Part of the repertoire of any good credit card churner is making sure you cancel cards before their annual fee is due (or at the very least calling in to get an appropriate retention bonus). Sure, there are SOME cards that are worth paying the annual fee (for example the IHG card gives a free night at ANY IHG hotel for a mere $49 annual fee)
Here’s the Intercontinental Bora Bora – only $49 / night!
I’ve written before about some of my experiences on retention calls:
- Citi AAdvantage retention offers: I got 5 different offers – which one would YOU take?
- Amex Delta Skymiles card retention offer
- SPG Amex retention offer: 1500 points for the $65 fee – No thank you!
- Card housekeeping – annual fees, waiving interest charges, retention bonuses, and more!
Mrs. PWaC is ON the case!
I will say that my wife is a very good sport about calling credit card companies. We play this “game” in “two player mode”, and generally I am the one signing “her” up for new cards and such. I do try to minimize her involvement as she is not super interested in the minutiae of travel hacking, although I will say she loves the free trips to Puerto Rico, Yellowstone, Miami, Europe, etc. 😀
So when I have to interact with the credit card companies, I try to do it through their website or live chat functions, rather than over the phone
(SEE ALSO: Easy trick to always get a live chat with American Express)
But sometimes a phone call is required, and I have a hard time saying my name is Carolyn 🙂
Amex EveryDay Retention phone call
Carolyn signed up for the Amex EveryDay® Preferred Credit Card from American Express card back in May 2014. There are 2 types of Amex EveryDay® Credit Card from American Express ; the regular which offered a 10,000 Membership Rewards points and 2x on grocery spending (among other things). The American Express EveryDay Preferred offered 15,000 Membership Rewards as a signup bonus and 3x on grocery spending. We picked the Preferred Card, though in hindsight, that was probably a mistake as it comes with a $95 annual fee, vs. $0 for the regular card.
With the annual fee coming back up, it was time to call in. I chatted with Amex first, but they could not do anything, and suggested I call into the retention department
Amex EveryDay retention offer #1
The first phone call did not go well. The agent repeatedly said that American Express “NEVER EVER EVER” waives their annual fee and that there was “no documented occurrence of this happening EVER”
So like any good travel hacker, she hung up and called again!
Amex EveryDay retention offer #2
Actually she didn’t really WANT to call back again, but I convinced her 🙂
This time, her report was that the agent didn’t WANT to transfer her to the retention department, but once they did, the retention agent was VERY helpful. She was given a retention offer of:
- 2500 Membership Rewards points right away
- 5000 Membership Rewards points once we spend $1000 on the card within 60 days
We took the deal as that is a fair deal for the $95 annual fee, though I still may downgrade the card to the regular American Express EveryDay card. I can’t really cancel the card right now as then we’ll lose all of our Membership Rewards, just like with a Chase card
(SEE ALSO: Transferring Chase Ultimate Rewards between accounts before closing an account)
What about you? Would you have taken the deal? Have you received better Amex EveryDay Preferred retention offers?
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
Boy, do I feel like a sucker. I had no idea I could negotiate about the annual fee at renewal time.
A question, though, if the negotiations go nowhere: wouldn’t it negatively affect my credit score if I cancel cards frequently and open new accounts?
The motto in travel hacking (and in many other walks of life) is HUCA (Hang Up, Call Again). Being persistent will usually pay off. As for the effects, you might be interested in my posts about How do Credit Card signups affect your credit? – Part 1 and How do Credit Card signups affect your credit? – Part 2
It can have an effect if you’re canceling a card you’ve had for a long time (lowering your average age of accounts), as well as lowering your total available credit. Actually the more cards you have, the smaller effect on your credit score hit canceling a card will have (since it’s a smaller percentage of your overall credit)
Haha I do the same thing you do for my husband, trying to make sure it’s always by online chat, etc. I wish Michael could be a woman’s name too, but I’ve never met one…
I will say that I’ve often wondered what someone would do if I just called and said I was Carolyn. I mean is a call center agent really going to say “Umm excuse me you sound like a man”?!?!?!? 😀
I’m a guy, but I don’t have a deep voice. It’s only happened the one time, but a CC company rep (female) refused to talk to me about my own account (after I went through all their verification questions and then some) because she didn’t believe that I was who I said I was…and then she hung up.
That is a hilarious story!
Oh, but it often is…. try “Mikhail” or “Mikail” or Mychal. (biblical even — quranic too)
It would be so much easier in our family if we were doing this the other way around, i.e. my husband being the travel hacker and doing stuff in my name (because my name is “Jamie”, which could be male or female). Unfortunately, I’m the hacker and my husband’s name is Graham. I have called in and said I was him, though. I thought, “what are they going to say” and I kind of just wanted to give it a try. When they asked who they were speaking to, I just said “Graham LastName”. The funny thing is that, then she said, “And how are you related to the cardholder”, I was like, “I am the card holder” and she said, “Oh sorry, I thought your said ‘Diane'”. Ha! I guess I sounded so obviously like a woman that her mind just heard me say a name that was a woman’s name that vaguely sounded like the name I actually said.
she was nice, did accept me being “Graham”, it didn’t cause any trouble, but I don’t think I’ll do it again. It was too weird.
Michael Learned was the actress who played the mom on The Waltons tv show.
so which offer did you take? you dont end up specifying. unless the offer was for BOTH 2500 MR and 5k MR after spend combined.
also why would you lose the MRs if you cancelled, dont you have a Gold or Plat charge card?
Yes – it was for both of those combined. 2500 right away and 5000 more after spend. No – we don’t currently have any other Membership Rewards card. We used to have a gold card but didn’t want to pay the $175 annual fee.