My Retention Phone Call Results: BOA Virgin Atlantic & Alaska Airlines
Two of my cards from Bank of America had annual fees post this month, my Virgin Atlantic and Alaska Airlines card. You may remember I called about the Alaska Airlines card a few months back and was offered a small bonus for keeping the card. The annual fee finally posted so I gave them another call. I signed up for the Virgin Atlantic card last year when the 90K offer (or really 70K offer) reappeared. Here are my retention phone call results.
Bank of America Retention Phone Call Results
I was able to knock out both cards on the same call which is always a plus. After recently receiving a 2,500 mile retention offer for the Alaska Airlines card I was not expecting much this time around. I was hoping for a juicy offer for the Virgin Atlantic card since I put a little over $15,000 in spend on it last year.
Alaska Airlines
As expected, BOA offered a big bag of nothing for the Alaska Airlines card. I assumed that is how it would go since I just received the 2,500 miles with no strings attached not too long ago. They offered to move me into a no annual fee card but I need to free up BOA slots since they keep denying me. Hopefully closing this card will help with future applications. I don’t have a lot of use for Alaska Airlines miles right now and with the death of SPG there is no good way to rack them up easily anymore. That is why I even considered using my small stash of miles on a hotel stay.
Virgin Atlantic
I had high hopes for this one and these are miles I actually have a need for lately. Unfortunately they gave me the same offer that I received for the Alaska Airlines card a few months ago, 2,500 miles. That would have been fine and dandy if the annual fee had not already posted. I think this is the standard offer these days from Bank of America. You may want to call them for offers a few months before your annual fee posts. That way you can get the offer and still make your decision on whether or not it is worth keeping when the fee posts.
Conclusion
While Bank of America has never been super generous with retention offers, at least not like Citi is, it is interesting to see them have what appears to be a standard offer. They had the same no strings attached retention offer for both co-branded airline cards. Something to keep in mind next time your annual fee comes up for either of these cards. Now that I shared my retention phone call results share your recent results in the comments section for these cards.
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You can still cancel the card within 30 days of the annual fee posting and get the fee refunded
True Tim but the Alaska miles took around 45-50 days to post last time so I didn’t think they would post before I could close it and get the refund.
A decent way accumulate AS miles is to buy them during promotional sales. Perhaps, not the best value, but still useful.
That is a good deal if you are using them on partner airlines for first class bookings for sure.