Citi Retention Results 2023
Over the years one of the consistently best way to earn more with the cards you already carry is via retention offers. Citi has long been one of the most aggressive banks with offering customers these types of “deals” and it seems they are continuing with that practice. Long time MtM Contributor PDX Deals Guy recently made a call to Citi and received offers on 6 of his cards on the same phone call. I thought these data points were worth sharing with all of you.
How to Reach Citi Retention
To reach Citi retention, call the phone number on the back of your card and tell the agent you are thinking about cancelling your card. (Do not tell the automated system to cancel your account or it might just close it out!) It can pay to list a specific reason you are looking to cancel, since the retention agent will try to give you an offer that solves your problem.
Related: Known retention offer list for Amex, Chase & Citi
Citi Retention – Many Offers with 1 Phone Call
One of the best ways to maximize your time is to ask for offers across all of your cards on the same phone call. Citi agents have long been friendly when it comes to checking all of your cards. On this phone call PDX Deals Guy was able to get offers across 6 different calls all from the same agent. Let’s take a look at what he received.
Citi Premier
The Citi Premier can be a very valuable card that I think is worth the $95 annual fee. Still, for some an offer may make it easier to keep the card.
- Citi Premier retention offer: $95 statement credit for spending $95 in the next 30 days
- Analysis: The offer basically erases the annual fee making this popular travel card worth keeping for the 3X grocery earning alone. It also earns 3X at restaurants, gas stations, air travel and hotels
- Result: Offer accepted
AT&T Access More & Custom Cash
The AT&T Access More card is no longer available, but it has long been a favorite of mine due to the 3X earnings on online purchases. Over the years I have received a number of great retention offers on this card and PDX Deals Guy received a decent one as well. He also received the same offer on his Custom Cash card.
- The retention offers: Extra 2X ThankYou points on all spending for 6 months up to a total of 35K bonus ThankYou points
- Analysis: This offer brings up the base spend on both of these cards to 3X on up to $35K spent. Add-in the 5X (5%) the Custom Cash earning on $500 in spend each month in your top category plus the AT&T Access More’s 3X on online spend and you have a really nice way to earn ThankYou points
- Result: Offers accepted
Citi Rewards+
The Citi Rewards+ card is unique in that it has a rounding feature. The card rounds up to the nearest 10 points on every purchase. This is especially useful for smaller purchases. It also earns 2X on supermarkets and gas stations with a $6K yearly cap on spend.
- Citi Rewards+ retention offer: Earn 10K ThankYou points after $3K spend in 6 months
- Analysis: This amounts to an extra 3.33X on everyday spend which is quite nice
- Result: Offer accepted
ThankYou Preferred
This is a no annual fee card that is no longer available for applications. That didn’t stop Citi from offering a nice little bonus to keep the card.
- ThankYou Preferred retention offer: Earn 7,500 ThankYou points after $1K spend in 3 months
- Analysis: This is an amazing offer for a no annual fee card. It amounts to an extra 7.5X on the $1K spend
- Result: Offer accepted
Citi Dividend
And last we have another no annual fee Citi card that you can no longer get. The Dividend card has 5% rotating bonus categories with a $300 annual cap on rewards earned. The current 5% categories are drug stores and grocery stores through the end of June, 2023 which makes this offer so nice.
- Citi Dividend retention offer: Extra 4% back for 3 months (cap of $300 remains)
- Analysis: If he spends about $3,300 in at grocery stores that would be a 9% cash back return with this offer before he maxes out the $300 cap
- Result: Offer accepted
Citi Retention Results 2023 – Bottom Line
In total PDX Deals Guy spent about 5 minutes per card on the phone with agents or just about 30 minutes total to receive all of these offers. Citi continues to be quite generous with their retention offers across these cards including four which don’t even have an annual fee. It definitely seems like a call to Citi Retention may be worthwhile if you are thinking of canceling your cards. You never know what juicy offer they may throw your way to keep your business.
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I decided to call them after reading the article. I have 8 personal Citi cards and 1 business. I didn’t ask them about my Double cash or either of my 2 custom cash cards or the business AA card. I only had a spend 1,500 get 5,000 miles on my Citi AA Mile Up Card. Not terrible, it earns 2 points per dollar at grocery stores. 8,000 total points and that is a no annual fee card.
Got no offers on my citi custom cash
Man, I just product changed a card – I guess you can’t get retention for that!
How do you ask about retention offers for either free card and/or cards that aren’t even hitting an annual fee? “Okay Mary that’s great for card number three. By the way I’m also considering canceling a fourth card even though there’s no annual fee and I use the card anyway…”
In my experience, once a rep starts looking at retention offers on one card, you just need to politely ask him/her to keep looking at each of your cards. Notice that 4 of the 6 cards I got retention offers on have no annual fee.
Thanks. That could make it a little less awkward.
It’s just their internal process. You just start with the first card and ask the agent to check offers for others. They have always been happy to do that.
Shawn, ever hear of this one? Let’s say that you have two of the same card (via product change) for a while and now you only need one. Technically, Citi doesn’t move credit line between cards. But, if the call were to apply for a credit limit increase on one card . . . oh, and to get it, I’m willing to close the second card. Any experience?
Never with that specifically, but it could be worth trying. I do think you would incur a hard inquiry if I remember correctly for the credit line increase unless they have recently run your credit for a new card.