Originally Posted by
sdsearch
Bronze cards are not generally marketed to new customers. Anyone who has a pulse can easily apply for a regulard Citi AA card that has the annual fee waived for the first year, thus no reason to apply outright for a Bronze card.
Bronze cards are typically marketed primarily to people who want to cancel an annual-fee card after a year because of the annual fee (and can't be talked into one of the plenty retention bonuses -- including often something like a credit equal to the annual fee for a small number of purchases with no minimum threshold! -- or else for whatever reason the system doesn't offer that person retention bonuses), and then are offered the Bronze card as a no-annual-fee-ever alternative.
Or for people already gotten a retention offer less than 6 months ago... so the system could not spit out another offer - but the retention rep could offer the Bronze card and he would over-ride the annual fee - kind of a Win Win - the retention rep got one positive stat (retained one account) with an override on the annual fee that is within his power, the cardholder got to keep the prior $85 credit that was already cashed out, and keep the card as no fee version which would not affect future application of new cards.
I am in this scenario now. Tomorrow I will see if the annual fee posted yesterday would be reversed today as described by the retention rep who swore that he had put in a reminder in his system that he would need to reverse mine today. He claimed he had just done that on another customer a day before I called to cancel and was routed to him. As an experiment, I went ahead with his proposal instead of canceling the Visa. On, one more tidbit, the rep said the new law forbids immediate conversion, so the conversion would take effect in 45 days after the consent.