Chase has made some changes to their unofficial annual fee refund policy, previously customers were given anywhere from 60 days to 180 days after their annual fee was billed to cancel the card and get that fee refunded. According to multiple readers and comments on this /r/churning post that has changed effective immediately and cardholders will have a period of 30 days to cancel their card and request an annual fee refund after it has been billed.
American Express made a similar change recently, but they did give cardholders advance notice of the change. Personally I don’t have any huge issues with this change from Chase, it was never an official (or maybe advertised is a better word) policy they had so I don’t think advanced notice is necessarily required – although it would have been nice to see offered. You can read the annual fee refund rules for all card issuers by going here.
People have been abusing these refund rules for awhile and it’s obviously hit a critical mass for first American Express and now Chase. I think 30 days is more than enough time to give people (especially people that have just forgotten to cancel). Let me know your thoughts about these changes in the comments below.
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Oof - looks like I found a time capsule from 2018 !
Anyone have updates to this page ? Do users still have 30 days to cancel / downgrade their card and receive a refund of the annual fee ?
Cancel 30 days, downgrade maybe 40-45 or prorated.
For reference, the policy is now 45 days from the last day of the statement where the fee was billed.
Interesting; is this anything remotely official, or do they just make it up as they go? It's even more confusing that it appears to be different on biz vs. personal cards, plus some folks from some states beg to differ as well.
Does Chase still offer prorated annual fee refunds for downgrades outside of the 30 day window? The annual fee for my CSR hit 9/1 and am trying to decide if I should keep it until after the first of the year to get the $300 travel credit.
Same situation for me too. Annual fee got hit on first of September. Thinking of paying for now and cancelling in Jan after using 2018 $300 travel credit. Does Chase offer prorated refunds on annual fee?
wondering the same. Once January hits, I can use the $300 credit. Then downgrade by February and get $150 pro-rated. Essentially, not losing any money at all.
My wife's CSR AF was posted 11/1/17 last year. We're considering downgrading the CSR to a 2nd Freedom for her since I have a CSR already. No need to pay $450 twice a year. Would it be possible to hit the 2018 travel credit 1/1/18 and then downgrade and get a prorated refund or should I just downgrade in advance to avoid the charges at all? I'm sure many are interested in this topic soon since CSR's one year anniversary is coming up.
Your card still gets the credit per calendar year, not card member yeah right? If that's the case you should be able to get the travel credit as soon as her December statement closes and then cancel it even before 11/1/18.
3/3/2017
Thank you for contacting us about closing The Ritz-Carlton
Rewards® credit card from J.P. Morgan. We've closed your
account as you requested.
Here's what you need to know:
? Since the annual fee of $395 was billed to your account
within 90 days of the date the account was closed, we'll
automatically post a refund for that amount to your
account within the next two billing cycles.
Will Chase refund the AF when you close the account but haven't paid the outstanding balance in full, or do they force you to eat the AF if a balance remains?
How are you planning on closing the account with an outstanding balance?
I cancelled a Chase Sapphire Preferred today (1/7/17). My fee was posted for 12/1/16 but since my actual anniversary date for the account opening was 12/10/16 I was able to cancel it and have the fee waived because it was within 30 days. So it's not the billing date, but the anniversary date that controls the 30 day window.
BTW to be clear (the Reddit thread is fairly clear on this point). The terms on my Chase card state that you have 30-days or one billing cycle (which ever is shorter) from the time Chase cuts the bill with the charge on it and NOT when the charge is posted. For example if the AF posts on 10/1 but your bill was cut on 10/19 and your next statement date is 11/19 you basically have until 11/19 to cancel the card and get a refund. Some Chase CSRs misunderstand the rule as when the charge was posted which is wrong. I just went through this and had to press but got my refund even though it was 45 days from when the charge posted I was still within the billing cycle.
I called just now about my Ink+ and this is what I was told as well (30 days from statement closing, not 30 days from fee posting)
Can anyone follow up on this? Is it true?
I called just now about my Ink+ and was told this too.
Hmm...wonder how much money I've left on the table not going after my 1 month proration cancelling at month 11....I think I'm still ahead!
When I downgraded my CSP after the annual fee hit due to holding the CSR, the rep said they were inundated with people doing this...
Maybe the cannibalization from the CSR is higher than they expected...