New Chase policy (Oct 2016): No Annual Fee refund >30 days after AF billed.
 

I dont see this new policy is reported on FT, or from bloggers write up. So I would post here.

Just got off the phone with Chase after I received an SM reply about the fee reversal / refund deadline on a Hyatt card is now 30 days from the fee is billed. Back in Sept I was given 180 days window.

Called and the phone rep said it was 90 days. I asked him to double check, then he realized there was a memo issued last week that the deadline is only 30 days from the fee is billed. He voluntarily transferred to the Account Manager.

The manager said there is a memo coming out last week on the new policy of 30 days from fee is billed. This mirrors the AMEX policy came in effect Sept 1st about 30 days window on reversal / refund of annual fee - EXCEPT, AMEX gave ample advance notice while Chase policy is in effect IMMEDIATELY - without giving any advance notice to customers at all.

The manager I talked to said it was taken them by surprise when they were in a meeting when this policy was announced. Many of them wonder how are they going to tell the customers the bad news, especially after the customer has previously been given the window anywhere from 90 to 180 days to get AF refunded after it was billed?

I mentioned about AMEX would still give prorated refund of AF if the customer also owns another AMEX fee card. The manager said this would be the feedback he would gather and present on the next meeting. He was being honest that he felt Chase is testing this new policy and wants to see how customers react, then may fine tune the new policy based on how customers react to this.

For those who are thinking about trimming some of your Chase fee cards, please post your data points on this thread. TIA.

I just got a pro-rated refund on my CSP annual fee when I downgraded it to a Freedom Unlimited. This happened without me asking, and I've had the card for almost two years.

Neil

Downgrade may be treated differently as AMEX also gives prorated refund on downgraded cards despite AF billed long pass the 30 days after their policy was in effect Sept.

I sent an email to Will at DoC asked him to check with his source at Chase as he seems to have reliable sources there.

The Chase SM below is what prompted me to call, as previously I was given 180 days which sounded wrong to me. So I double checked and got the 30 days reply, confirmed by phone rep and his manager.
Obviously the 30 days deadline has been long gone.
.................................................. .................................................. ..............
Hello Happy,

I am writing with regards to your annual fee refund.

I see an Annual fee of $75.00 was charged to your account
on 09/01/2016. This charge is displayed on your
09/02/2016 statement. You had 30 days from the statement
date (09/02/2016) to cancel the card and receive full
annual fee refund.

We value our relationship with you and thank you for
choosing Chase.

Thank you,

Chase Email Servicing
1-800-436-7941

Full refund w/in 30 days is what I found out too but there are many reports of prorated refunds up to 90 days or more. Not sure if prorated refunds will be phased out but I guess we'll find out.

Happy, did you ask for a prorated refund?

The "many" reports of pro-rated refunds are from WHEN? The new policy is in effect Oct 12th. Many agents dont even know about it. So those being promised pro-rated refund may not ever get it when they actually cancel their cards based on the NO LONGER TRUE information.

I did not cancel but wanted to know my option.

The front line rep initially told me 60days and then said it should be 90 days. I then asked him to make sure because the fresh SM reply I got was only 30 days versus a previous SM in Sept told me 180 days - the discrepancy is just all over the place.

So the phone rep excused himself and went to do some research then came back to tell me there was a memo released Oct 12th about the new policy of 30 days. He offered to transfer me to his manager for further assistance.

The Account Manager was very understanding, said he would feel the same way as any customer would - feeling being shafted on this because
1) there is no advance notice with the new policy came in effect on the date it was distributed, Oct 12th.
2) Many customers have been told differently up till now and inevitably these customers would be quite upset when they found out they would not get anything back. No pro-rate refund. Period.
3) He said "we" (the managers) in the meeting actually discussed on HOW they would handle customers' calls when the customers found out the new policy. He said they did not have any authority to give refund, but MIGHT be able to reverse the charge (of course they could because the charge should still be within the 30 days window unless someone let it go to Past Due stage). He felt Chase is testing how customers would react and said the more customers call in to complain, and the managers put in the negative feedback, MAY BE, on the next meeting there would be something done. He knew about CSR and felt that with that card, many customers would cancel other Chase fee cards - may be Chase has seen a wave of cancellation on other fee cards so decides to put in a new policy.

He also agreed that without any notice from Chase on this new policy versus AMEX gave 2 months notice, is a BAD practice from Chase but unfortunately there is nothing he or other managers could do, other than submitting the customer feedback to the higher up.

