Figured this is the best place for a discussion on this. For almost 15 years, I was a pretty loyal Southwest Airlines flyer domestically. Given the changes they made as well as where I'm flying these days, I've switched to United. Like any good road warrior, I had the SWA CC from Chase for all of those years and stacked points. Given that their product sucks now and they can't get into a lot of regional airports, I called to reduce my card to a no-fee card.

Chase offers no no-fee card in the SWA portfolio. So to maintain that 15 years of credit history and reporting, I have to pay $99/yr, their lowest tier, for a card that I will never use anymore. How in the hell is this legal and not addressed by legislation or regulations? They're essentially holding my credit health ransom for $99/yr. If I cancel, I lose one of my oldest accounts on my credit report.

You would think that there would be some sort of requirement that these banks would have to offer a no-fee card or some way to leave the unused account open to not affect a credit score.

I kind of want to write some congressmembers about this.

Diggity said:

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Age of credit isn't that big of a deal. I wouldn't stress about it.

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It is also the high limit I have on the card

I have the United Club Card. Got my company to foot the bill for it after I showed the #s for them on costs when I'm in an airport 60+ times a year.

Anyone use the fidelity CC?

Gaeilge said:

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Diggity said:

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Age of credit isn't that big of a deal. I wouldn't stress about it.

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It is also the high limit I have on the card

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open another Chase card with no annual fee, like the Chase Freedom...then close the SW card and have them move the large credit line over to the Chase Freedom...

EDIT - I love to play the credit card roulette game with the large reward bonus upon signup...I always keep one no annual fee card and then as I close every 1-2 years my United, Southwest, Marriott, etc cards, I have them move the credit line into my Chase Freedom...my credit line for my Freedom card is almost $200K...and I started my wife in the game recently, and she is over $100K...and we've both earned massive rewards during the past few years...LOLOL

You will have to call annually, but if you tell them you are cancelling to switch to a no-fee card they will waive the fee for the year.

Yukon Cornelius said:

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Anyone use the fidelity CC?

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I've been using it a few months now...

I use Alliant for the 2.5% cash back up to 10k/month in expenses.
Use Fidelity for anything over that for 2% back. (has been nice to have and the fidelity account is great as well)
Use Gold Amex for dining/groceries.
Biz Plat and Gold Amex for biz gas 4x.

Got to experience a PGA mastercard event recently with a buddy... so now looking into a mastercard tied to AA to be able to use some mileage for those events. Was a cool getaway.

When you log into your fidelity brokerage acct do you see your CC account there too?

Yes

Yes - and netbenefits 401ks...

I have an American Airlines card, it's like $50/year but gives me a free bag which covers that cost on the first trip. And a Costco card because of the rewards. I'll never hit the limits on either. All my banking/investments are with BoA and I get a $50K limit card, no fee. Again, a limit I'll never come close to hitting but I get great rewards for big ticket items, like trips to Europe. Bundling your banking in one place has it's perks, I had a billing dispute 2 weeks ago, they just removed it and told the merchant to justify it.

The card will still show up on your credit report after canceled unless you ask to remove it, it will just shows the account was closed. Your score might only go down a little because your reduced credit limit. You might be able to get chase to move the available credit to another card for you. I e. If your SWA card has a 10k limit they might increase your freedom credit limit by 10k when you close the SWA card.

I'm with everyone else. I cancelled my Southwest CC, switched to Chase Sapphire and transferred my credit limit, and also let my BOA card I had for about 20 years expire and it didn't have an affect on my credit.

BoA cancelled my CC on their own I guess because I hadn't used it in 15-20 years. No impact to my credit score that I could see.

Yeah, it's usually 2 years of inactivity; which is why they cancelled mine. They sent me a letter telling me it would be cancelled if I didn't use it by a certain date and I just forgot to.

Spot on. Im a credit card churner, and have opened and closed dozens and dozens of cards throughout the years. My credit score is still 800+.

This is one thing people overthink a lot. They keep old cards open because they dont want to close it and take a hit to their score. The truth is, its such a minimal hit to your score (and it will go back up) that its not even worth thinking about.

If you arent using the card and dont need it anymore, just close it. I value simplicity.

I'll pile on.. in my 30s I was adamant about keeping an old master card I had in college 25 years ago.. now my oldest card account is maybe 5 years because I've been churning for a decade. Credit is higher than it ever was.


Also, why do you have to keep a SW card? Just swap it to no fee card of any brand, that would still be an old account right?

You can definitely move credit from one card to another as well.. but again, are you any where near your credit limit on a regular basis? If not, then who cares about losing $20k or whatever.

Between my 3-4 cards at any given time, I have 6 figures of credit.. we use less than 10% of that. Closing one would be insignificant.

I was in the same position many years ago (same SW card). Cancel it and move on. Unless you are buying a house in the short term. If not, cancel.