Originally Posted by
ORD-DCA Flyer
Personal Platinum open since 2010, called and there were no offers available. The agent indicated this was due to receiving a $200 statement credit last year. That credit last year was my only previous call to retentions.
My spend is relatively low these days, having shifted over to Chase and Citi, so I'm not super surprised that there were no offers, but I am still disappointed.
I'm keeping it this year as its marginally worth it still at $450 between the 2018 airline credit and Uber plus a couple of lounge visits, and will hope for a 30k point offset next year. Spend will probably be under $5k this year, it's just not worth it to spend on the Amex anymore when I have the Sapphire Reserve.
I would not do this if I were you. If you call and threaten to cancel, and they don't give you anything, you should actually follow through on your threat to cancel. Otherwise, you might find it harder to get a retention deal in the future.
https://thepointsguy.com/2015/02/ten...-credit-cards/
Once you do take the plunge and open a card with an annual fee, there are ways to avoid it in future years. When the first year is up and the annual fee comes due, you can always call your card issuer and ask about waiving the annual fee again. Remember that the issuing bank wants you as a customer, so they don’t want you to close your account. Many TPG readers (myself included!) have received offers to keep cards open, including:
Another year with the annual fee waived (no strings attached);
Make X purchases in Y months and enjoy another year with no annual fee;
Make X purchases in Y months and receive Z bonus points/miles.
I do recommend doing this only for cards that you would actually cancel without getting an offer. If you ask for it, don’t get it, and keep the card anyway, the issuer might flag you (or your account) as the boy/girl who cried wolf, because they know you won’t follow through on your threat to cancel.
It is never a good idea to make empty threats. If you threaten to do something ("I'll do X if you don't do Y"), and you want people to take you seriously, then if the other party doesn't do Y, you should do X. If you weren't prepared to follow through on your threat in case the other party didn't give you what you wanted, then you shouldn't have made the threat in the first place.