According to my experience Yes you can convert or upgrade to other BoA
credit card without Hard Pull after one year. You can get your collateral
back in 10 months or so.
You CANNOT waive the annual fee, even you convert it to a "no annual fee"
card. So if you wanna keep the history, the best option is to convert it to
Better Balance Card from BoA. It's $120 flat cash back per year costing
nearly nothing. So $80 for the net income. I think it's a fair deal.