Citi American Airlines Retention Call
I am going to be honest. I have way too many Citi American Airlines credit cards. Between the Citi Executive deal earlier this year and already having a couple few regular AA cards from previous deals, I have more ways to earn AA miles than I need to.
The Citi American Airlines Retention Call
One of my Citi AA Platinum cards has just hit the one year mark. Since the annual fee is due tomorrow, I decided to call up my friends at Citi to cancel the card. Usually when I am calling on a card, I want something in return (don’t always get it), however in this case I didn’t really care either way. If they hadn’t offered me anything then I would have just closed the card.
The first thing I noticed when calling was an improvement in their system. It must have recognized my number and asked only for the last four digits to my card. It then inquired as to the reason of my call and when I said cancel, I was forwarded immediately to an agent.
After a brief conversation with the first agent, she warm transferred me to a retention specialist. The retention specialist immediately came on the line and told me about the benefits of my card and why I should keep it. When I told him that I had several AA cards, he just offered me a $95 credit to offset the annual fee and a bonus of 1,000 miles for $1,000 in spending each month for 16 months. So easy.
Citi American Airlines Retention Resources
The offer I received is pretty standard for the Citi AA Platinum card. Before I make a retention call, I check out various forums to learn about other people’s experiences. This way I know what to expect going into the call. Thankfully Flyertalk has an amazing Citi retention forum where you can see the latest reports for just about any card. Pretty good stuff.
Conclusion
In the end I took the retention offer as it will help to improve my average age of accounts and thus my credit score. Also, by keeping the credit line open, I now have it available to use if Citi wants to deny a future application. My only issue now is that I still have way too many American Airlines credit cards. Not the worst problem to have I guess.
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called on 2/4/15 on Citi AA Executive…was offered a $250 statement credit after three months with at least $3000 spend each month, will call back in a few days and see what’s available then.
this was for first year on card.
If you fly AA a lot then the Executive card for $200 is almost tempting. I probably wouldn’t keep it, but that is about as good a retention offer as I have heard. Hopefully you can get better!
[…] helps if you don’t have elite status. As I reported a couple of weeks ago, Citi has recently been waiving the annual fee on these cards pretty regularly upon […]
Just a couple weeks ago I got offered the same thing you did, Shawn.
Just want to make sure I read this correctly. If you spend $1000/month for 16 months, you’ll receive 16,000 miles?
” he just offered me a $95 credit to offset the annual fee and a bonus of 1,000 miles for $1,000 in spending each month for 16 months”
Correct. Each month they give an extra 1,000 bonus miles on top of the 1,000 mile that I would normally earn. If I spent $1,000 per month I would get 1,000 normal miles from the card and then 1,000 bonus miles.
I’m interesting the retention bonus on AA Citi Executive card. Will Citi waive the annual fee?
The highest offer I have heard is a $100 credit plus 5,000 bonus miles. It doesn’t look like anyone will be getting the Executive for free the second year. Of course these offers always change, so who knows?
much better than my offer of $95 statement credit for $3k in spending over 3 months, no bonus miles
Was it your first year’s renewal? This particular card is only one year old. I have other cards that are coming up on their two year anniversary where they waived the fee last year. I will be interested to see what they offer.
yes – this was my first renewal