What does the Southwest Rapid Rewards Premier Card downgrade to?
Southwest Rapid Rewards Premier Card can normally be product-changed to one lower-fee card in the Chase Southwest Rapid Rewards family. The cheapest is Southwest Rapid Rewards Plus Card at $99 a year — a saving of $50 a year that keeps the account, and its age, open.
Maintained reference data · as of 2026-09 · updated 2026-09-16
Product changes are granted at the issuer's discretion and the rules change without notice. A downgrade normally keeps your account age and credit line but is not guaranteed, may not be offered on your account, and can forfeit unused statement credits or an unearned welcome bonus. Confirm with the issuer before you act — this is maintained reference data, not a live feed.
Where Southwest Rapid Rewards Premier Card can go
| Downgrade to | Annual fee | You save | Earns | Headline rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Rapid Rewards Plus Card
Lowest-fee Southwest personal card. Southwest has no no-fee consumer card. |
$99 | $50/yr | Southwest Rapid Rewards | 2.4¢/$ |
Headline rate is the best non-portal bonus rate on each card, valued in real cents per dollar at our conservative point values — not the raw multiplier, which flatters low-value currencies.
What you keep and what you give up
- Your Southwest Rapid Rewards balance stays put if you move to Southwest Rapid Rewards Plus Card — same currency, same account.
- The account, its age and its credit line normally carry over. That is the whole point: closing the card shortens your average account age and removes its limit from your utilization; a product change does neither.
- You give up $40/yr of printed statement credits — the ones Southwest Rapid Rewards Premier Card carries and the lower-fee cards do not. If you were actually using them, run the break-even math before you move.
- No earn rate at all, as it turns out — the best downgrade target matches Southwest Rapid Rewards Premier Card at its headline rate (2.4¢ against 2.4¢ per dollar). Everything the $149 fee buys here is perks, credits and status, not rate.
Downgrade or cancel?
A downgrade is almost always the better of the two if you no longer want the fee. Cancelling removes the account's credit line from your utilization and eventually drops its history off your report; a product change keeps both, and you land on a card with no fee to justify. The one thing a downgrade will not do is earn you the new card's welcome bonus — that requires a fresh application, which is a different decision with a different cost.
Chase's own rules: Chase generally requires you to have held the card for at least 12 months before a product change, and will only move you between cards in the same family (Sapphire and Freedom share a family; Ink cards share a family). A product change keeps the same account and credit line, so it does not add a new account to 5/24 — but it also does not make you eligible for the new card's welcome bonus.
Timing matters more than most people expect. Issuers generally refund an annual fee only within a short window after it posts, so the month you notice the charge is the month to decide — and the credits on Southwest Rapid Rewards Premier Card that reset each year are worth using before you move.
Before you downgrade, check whether the fee actually earns out. Is the Southwest Rapid Rewards Premier Card worth it? runs the break-even math — printed credits, top earn rate, and the spending it takes to clear $149.
Other cards in the Chase Southwest Rapid Rewards family
Which card should this spending actually be on? The demo re-scores a year of realistic spending against every card in a wallet — free, no signup. See it on sample data →
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