On top of that he said there is no way to tell IF a pro-rated refund would be given unless we went thru the cancellation process. Since Chase still owes me 4000 spend bonus points I am not ready to cancel the card yet. He did find the 4K spend bonus offer attached on my card AND I have met the spend in July but said the promo ended on Sept 30 with the 6 to 8 weeks clause, so the bonus probably would not come until Mid Nov. He was surprised by that as he knew usually it did not take this long. DH had the same promo in Q1 this year, he got the 4K bonus the next statement after he met the spend. I am now 3 statements after that (Aug, Sept and Oct) and still not see it. Folks on the Q2 promo ended in June said they saw their bonus in Aug statement. This is new practice from Chase that many do not notice as not everyone does the spend bonus promotion.

I did tell him the AMEX policy has an exception that if you have other AMEX Fee card(s), the one you canceled would get prorated fee, and this exception is fair to the customer. (data points posted on the Bye Bye No Prorated Refund thread in AMEX forum - someone already got a pro-rated refund on a card its AF was billed in July when he recently acquired an AMEX fee card before cancelling the unwanted card.)

So if we as customers all voice our concerns may be we would see an exception like what AMEX is doing now. BTW, the AMEX exception is not a published thing but it has been told to multiple customers and actually is happening.

Hi,

If we cancel Chase Hyatt credit card, do we get to keep the anniversary free nights certificate? Can anyone confirm if the annual fee will be prorate? Mine was billed back in June...so it is way passed the 30 days mark....

Thanks.

Bad news confirmed on Reddit
 

https://www.reddit.com/r/churning/co...refund_policy/

No prorated refund. Applied to all JPMC cards. Came in effect just a few days ago.

Is this the same for business cards, specifically Ink Plus?

Yes, you get to keep nights and points from all cards. You'll have to call Chase and see what they say about prorated refund. Doesn't look possible.

Found in the comment section of a write up on DoC site - worth noting
 

Folks need to take note on this, especially those plan on switching their CSPs and their Inks - found in the comment section of a write up DoC did on the new policy - turned out there are internal tightening started a few months before that...

PMD says:
October 21, 2016 at 10:07 am

Another new side effect of this experienced by my cousin in Texas and a niece in Florida that both went for annual fee refunds almost three weeks ago is that Chase immediately de-qualified both of them for pre-approved alternative cards. The offers were still on the pre-qualifier web page for a month or two, but apps were instantly denied (after doing a hard pull – 790-810 FICO) and with my cousin, the branch banker stated he couldn’t do anything because two past annual fee refunds triggered some sort of new adverse action to protect Chase’s financial interests. Evidently people were switching cards with Chase, jumping between products after asking for a fee refund. They don’t appreciate that more than once any longer it appears. They didn’t seem to care about product switching if it didn’t involve a refund of an annual fee. Refunding or crediting you for annual fees seems be the trigger.
Reply

PMD says:
October 21, 2016 at 10:08 am

To clarify, this refund request occurred three months ago, not weeks. Don’t know if this is in tandem with the new policy or something else.
Reply

Is refund policy different than downgrade?

Yesterday, I downgraded CSP to Freedom Unlimited. AF was posted 9/1, and paid as part of my auto-payment last week. When I called, I asked if there was anything I needed to do to make sure I got the credit. Rep said it was automatic.

Surprised yesterday night to see when I logged in that the credit was already applied. Just one experience, but certainly don't know why I would be accepted from 30 days if that's now the policy.

Here's my understanding of Chase's annual fee refund policy. Please correct if you've had a different experience.

For cancellations the old policy was:

• within 30 (or perhaps 60?) days, automatic full refund
• after that up to 180 days, full refund by request

That's now been changed to "automatic full refund within 30 days" and that's it, no other refunds after 30 days. I don't recall there ever being a pro-rated refund policy for a cancellation.

For downgrades the policy has not changed:

• full refund within 30 days
• prorated refund after 30 days
• always automatic

Just spoke with several CSRs and was not able to get my fee refunded, they only state to refund 30 days from posted if I close account. So if you keep account you can no longer waive the fee? I always used to waive the fee every year...

That would be a retention offer, which might take the form of a fee waiver, or a credit, or rewards. See this thread:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/chase...5-present.html

Refund of annual fee: 30 days vs billing cycle
 

The annual fee of my United Club posted Nov 1st and I want to cancel it. Closing date of the current billing cycle is Nov 27th.
In my previous statement it says regarding the refund:
"[...] unless you notify us that you wish to close your account within 30 days or one billing cycle (whichever is less)[...]"

So how long do I have to cancel it to get a full refund? Until Nov 30th or the closing date (Nov 27th)?

Reasoning: I have pending charges and don't want to lose the points if I close the account before the current cycle is over and the points got transferred.

Thanks!