A WebmasterWorld member has asked if there is any consequence of setting and surpassing the "End Date" in his campaign. Will the campaign history be deleted?
AdWordsAdvisor2 says that any status change to a campaign does not effect the campaign history.
In fact, we covered that pausing an AdWords campaign doesn't have any negative consequence as well. But if you change payment options from pre-pay to post-pay, you will need to close your AdWords account and reopen a new one, and in that case, there are consequences. And when there are, losing the history of your account can impact your CTR which could dramatically affect the rankings of your ads.
Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.