All Reconsideration Calls and Retention Calls
As an experienced miles and points collector, I can’t stress enough how important it is to be approved for new credit cards (and their huge sign up bonuses) and to keep the best travel credit cards while paying the least amount of annual fees. Some credit card companies will offer statement credits, either to fully or partially offset the annual fee, just by calling and asking. Other times, they will offer a “spending challenge” where you will have to spend $X in Y months to get a statement credit or bonus miles/points. Here are some of my recent conversations concerting reconsideration calls (calls to be approved for new credit cards) and retention calls (calls to minimize or eliminate the annual fee).
For simplicity, green represents good calls (such as being approved or receiving a favorable retention bonus) and red represents bad calls (such as not being approved or not receiving a retention bonus).
Reconsideration Calls (and one Reconsideration Bank Visit):
- 7/14/14 – US Bank Club Carlson Business Credit Card bank visit (link).
- Account approved after a few days.
- 6/12/14 – Citi American Airlines Executive World MasterCard (link).
- Account approved over the phone.
- 6/12/14 – Chase Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards Plus Credit Card (link).
- Account approved over the phone.
Retention Calls:
- 8/6/14 – Chase Marriott Rewards Premier Credit Card (link).
- Received a category 1-4 free night certificate after spending $1,000 in 3 months.
- 8/6/14 – Chase Southwest Airlines Premier Credit Card (link).
- Received 3,000 Southwest Airlines Rapid Reward Points.
- 7/29/14 – Dad’s Citi American Airlines Platinum MasterCard (link).
- Received a $95 statement credit.
- 7/29/14 – Mom’s American Express Gold Delta SkyMiles Credit Card (link).
- Moved credit line to Costco Cash and closed credit card.
- 7/29/14 – Mom’s Bank of America Alaska Airlines Credit Card (link).
- Closed credit card, will reapply soon.
- 5/27/14 – American Express Gold Delta SkyMiles Credit Card (link).
- Moved credit line to Blue Cash Preferred and closed credit card.
- 5/27/14 – Chase United Airlines MileagePlus Credit Card (link).
- Moved credit line to Chase Freedom and closed credit card.
- 5/8/14 – Chase United Airlines MileagePlus Credit Card (link).
- Received 2 free United Club passes.
- 5/8/14 – American Express Gold Delta SkyMiles Credit Card (link).
- Will call back later for better result.
- 5/8/14 – Citi American Airlines Platinum Credit Card (link).
- Received 3,000 bonus AA miles after spending $500 in 3 months.
- 4/23/14 – Chase Ink Bold Business MasterCard (link).
- Received $95 statement credit.
- 4/23/14 – American Express Starwood Preferred Guest Credit Card (link).
- Moved credit line to Blue Cash Preferred and closed credit card.
To find the credit card company’s reconsideration phone number, just Google “(bank name) reconsideration phone number”. To call about retention offers, call the customer service number on the back of your credit card.
If you have any questions regarding reconsideration calls or retention calls, please leave a comment below.
there is one card I certainly disagree with you in red. as a matter of fact, it is the easiest to retention if you do a lot of spending(MS). with one call, the BoA Alaska card, in less than 5 minutes, fee waive with no explanation. again its my main MS card within a year, hence very easy to be waived.
Thank you Choi for the feedback. Some of the links are for recon calls that my parents made and they are not into MS. So for the Alaska Airlines credit card, my mom got the card and probably spent $20 tops with the card. She never used it the other 364 days of the year. My anniversary is coming up soon, so I will do my own retention offer and I hope I get the annual fee waived. But I don’t think it makes sense to keep the card when you can convert it to a card that pays you $100 for practically doing nothing. Plus, you can always get another Alaska Airlines credit card and sign up bonus whenever you want. For the record, I have 2 personal cards and a biz Alaska Airlines credit card.
Does 2 United Club Passes really worth $95???
No way. I have sold them on eBay for $30-$35 for the pair.
in that case does it really worth to keep this card for the 2nd, 3rd and 4th year if that’s all they give you as retention bonus??
I would like them to remove the annual fees but i don’t think that’s possible.
Most credit card companies cannot waive the annual fee (they have to pay the airline/hotel partner) but most are will to give you a statement credit to offset the annual fee based on your card history and amounts spent on the credit card.
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