Citicard loves me
I currently have two AAdvantage cards issued by Citibank. Each year the annual fee comes due and as I never use either card, I always call the cancellation line to cancel. Surprisingly each and every year, I’m given a retention offer to stay. I don’t even ask for it, I fully intend to cancel.
The offer is usually along the lines of spending less than $100 in 3 billing cycles in order to get a $85 annual fee credit. I’ve received the same variation of this offer at least 7 times through the years between the two cards.
I happily fulfill the offer then return the credit card back to my credit card trifold where it sits dormant for another year.
So why does Citibank want to retain me as a customer? I never fly American Airlines living in a Delta hub and I never charge anything to these cards. I wonder if the retention agents are bonused or incentivized on keeping customers from canceling and therefore each agent is tripping over themselves to keep customers.
The only other thought I have it that perhaps it is so ultra competitive to obtain customers that it’s worth it for Citibank to retain me for another year in the hope that I’ll start using the card regularly.
Last year, American Express offered me 25,000 Skymiles to keep the American Express Delta Business Card and that was without begging for a retention offer.
I’m happy to keep the AAdvantage card for another year by fulfilling their spending requirements but still don’t plan on making it one of my normal cards.
If anyone of you have retention stories from Citibank, please feel free to share in the comments section.
Suddenly timely.
Until yesterday, Citi sign-up bonuses and earning plans were generally inferior to Chase and AmEx products. Redemptions were inexplicably complicated. There may be a Nobel Prize down the road for the mathematician who stumbles on an equation to compute the true value of a ThankYou point. Maybe the woefully overdue product upgrades will actually make Citi competitive. If memory serves, Citi is due a settlement from Havana for expropriations made more than 50 years ago that basic accounting would value today in multiple billions, assuming relations are indeed restored between the U.S and Cuba. Maybe they’re investing more in credit cards, capitalist swine that they needs be are with long memories of mortgages gone missing on cane fields and rum distilleries, tobacco fincas and casinos they say were simply fabulous. They’ll need financing for a bigger airport down there, too, and a manufacturing network capable of making enough counterfeit Montecristi Panama hats to boost GDP 1.6 percent.
I’ve always have gotten my fee waived too and this time they also offered me 1,000 bonus points on my first 1k spend each month for 16 months. I’ll take it!
your credit must be really good. I wasn’t given the retention offer in any form for the 2nd time. They told me the retention offer is only for the 2nd year that I have already used.
@flyer – that’s the odd thing – they’ve offered me the same offer for 5 years