months after opening<\/li>\n<li>Never downgrade a card to a lower annual fee within 12 months of opening or upgrading<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Good luck!<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-image is-style-editorskit-rounded\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-4501\" sizes=\"(max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px\" src=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/amazon-prime-visa.webp\" srcset=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/amazon-prime-visa.webp 960w, https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/amazon-prime-visa-300x250.webp 300w, https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/amazon-prime-visa-768x639.webp 768w\" width=\"420\"\/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\" style=\"font-size:14px\">Converting the Amazon Prime credit card to trash.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Some of our favorite banks like Chase and AmEx allow you convert one credit card to another within the same card family (like converting a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_editorskit_title_hidden":false,"_editorskit_reading_time":0,"_editorskit_is_block_options_detached":false,"_editorskit_block_options_position":"{}","footnotes":""},"categories":[54,62],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-credit-cards","category-shenanigans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4500"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4500\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7032,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4500\/revisions\/7032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}