@Anonymous wrote:Hello, myFICO! I'm a longtime lurker so I'm glad to have finally joined the community!
My mother has a couple of upgrade options for her Capital One Platinum: (1) Quicksilver One with a $59 annual fee and (2) Venture One with $0 annual fee. The annual fee on her Platinum will hit in a couple of days so I'm not sure if she should (1) PC to Venture One now to avoid the annual fee or (2) wait until she gets an offer to upgrade to a Quicksilver and let the annual fee hit (it's been mentioned here that upgrading from a Quicksilver One to a no annual fee card is challenging).
I'm looking forward to reading all of your input. Thank you!
I paid the AF on a Quicksilver One in credit steps and after I got my steps increase I called to see if I could PC to the QS with no AF. No problem getting it done. I did pump a lot of spend through my QS1 in those first 6 months. At the same time I tried to move the limit from my secured CO Plat and close it, that was a no go as the do not allow moving CL from a Secured card. I belive they no longer support moving limits between cards at all.
I didn't realize that CO charged an AF on the Plat.
I would pay the lowest possible AF and then either wait for an upgrade to the QS of if she thinks she would quilify for the QS simply app for it and then close the AF card if she isn't getting enough benefits to justify the AF.
Welcome, @Anonymous. 
We don't hear about them a lot, but there are old Platinums that were charged annual fees.
Absolutely upgrade this card to the VentureOne simply because you can lose the fee. A 17-year-old card without fee is a great thing to have.
Six months after upgrading to the VentureOne, start checking again for upgrade offers. Once you've lost the fee, chances are that some other options might appear that could be a better fit for her. They might include a (no-fee) Quicksilver, and it's possible that Savor/SavorOne PCs might be offered by then.
@Anonymous wrote:The annual fee is definitely a surprise--unfortunately, I didn't see it until I started looking at my mother's credit a week ago. She's had this card since 2002 (oldest account) so closing it would be a waste, in my opinion. She has a pretty good credit limit on it, too ($4,000).
Which card has better odds at upgrading to Quicksilver: Quicksilver One or Venture One?
General consensus says that PC'ing to the QS1 and then attempting to change to the QS is generally pretty hard to do. You may have better luck with the Venture One, but if you are in the credit steps program, then once your scores go up, there are better cards to look at, versus staying with Cap1. For a general CB card, Synch Paypal 2% comes to mind, or the Citi DC, as before, it depends on your profile.
If QS is not an option, I would do the V1.
Maybe you can PC to Savor1 later?
I PC'd from QS1 to QS MC to Venture WMC to Savor WEMC so anything is possible down the road.
GL!
