Good morning everyone, this is going to be a short post about the retention offers I received on my 5 Citi credit cards. Before I go on, I highly recommend reading Doctor of Credit’s post on Retention Bonus Rules & Tips For Each Card Issuer – Get More Than One Bonus Each Year. I called Citi yesterday to tell them I was going to make a large “purchase” at Target with my Citi American Airlines Executive Credit Card. After the rep was able to add the spending note to my card, I asked if there were any spending or retention offers available.
Quick Tip: You can call your credit card company any time and ask if there are any spending or retention offers available, not just when your annual fee is about to post to your card.
Since the rep worked in the general support area, he transferred me to the retention department (called something different, but I don’t remember the exact name). Now that I was speaking to a “retention specialist” (not his real title, I forgot that too), I told him that I had 2 Citi American Airline Executive Credit Cards and the first one had an annual fee coming up soon. I asked him if he had any spending bonus offers available that he could add to my card. He read off these 2 offers:
- Receive 1,000 bonus American Airlines miles every month after spend $1,000 or more (valid for the next 16 months)
- Receive 2 single use Admirals Club day passes after spending $1,000 each month for the next 3 months
The decision was simple, offer 1 was much better than offer 2. I asked if he could check the offers that were available on my other Citi American Airlines Executive Credit Card and he had the exact same offers. I again took offer 1 over offer 2.
Side Note: if you do have a Citi American Airlines Executive Credit Card, you may receive 2 single use Admirals Club day passes in the mail. I received the day passes a few months after I received my card.
He asked if I had any other questions and I asked him if he had any spending bonus offers available on my Citi American Airlines Platinum Credit Card (the card that gets you 10% of your redeemed American Airlines miles back each year, up to 10,000 miles). There were no offers available, unfortunately.
He asked again if I had any other questions and I asked him if he had any spending bonus offers available on my Citi Hilton HHonors Reserve Credit Card. He started off by thanking me for having so many premium travel rewards credit cards with Citi, I thanked him and told him I love Citi. He then proceeded to read off these 2 offers:
- Receive 750 bonus Hilton HHonors points each month after spending $750 or more (valid for the next 16 months)
- Receive 5,000 bonus Hilton HHonors points after spending $1,000 in 3 months (one time)
Spending $750 every month for the next 16 months would be a piece of cake, resulting in 12,000 bonus Hilton HHonors points. But, I decided to take the easy 5,000 bonus Hilton HHonors points after spending $1,000 over the next 3 months. I would get a lot more points sooner, with much less work. Worst comes to worst, I can call back Citi in a few months and ask about their new spending offers.
Last but not least, I asked the rep if there were any spending bonuses available on my recently converted, yet to be delivered in the mail Citi Double Cash Credit Card. He said the account was too new (I guess they changed the number from my Citi Dividend Credit Card) and that there were no offers at the moment. I thanked him for all his help and that was that.
General spending bonus and retention offer notes: based on your history with that bank (number of cards, length of relationship, payment history, etc.), how much you spent on the card, and how friendly you are with the representative, you may get no offers, bad offers, or great offers. Most of the time, the offers are automatically shown on the representative’s screen and there is no way to manually add another offer to your card. You can try the hang up, call back method, but that may or may not work. You can try calling back in a few months, closer to your card anniversary, for better offers. As always, friendliness goes a long way, so please try to be friendly. It would be terrible if the representative added a note to your account saying that you were demanding, difficult, and hard to work with…
If you have any questions, please leave a comment below. Have a great day everyone!
P.S. Does anyone else think Linda Walker has way too many Citi credit cards? ;)
for Citi cards, I dont think its worth it to keep regardless of any retention bonuses. after a few months you can churn all their cards again, so it doesnt make sense to keep, unlike chase and amex where the cycles are way too long to get it again.
I’m not up to date on the Citi churning rules, I have plenty of American Airlines miles and Hilton points at the moment. It has been a few years since I closed my Citi Thank You Preferred credit card, so I might get a Prestige card soon.
I too had called a few weeks ago and got similar offers, but I decided to close my 2 Citi AAdvantage Executive cards. Also closed my 2 Southwest cards. My credit score will take a hit, but hopefully will recover in the coming months!
Just a minor drop in your credit score hopefully. If you have a few other credit cards, your score won’t drop much.
So you’re going to keep both Citi Exec cards ($900 annual fee for both), and in return get 24k bonus AA miles (2 cards x 1k bonus each month for 12 months – assumption you don’t renew in 2016, therefore this retention offer is only good for 1 year).
$900 for 24k AA miles, or 3.75c/AA mile – did I get the math right?
I never said I was going to keep the cards and pay the annual fees… :)
Oh ok, so you’re some months away from the renewal and the retention bonus kicked in immediately?
Yes, it’s technically not a retention bonus, it’s more of a spending bonus. If I called when my annual fee posted, they might offer the exact same thing in that case, it would be considered a retention bonus. Does that make any sense?
Got it – thanks
You’re welcome, great question though. Sorry, the title was a little confusing.
I was wondering the same thing. You should certainly cancel one of the cards. I got 3 executive cards and I only kept 1. I didn’t even have an annual fee on two of them because they were only open for 1 month.
I will definitely close both cards if I don’t get a really generous offer.
My AF is due next month. If I close, I’ll lose 20k CL. And I am not interested in double cash. Any other option or makes sense to close?
Is converting Executive to Double Cash an option? My AF is also coming up next month, and I just got the US Airways 50k bonus so I’m not sure if 1k per month will be worth it, and it seems like the most recent bonus according to http://www.frugalhack.me/2015/01/22/master-list-retention-offers/ If that’s the only thing I’m offered too, I may want to convert to Double Cash if that’s an option, it seems like a good replacement for Arrivals+. But sometimes the Double Cash has a signup bonus right?
The Citi Double Cash has a decent targeted sign up offer, but the standard offer is nothing special. Right before your annual fee posts, call Citi and see what your options are.
Hilton or Thank You Preferred/Premier/Prestige
you just made that reps day! That rep gets credit for each account you discussed that you didn’t end up closing. So his stats show 5 saves for 1 call.
Haha, I guess it is a win-win :)
Great post Grant! Thanks!! I just received the same offer AA offer over 16 months as you did.
Excellent, thanks for the data point Xtina.
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If you cancel your card in 6 months and already paid Annual Fee upfront, do you get pro-rates annual fee back from Citi Executive Card?
I think you have to cancel within 60 days of the annual fee posting to get the full refund back. I’m not sure if you will get a prorated annual fee refund if you cancel after 6 months.
For Citi, cancel within 37 days of the AF posting to get the full refund. Citi does NOT give pro-rated refund.
Chase and AMEX are within 60days. AMEX does pro-rated refund.
Thanks for the key dates for receiving full refunds. That is all very good to know.
Grant,
How long has it been since your last call for a retention on your Citi American Airlines Platinum Credit Card? Trying to figure out why you didn’t have one, if it’s because you haven’t had the card long enough or if you had received a retention offer not too long ago etc.. thanks!
I’ve had the Citi AA Platinum Card for almost 2 years, of course I never use it for anything other than the automatic 10% rebate on redeemed miles. I tried a recon call last year, but I don’t think I got anything, but I still kept it for the rebated AA miles. I will call again as my anniversary approaches for that credit card.
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