3K AAdvantage miles- call to cancel your Citi Visa Card
 

After receiving my 15K miles (and no annual fee) for opening a Citi AAdvantage Visa, I callled in to cancel the credit card account (btw, to bypass the phone tree I used the 866 number on Paul English's gethuman.com rather than the 888 number on the back of the card).

For requesting to cancel the card I received an instant 3,000 AAdvantage miles if I offered to hang on to the card (no mandatory period required). Since the fee is waived until next January, I'll hold on to the card for another month or so after the 3K miles post.

BTW, 5 minutes later I tried the same with my UA Mileage Plus Chase card and got squat in return. In fact, the rather snarky customer service rep warned me about jumping ship after receiving the 20K mileage bonus, that it might harm my credit rating to cancel the card this quickly, and that I should hang on to it for at least a year! I politely informed her that my tactics have not stopped me from being bombarded by credit card offers daily and that I was willing to take the risk.

I guess I was lucky the rep didn't try to sell me the 'opportunity' to sit in Economy Plus for the low-low price of $299 per year!

At the risk of being redundant here, do be aware of any effects you might have on your credit ratings and especially FICO scores when you consider credit card cancellations or "shake and bakes" to cancel some cards and get new ones (depending on your finanical profile, it can have an effect on what you pay in interest rates for big-ticket items like homes or automobiles, for instance.)

Roger your concerns JDiver. Like I said, I'm willing to take the risk because:
(a) I already have a fixed 30-year loan on my home,
(b) I own both cars outright, and
(c) I have a HELOC through my credit union available in case I need repairs or need to spend beyond my emergency fund.

If it were 6 years ago when I was grooming my FICO score to get my first home loan, I would certainly not be as brazen as I am today with these airline credit card free mileage offers. I would certainly not recommend my consumer credit tactics to anybody who:
(a) has serious FICO credit score concerns or
(b) is looking to make a major purchase with borrowed money or
(c) carries a balance (!) on their credit cards.

As a side note, I primarily use an non-airline-affiliated travel card from my credit union which I have had for over 5 years. This card earns me free travel (up to $300 in value) starting at 15,000 miles/points (1 point per dollar). The next reward level is a $500 voucher for 20,000 miles/points. The annual fee is $49. I even earn mileage on the airline I fly on each 'reward' ticket!

All the legacy carriers have downgraded their service over the past few years via cramped seat pitch (AA and UA), fee-for-meals (most all), and ditching blanket/pillow freebies (AA and UA). Northwest won't even let you ask for the exit row for free anymore...
So if the legacy carriers offer me a free mileage offer if I am disciplined enough to use a new credit card once and cancel it within 11 months, then I am more than willing to 'stick it to the man'!

Since you've got it all figured out, the following won't be of value to you so I'll post it for the benefit of those of us who haven't attained Jedi status:

If one declines Citibank's initial retention offer of 3,000 miles, they almost always will increase it to 5,000 miles. They did with me and all I did to get was to say no. This has also happened to others and a colleague actually received 7,000 miles (we think) because he had quite a large monthly spend on his account.

A word of warning
 

Maybe it depends on the time of day....I just called to cancel and she tried to transfer me to the retention department, but their phone lines were all busy, so the original rep processed my account closure without any offer to stay :mad:

Oops. They connected you to the "retentive" deparment by mistake. ;)

It'll be interesting to see if they catch it and call or...

ejwills, you have indeed figured this one out. ^

I have a Citibank AAdvantage card that I got in November 2005. The 15,000 miles posted after I made a small purchase and paid the bill. I fully intend NOT to keep the card after the no annual fee period expires.

But now I read that they'll give me 3K or 5K if I call them and try to cancel? Is this true?

Now you all have me scared about this FICO score which I assume is my credit rating. So if I get the card, make a small purchase and pay it off, then in the summer use it heavily for a few weeks and pay that off then cancel in the fall, how is that likely to affect my score?

The FICO crystal ball says 'Quit screwing around with multiple credit apps.'

I cancelled mine last month. No offer of miles and actually, the rep was quite rude about it.

I wouldn't have kept it anyway but they did not offer anything.

It's the multiple credit applications (or inquiries) that screw you. They also factor in the age of your accounts. Young accounts count against you. The paying off/not paying off matters much less. Missed payments, of course, hurt. But paying the min or the whole thing ontime have considerably less effect than the number of inquiries and the age of the accounts. Bottom line- opening and cancelling a lot of them, regardless of what you do with them, will hurt.

Some have mentioned (this has come up before) that they're not buying anything soon and don't need a good score. I would never want to degrade my score in this way since one never knows. YMMV, of course.

Cheers.

this might be a new tactic they are employing. instead of miles i was first offered a buy one get one free ticket which we all know are really worthless. when i protested i was offered to have my annual fee removed and i got a $50 voucher in the mail to post to my account. not sure what the trade off is in terms of miles but i took the bait and took the $50. not sure what the next offer might have been. i have used the card quite a bit but always pay it off so they havent really made any money off the card.

moral of the story might be you dont know what they are going to offer and i am a former citibank employee!!

Does anyone know if the AAMastercard offers the same or is this something only Visa does?

However doing this once in a year will have a very minor effect on your FICO score. I would not worry about it unless someone opened and closed multiple accounts in a 12 month span.

Have to agree that open and closing 1 acct/year (maybe even 2) will not affect your score much and dont forget that the FICO scores that all those Credit agencies use are updated several times a year.
ex; if you close an acct, your ratings will go down but its only temporary -say several months, then several months later your score will be back to normal (original score). I dont know the exact amount of time your score is affected so perhaps someone who do know for sure can post here for the rest of us . :D

Actually having bad habits (like constant late payments, being in debt, having too many outstanding loans etc.(Yes, having that huge car loan will have major affect) and ratio of your annual income/spending ratio (debts) are the main culprits for low FICO scores.

PT