Hello! I'm in a bit of an odd situation. I'm currently in the middle of an 18ish month break from working that I took to travel long term after saving up a lot of money. I left my job in February of this year, and plan on continuing to travel until around summer/fall of 2026.
I've been using Chase Sapphire Reserve as my primary card for years now, but after the recent changes to the benefits package and the rise in the annual fee, I'm unhappy with the card and looking to switch to something else. Since I'm traveling long term anyway, it seemed like a good time to take advantage of a sign up bonus of another card to help save on some travel expenses.
My sapphire reserve renews in March, so I plan on calling to cancel it in February. I'm currently home for the holidays for a few weeks so I wanted to get the new card now since it would be easy to receive in the mail then while I'm actively traveling internationally.
I had landed on the Venture X as a the one I wanted to switch to, however I ran into a major curveball during the application that I hadn't considered: I currently have no income. Which obviously meant I did not get pre approval.
So I guess I'm trying to figure out my best options. I am currently unemployed with no income, I have a credit score of 800+, about $60k in the bank, and my only debt is about $10k in school loans (which is also my only current monthly expense other than my travel expenses).
Are there any decent cards out there for me that I would get easy approval for with this situation? Or is my best option just to downgrade my current Chase card? Would that require chase to run another application? In that case should I just stick with my current situation and just suck up the annual fee for another year? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!
Looking for some advice on switching my primary card while I'm unemployed.
byu/_scott_m_ inCreditCards
Posted by _scott_m_
2 Comments
If you have any other income available to you (like a partner or family), you can put that. Otherwise if you have no income, I can’t imagine anyone would approve you for a new card.
Your best option would be to downgrade either to a CSP so you can keep access to transfer partners or a Freedom so you can keep your points. Just make sure you tell the rep you want a Freedom with Ultimate Rewards.
You can downgrade to the Preferred. No hard inquiry to do so. Still pay $95 annually but low compared to Reserve. So you have a total of $60,000 to your name and decided to take off from work and make no money and put nothing toward investments as a young person in their prime money making years? I’m confused and perplexed.