I am canceling my Chase United MileagePlus Explorer Visa card.
Remember, I got the card last year (for the second time!) because I received 50,000 United MileagePlus bonus miles after making $2,000 in purchases within the first 3 months and an additional 5,000 bonus miles when Rob, who I made an authorized user, made a purchase within the first 3 months. The $95 fee was waived the first year. (The current offer is back down to 30,000 United MileagePlus miles). I never used the card after receiving the initial 50,000 bonus miles. I actually just used the miles to book a ticket for Daniel to go with Rob to Vail this winter.
I just got the bill for the $95 annual fee on the card. Since I never use the card, I do not want to pay the annual fee. I called Chase and asked them to waive the fee, they said no. So I canceled the card. You can read more about what you should know about canceling cards here.
A few things to note. First, canceling a card has a small impact on your credit score as long as other positive financial factors are in place. You can read about the effect of canceling a card on your credit score here.
Second, for the first time ever, I remembered to ask Chase to move the credit line from the Chase United card that I was canceling, to another one of my Chase cards. (I chose to move the credit to my Chase Sapphire Preferred card.) Chase happily obliged but insisted I leave $1,000 credit line on the United card just in case…??? The representative that I spoke with did not know the reason for this, he suggested I send an email to Chase to inquire further. (Not at the top of my priority list right now).
I was relieved that I was able to move the credit line to my Sapphire Preferred card for a couple of reasons. First, as I have told you about before, higher credit limits on cards, make it easier to reallocate credit to secure big bonus cards. And higher credit limits can help your credit score (by improving your utilization ratio), and higher scores lead to higher application approval rates.
Also, to keep it fair in my mind, many times when I apply for cards, I fast track the application by not asking for additional credit, but rather moving credit from one of my existing cards. So isn’t it fair that when I canceled this card, that I get the credit line back? Chase must have thought so, because they gave me back the credit line with no hesitation (less $1,000 🙁 ).