Originally Posted by
googs185
Citi has been stingy with retention offers lately, but I just hit the jackpot with my Prestige. I called for a retention bonus this morning and was told there was no offers on the account. She went on about the benefits of the card but I told her that Citi has slowly removed a lot of the benefits on the card. She recommended downgrading to Premier. We kept going back and forth and I kept reiterating the loss of value of benefits on the card. My persistence paid off: out of the blue she offered a $100 statement credit on the card in addition to 2500 TYP, for doing nothing except keeping the card open. On top of all that I'm grandfathered into the CitiGold $350 AF, so that makes it an effective $0 fee plus 2500 TYP, so a major win!
Last year I got the $50/month for $1,500/month spend for 7 months retention offer.
Called in this year before AF posted and got nada. No offers available.
After fee posted, and after I had read the above, I called again. Also got no offers, and no inclination to transfer me to anyone who could make an offer. But, because of
googs185's interesting story, I pleaded in a way I don't usually do before canceling and ... bingo! The $100 statement credit came out of the mouth of the friendly frontline CSR. I was too modest to push for the 2500 TYPs, too; but -- since I am also grandfathered in to the $350AF, and do routinely and easily use the $250 airline credit -- I find that this makes it easy to rationalize holding onto the card, even though I don't have any mega 4th-night-frees in view.