Retention Bonus Results for a Chase Ink Bold MasterCard and an SPG American Express Credit Card
Good evening, here are my results from my recent two card retention bonus challenge (read part 1 here). If you want to listen to both reconsideration calls (14 minutes long), please click the play button below. Download link (Credit-Card-Reconsideration-Calls.m4a)
I was successful at getting a $95 statement credit for my Chase Ink Bold MasterCard (I charged over $33,000+ over the last 12 months). I was unsuccessful getting a retention bonus on my SPG American Express Credit card and was told “American Express does not waive annual fees for any of their credit cards.” I haven’t used my SPG card much the last few months since SPG made changes to their award program. Shortly after closing my SPG American Express Credit Card, I received a confirmation email about the cancellation.
Logging into my American Express account, I see a tiny red/orange triangle next to my SPG AMEX card. To remove the card from your online profile, click the link in the dialogue box.
This step is important, make sure you chose the right credit card to remove from your account.
Verify that you have chosen the correct credit card to remove.
Congratulations, your credit card has been removed from your online account.
Now my American Express account only shows 4 credit cards.
The credit line transfer was immediately processed and is showing up on my Blue Cash Preferred Credit Card. Don’t laugh, I had a $500 credit line, which got bumped up to $3,000 now. It’s a long story, but I am glad to be back in the thousand dollar credit limit range.
If you have
Grant, you recently answered my email that (as a novice in all of this card phenomena) told me that Vanilla and Bluebird card earned points for loyalty programs. Do you have a place that I (and other newbies) can go to learn about this whole system form the ground up without taking up all the time of the informed on your blog? Thanks, Leslie Webb
In a nutshell, use your credit card to buy One Vanilla Gift Cards, load those gift cards to Bluebird/Serve, then pay off your credit card or other bills. Repeat this as many times as you want to each month. This process works the best for meeting new credit card minimum spend requirements to earn huge credit card sign up bonuses, but can be used to manufacture miles/points/cash back at a slow and steady pace.
Wow, sir, your rapid response blows me away! I just emailed you, and you responded immediately. Impressive!
I am pretty low tech, but I will give it a try. I am very impressed that you stay right on top of your blog. I am retired but active and would really like to learn how to maximize my travel opportunities. I love the people of the world and learning about their cultures and habits, and being able to visit as many places as possible is my goal. If I pay attention to your advice, that may enhance my chances.
Thanks, Leslie
Thanks Leslie, I’m glad I could help. There is a lot to learn in this crazy world of miles and points. Earning miles and points is just one side of the game. Figuring out how to redeem your miles and points is the more rewarding (and sometimes frustrating) side. If you have a few places in mind, I can recommend a few ways to get there with miles/points. Just keep reading and learning. There is new info being discovered everyday. Happy learning!
Very interesting! Thanks for sharing!
As always, great work! My Chase Bold anniversary is in a few weeks so I should probably make a retention call. In regards to your luck with Amex, I was able to get a $65 credit for the business card which essentially waived the annual fee. The rep told me, “we can’t do this every year”. Shame that these companies aren’t consistent with everyone. My wife’s SPG Amex just hit her with the annual fee so we will be calling them this week to see if they can waive it.
It really all depends how much spending you put on the card. I probably put $5-$6k on the SPG card last year, but spend a lot of money on other cards. Club Carlson is my current favorite hotel card.
unable to listen to your reconsideration call, it would not play
Have you tried different browsers? If it’s still not working, I can include a link to download the audio file.
Grant, Can you please include the link to download the audio file? I tried both IE and Mozilla to listen to your call but no success.Thanks!
David
Hi David, I’m sorry I haven’t posted the download link for the audio. I’ll do that first thing Sunday morning.
So, your Chase retention bonus essentially covered your annual fee. I assume you kept the card because of some combination of expected use and age of credit/extended credit helping your score?
I think there is a break even point that Chase calculates to determine if you spent enough on the card (swipe fees) to offset the $95 annual fee. I’m sure I’ve gone way past that point. I probably won’t get the retention bonus next year since I don’t plan to use it in the future unless there is a new perk with MasterCard business cards.
I called Chase today regarding my Ink Plus account and was offered 10k bonus points for spending $5k over the next 3 months. The rep said 9 out of 10 times they wont waive the fee. My fee is assessed on June 1, but I took the 10k bonus points and plan to hit htem again after the fee is assessed. Hopefully the double dip works.
Good work Steve. That’s a pretty good offer.
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I have an old Amex that just gives me 1 point/dollar spent. I was thinking of getting the Amex Fidelity or Amex Barclays. You had mentioned transferring credit lines with the same bank in order to be dinged less on one’s credit. Should I open a new Amex and then tell them I want to transfer credit lines and close my old Amex?
Yes, it is better to apply for a new card. If you are not instantly approved, you can call the reconsideration department and tell them you want to move credit from one card to another. That usually does the trick.
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