How To Get Credit Card Retention Offers
You applied for a card last year and the annual fee finally hit your account the year after.
So the question now is, what do you do?
The solution? RETENTION OFFERS!
Credit card retention offers are best defined as 1-time incentives extended from card issuers to continue your card membership and in this article, I’ll teach you how to get it!
What Kinds of Retention Offers Are There?
There are a few kinds of retention offers:
1. Annual Fee Waivers - this is pretty straightforward. If you get an annual fee waiver, you’ll be able to enjoy the benefits of the card for another year without having to pay an annual fee.
2. Bonus Points - you can get offered x amount of bonus points just by keeping the card open.
3. Bonus Points with Required Spending - on this one, you need to do x amount spending to get x amount of points. For example, spend $2,000 within 3 months and earn 50,000 points to keep the card open.
4. Statement Credits - You can receive is a 1-time statement credit to keep your account open for another year. Usually these statement credits are usually less than the annual fee.
5. Statement Credits With Required Spending - the same as above but they require you to do some spending to get the statement credits
How to get a retention offer?
Step 1 - call the number at the back of your credit card and ask for their “retention department”
Step 2 - Once connected to an agent, use this retention offer script:
“Hi, I noticed that the annual fee on my ______ card just posted and I’m really not sure I can justify paying it for another year. I really like (insert your favorite benefits), but I’m just not sure about this annual fee. I was wondering if you could check if there were any retention offers available on my account that might help me make up my mind?”
Step 3 At this point, they will mention the benefits of the card to you. Acknowledge what they say and still them that the annual fee is a bit high and you are still “considering” closing the card. After that, give it a few seconds and they will tell you if there’s a retention offer in your account.
Step 4 - If you get a retention offer, then that’s great! If not, hang up and call again. Try at least 3 to 5 times and see what happens. Sometimes, it just takes luck finding a nice agent to help you.
Also a quick tip - being a nice human being to these agents helps in a great way and increases the odds of you getting a retention offer! : )
Step 5 - if you’ve tried calling them a few times and there are still no offers, you have 2 other options. It’s either to close the card or “downgrade your card” to a $0 annual fee card.
If you do close your card, you’ll take a little hit on your credit score but as long as you pay your cards in full and on time, your score will bounce back. Alternatively, if you downgrade your card to a $0 annual fee card, you’ll not get hit with your credit score and still keep that credit line in that card.
Conclusion
Knowing about retention offers and how to get them will help you offset those costs or gain more points for free travel. I know it can be daunting at first calling these card companies but if you do the tips I mentioned on this blog, you should be just fine : )
Please do keep me posted if this helps you in any way!
Cheers!!