I’m currently a BASIC user.
I’m thinking about downgrading to FREE for awhile, but I’m worried about what will happen to all my LingQs because I have way more than 300.
Can I downgrade to FREE as long as I don’t create any NEW LingQs?
Nope, you have to delete linqs until you have 300, then you can downgrade
My payment was rejected several times and I was automatically downgraded to “Free”. I have more than 300 lingqs. And moreover – bug! bug! - I can create lingqs 
Why don’t you just copy your vocabulary list or part of it into a file (Word or Excel) and delete the LingQs. Or learn them and delete them 
The only disadvantage is that you don’t have yellow highlighting in new texts, but your statistics won’t suffer (number of created LingQs, known words etc.)-
In fact, you don’t have to delete any LingQs in order to downgrade to Free. You are just prevented from creating new ones. (At least, you were prevented in the past! I will check that Rasana. Thanks for letting us know.)
When I don’t have enough time to work out my month points, I switch from Plus to Free and then return to Plus again. I certainly have more than 300 - I haven’t noticed any problems.
If you can’t afford to stay a Basic member at the moment, or you feel that you don’t have enough time (or motivation) to use LingQ enough to make it worth it, why don’t you just delete your LingQs (down to 300). Then when you start using it again, you can save all the new (and old) words to your Vocabulary page as you come across them. All the really important ones are bound to come up again in when you go through content and all the old ones that you already know won’t need to be saved a second time.
I am not in favour of deleting LingQs. I love seeing them highlighted in yellow in new texts. I think that is how I learn most of my words. I also go into the Vocab section and review my words in different ways. I like having a lot of them there. If I search be a pre-fix or suffix I usually find a lot related words. This only works if you have a large database.
Sorry I didn’t see Mark’s post and I wasn’t aware of this fact “In fact, you don’t have to delete any LingQs in order to downgrade to Free. You are just prevented from creating new ones.”
Good to know.
I was just worried I’d have to delete my LingQs down to 300…
I’ll take Mark’s word on this.
@ Rasana - There was a bug that gave the points discount and unlimited LingQs to members who had previously taken a course. This has now been fixed. The limit is functioning properly for most members.
You may want to be careful when downgrading though, while you don’t lose any lingqs, Mark does show up at your doorstep in a leather body suit with a stun gun… fair warning…
Chris, it is not Mark, we have underground agents…everywhere!