Actually, Tiger, he's wiser doing it this way...they have to keep the account open unless he either requests that it be closed, or he defaults on it, and then close it for breach of contract and non-payment.
This way it costs them money to maintain it on the rolls, and he still has a (relatively) cheap card to use in emergencies. He can still avoid high finance charges by logging into their site and using it to pay off his card whenever he actually makes a charge, since he'll be able to see it right away, and they post a payment the day that it was generated on their site, not the day it actually clears his bank. So, for example, he goes to dinner with me (I wish) and has no cash, he charges the $80 dinner to his ChaseVISA, goes home and logs in, goes to chase.com and logs in to his account, selects his account and sees the $80 charge. He goes to make a payment, and chooses the $80 payment, they generate an e-check to his bank account, wherever that may be, and when it clears, the payment is posted the same day he created it (if he generates it before midnight ET) or the day after the charge hits, resulting in almost no finance charge.