With the introduction of Chase’s new Ultimate Rewards program in July, we decided to switch our coverage from the firm’s legacy (and no longer promoted) Flex Rewards card to the Ultimate Rewards-affiliated Freedom card. The easiest way to do this, we assumed, would be to call a customer service representative (CSR), tell them we currently have a card account, and see if they could help us switch the account over to the new rewards program. When we actually called Chase, however, we hit a wall of confusion.

While the rep did his best to help us, he was not familiar with the new Ultimate Rewards program, and instead tried to sell us on switching to the Freedom Cash card, a product that feeds into cash back rewards, not the new rewards program. After a few minutes of going around in circles on the phone, we decided to thank the CSR for his time, hang up the phone and reconsider our options.

Instead of applying separately for the updated Freedom card online, which was one of the phone CSR’s possible remedies, we instead turned to Chase’s private site secure messaging service. Like most firms covered by Credit Card Monitor, Chase’s online messaging allows card holders to trade messages — essentially emails – with CSRs from within the private site. Firms typically tell card holders to expect to receive a response within a 48-72 hour time frame, though most messages are answered faster than that. In the past, we’ve often found it easier to make account maintenance requests to issuers via online messaging rather than over the phone. Once again this proved true, as an online CSR responded to our message about upgrading to the Freedom card quickly and with clear knowledge of both the Ultimate Rewards program and the process for moving from one rewards card to another.

The private site message from the online rep included a run down of the changes that would occur if we switched our card from the Flex Rewards program to Ultimate Rewards, which included a clearly stated 4% rise in our APR. We were able to keep the same account number; to execute the transition to the new program, all we needed to do was reply to the message thread saying that we had read and understood the changes, and that we were still interested. Once we replied in the affirmative, the process of transferring our account began within 24 hours, and by the next business day we had access to the Ultimate Rewards online site.

This experience once again confirmed our faith in online messaging as the best way resolve a problem or get an answer from a card issuer if you do not need immediate assistance (e.g., lost or stolen card.) While it’s not clear why online messaging seems more effective, we are pretty sure that we would still be stuck on hold with a phone CSR trying to transfer our account without the help of the private site message center.