A Quick Card Cancellation Call!
I just got off the phone with U.S. Bank and experienced what was probably the shortest phone call ever to cancel a card. I got the LifeMiles Visa last year in the hopes of dabbling around with that program. At the time they had an increased 40K offer, so I jumped on it.
I haven’t been able to utilize the LifeMiles like I had hoped (I did burn half of them last year in South America) and there really is no reason in the world I should pay the annual fee. While I could try to convert the card, I decided to close this one since I am trying to reduce my overall number of accounts.
The Call
To close the card, I simply called the number on the back of my card, selected the “changes” option and said “cancel card” to the system. I was connected to an agent in 5 seconds. The agent asked me what I was calling about and when I said I wanted to cancel, she asked me why.
I said I am not getting good use out of this card and don’t want to pay the annual fee. Her next words shocked me. She simply said, “Your account is now closed. Would you like a confirmation number for the closure?” Wow! Not even an attempt to keep the account open from them?
I’m Not Complaining
Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t expecting a retention bonus, nor was I calling for one. I was just shocked that no effort was made to show me the value of the account. Banks pay so much money for customer acquisition that it is always startling when they just want to let you go.
Of course this doesn’t qualify as my easiest credit card closing ever. The easiest closing I have ever done was with my Citi AAdvantage Executive card. In that case a quick secure message did the trick. That should work with all Citi cards, but of course it is fun to call them to see what retention specials they will offer.
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Hi Shawn,
I want to call Chase to either negotiate some bonus like annual fee waived or points bonus or just close Ritz-Carlton Chase Credit Card with credit limit $12000. In case I am not lucky to get any bonus, What is the process? Should I call Chase to move some credit to sapphire in advance or simply ask operator to move limit to sapphire and close my account with my call? Thanks
You can just have them do it when you call. Ask them to transfer and then cancel the account.
I can relate to this one. US Bank doesn’t care to fight cancellations. In fact, it’s like they are happy that their credit risk was minimized by dropping you as a customer. I did PVG-DEN and ULN-BKK with my 40k so I can’t complain. I wanted to keep it active for the MS but the fraud dept is so sensitive that it wasn’t worth it.
I had more or less the same experience with cancelling my Amex Platinum, except in this case I wanted them to try to negotiate with me for retention, and I was disappointed when they just said “okay, it’s cancelled.” Afterward, I was kicking myself for not wording it in a way to prompt a retention offer (i.e., do you have any retention offers).
why do you want to reduce your overall number of accounts?
Because US Bank is tough for approvals and I feel it is better to reduce my number of cards with them. I have plenty of credit cards.
I can think of times I called to cancel a card that I would have loved it to be like this scenario.
Coincidentally/ironically I got a courtesy call from USB today wanting to know that everything was OK and could they interest me in any of their other services. I have four credit cards with them. They seem to call about every two months or so.