Originally Posted by STS-134

Yep, that's the way to do it. I've said this before many times, mainly in this forum and sometimes in the Chase forum: do not even bother calling and trying to negotiate unless you are willing to walk if you don't get any retention offer. Threatening to cancel if you aren't offered a retention package and then failing to follow if they refuse to give you one through just devalues future threats made by you or anyone else. I've never called Amex and threatened to cancel because I wasn't at the point where I'd be willing to actually walk if I received nothing. But with all of the changes to the Amex airline fee program that make it more difficult to use the credits, and now this, I think I'm likely to be at that point when my AF comes due again.