BofA Asiana Amex - Up to 38k miles - $99 fee
 

Yesterday I noticed that B of A/Asiana was offering a decent new deal on their B of A AmEx. Long story short, I applied.

I'm not a fan of B of A, and very few of their banking products meet my needs, so I don't do a lot of business with them. But I have had a single no-fee rewards card account with them for about a decade, though I seldom use the card. I've charged less than $100 over the past five years.

So last night I'm downloading transactions into Quicken and I get an error from my B of A account. Logging on via the Web generated a "There are no open accounts for this Online ID. We are unable to service your request. If you need further assistance you can call..." error message, and it was repeatable.

Lo and behold, I log on this morning, and no error, but my previous no-fee card has vanished from my online profile, and it has been replaced with the Asiana AmEx.

I've read some threads here about B of A customer "service" that comes across as arrogant, and maybe I betray my ignorance by reacting with surprise, but I was surprised. They didn't even ask. They just closed the one account and opened the other. [...]

Has B of A Been Hiring Former Soviets or Norks???
 

Probably just former Comcast customer service reps.

Does anyone have experience opening this card, getting the 25,000 miles after meeting min spend in the first billing cycle, and then cancelling within 30 days of the AF posting?

I'm curious if Asiana will take back their 25,000 miles. I know with most other cards, e.g. the Citi Exec, they don't take back the miles, but for this particular card it seems like Asiana has a bit more control, e.g. I was told by B of A that only Asiana can waive the annual fee.

BofA reps are generally clueless about annual fees, etc. I've been told by multiple reps in the past for the AS card that only AS can waive the fee or refund it if you close the card (within 60 days as per BofA terms). However, the fee gets automatically refunded without intervention by the rep after a few weeks. If you push hard enough and do enough HUCAs, you may eventually get someone who will do it (usually a supervisor, though most supervisors will claim they can't do it either.)

Someone I know applied for this card just prior to the upgraded offer, which went live in August, IIRC. The previous offer was 10K miles on first purchase. The account was closed, within two or three weeks of being opened; however there were a few transactions and the AF posted (and the bill was fully paid) before the account was closed. Long story short, the statement did not show any miles awarded, but a few weeks later the 10K miles showed up at Asiana, which was a very pleasant surprise. So far the miles haven't been taken back. The AF was refunded, as well, though it took a few weeks.

This same person applied for the new version of the card (with the 25k/38K mile offer) as soon as the other card was closed, and has received the 25K signup bonus, as well. However the AF was paid on the second account.

I should add, none of this would have happened without the recalcitrance of B of A. They were approached at least half-a-dozen times by chat and by phone, and simply asked to upgrade the 10K offer to the newer, better offer. They consistently refused. And what was funny was that when the first card account was closed, B of A basically begged the cardholder not to close the account, seemingly oblivious to the fact that the cardholder had made it quite clear that closing and re-applying was absolutely the last resort. All they had to do was agree to upgrade the card to the new offer. So in the end, the cardholder basically got 35K miles (the initial, unexpected 10K plus the expected 25K from the second card) out of B of A for one $99 AF.

I'm sure that doesn't quite answer your question, but that was the experience of the person I know.

BofA Asiana Amex - Up to 38k miles - $99 fee
 

thanks zippy. your friend keeping the initial 10k miles is a good sign. I went ahead and cancelled so I'll provide a data point in the near future.

I believe this is pure BS. Only B of A can waive the annual fee. Asiana has no control over this card; the agreement is between you and B of A only, and there is a separate agreement between B of A and Asiana.

In the discussions regarding the upgrade of the card offer, a B of A rep explained to my friend, in effect, that the AF is paid in order to receive the benefits associated with the card over the span of a year. In other words, if you use the card for two or three weeks, then insist on closing it, the main reason that you can reasonably ask B of A to refund/waive the AF is because you are not receiving the benefits associated with the card.

In my friend's case, an Asiana rep informed my friend that they could see all the coupons from both cards in their system, i.e., both 10K certificates, and all four lounge access coupons (two from each card). I believe the key here is to make a few purchases with the card-- some large ones, if you can swing it-- and then the AF will post, and presumably B of A's system will then initiate the transfer of miles. If you wait until you receive the "welcome" package, which includes the 10K mile cert plus the lounge access coupons, you can be reasonably certain the electronic details were transmitted to Asiana, and you can freely close the card.

Regarding the arrival of the miles, it seems to take about a week from when the card closes for the miles to arrive.

Resurrecting this thread with an update instead of starting a new one.

Both my wife and myself had the B of A Asiana AmEx. The AF hit on mine a few months ago, and I called B of A to ask for a retention offer. $18K worth of spend on the card, and they offered me 5K miles to keep the card, which I did. Not a huge offer; at $0.015/mile, $75 worth of miles.

I called today to see about my wife's card. The AF hit a few weeks ago, but we're still within 30 days of it; we had about $14K worth of spend on the card. They offered just 2.5K miles, and I told them that I got 5K for my card, which they can see, as we are both AUs on each others cards. They wouldn't budge, so we cancelled the card.

I have to admit, I was a little surprised they let us go so easily. I realize $14K is not exactly a huge annual spend, but the AF on this card is $99, and we're not using the benefits this year.

I wonder how much of this is up to their discretion and or if they have a specific limit they can do daily/weekly/monthly. Has there even been a thread where someone in this role has spoken about how this process works? (I'm sure it varies bank to bank)

The rep stated that they can only offer what the system software allows them to offer, in spite of the fact that they could see I'd accepted a different offer on my card.

In my limited experience, B of A is the least effective at customer relations. Nearly all of my interactions with them have been negative, mainly because of their inflexibility. I am not a difficult or high-maintenance customer by any means-- I always pay (at least) on time, and I am always polite with their people-- but they do not seem to want our business, at least now. I'll be curious to see if I can churn this card later.

Do these 10K coupons expire or are they like miles and can be accumulated over time?

Wiki has been updated to show the current Visa (not Amex) 30k offer.

They expire 1 year from issue. Apparently they are on deposit in your account and no longer needed to be faxed in. At least that was what I was told when I was trying to use mine on the expiration date last December. I did not end up using it because there was no ugrade space available.

applied and got approved. current award chart for C1-C2 looks attractive enough now. also, good place to hedge for future of my SPG pile of points.

The 30,000 miles would cover 3 economy roundtrips within Korea, or 1 economy roundtrip Korea-Japan, on Asiana.