Originally Posted by Flygirl98

Hey Brian! I'm not exactly an expert but I did read a lot of posts and this is what I learned. You can leave a balance and close the account, you then have until your statement due date to pay the bill off in full. As soon as the miles are in your account (you need to actually check your AA account, citi stating they posted them is not the same thing as AA actually having them) you can either call and talk to a friendly CSR or SM them to close account. I just closed my first account this week and chose to SM citi. It took four hours for them to read my message, 10 hours to reply that they closed it, 24 hours for them to send me an email stating the fees were adjusted, and 48 hours for the $450 to actually post online. That was my experience - it seems others have been more fortunate getting a quicker response. I found it caused me a bit of anxiety --hint I was told by a senior fly guy to "breathe" But I'm sure next time it will be a breeze. The only disadvantage to calling online is you will probably have to talk to the CSR for ten mins while they try and talk you into keeping the card and probably give you some misinformation (as was the case when I spoke to two very cheerful CSRs the other day) As far as how much to mail them (do you actually mail a check? --I always pay by phone-- too stressful worrying about a check not being delivered on time) If you prepay the 9000 and your statement closes with a balance of 1000. That 1000 will go down to 550 after the AF refund is posted (figure 48 hours) and then you just send them the 550 by the due date. Hope that helps, I had the exact same questions as you so I'm sure there are others wondering about the same thing! Cheers!