Another Amazing ThankYou Preferred Retention Bonus
Back in January I shared the incredibly exciting retention offer my wife received when calling in on her Citi ThankYou Preferred card. After letting Citi know that she was thinking about cancelling this no annual fee card, they generously offered to give her an extra 2 points per dollar on all spend for the next six months with no cap.
That happened on January 28, which meant that the offer expired on July 28. Thankfully I had planned ahead with hopes of getting the offer again. A few months ago when one of her Citi Executive AAdvantage cards came up for annual renewal, she requested that it be converted to a ThankYou Preferred. My assertion was that it might be possible to receive a similar offer from Citi.
Related: Quick Guide to Citi Product Conversions & Credit Line Shifts
Citi ThankYou Preferred Retention Offer
Earlier today my wife decided (was urged by me) to call up Citi, because neither of us likes to have stagnant cards lying around. After verifying her account, she was eventually connected to a “specialist” who could better assist her. It actually didn’t take long once connected for the specialist to offer her something to keep the card.
Unfortunately the offer wasn’t very good. The first offer was for 15,000 bonus points after spending $4,500 within the next 6 months. That does amount to 4.33X on that small amount of spend, but we spend a lot of money. So my wife pressed the agent. It took a little arm twisting, but he did eventually come out with a second offer.
The 2nd Offer
I was almost shocked to overhear this conversation, because the 2nd offer was exactly what I had planned for. Yes, he offered her an extra 2 points per dollar on all spend for 6 months with no cap. The specialist almost seemed to think this was worse than the previous offer and made sure my wife understood she could only have one or the other.
Of course this 3X everywhere (and 4X on dining and entertainment) is the same exact offer she received on her other card in January. With the exception of 3 days, by the time this offer runs dry, she will have had 12 straight months of 3X everywhere from Citi. ThankYou, no thank you Citi!
Strategy
At this point I think it is important to re-emphasize how important a strategy is. While I cannot control whether Citi gives a specific offer on a card, I can make sure we have the right products in order to maximize the chance of an offer. I theorized Citi wouldn’t give her another offer on the existing ThankYou Preferred card, so I wanted to make sure she had another product in place.
While I don’t know if Citi would have given her another offer on her original card, it has a lower limit, so I am happy with the way things worked out. This is proof though that a little planning can go a very very long way when it comes to this stuff.
Conclusion
As banks seem to be tightening their approval processes for credit cards, it becomes more important to look at every opportunity. For us, earning 3X ThankYou points on all spend is incredibly valuable, especially since those points can eventually be redeemed for up to 1.6 cents each for airfare on American or transferred to travel partners. (Because we have the premium cards too.) Even at $.01 each for cash, we are doing pretty well!
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[…] old 40,000 ThankYou point offer. Since I have a Citi Prestige card and a card currently giving me unlimited 3X points, I thought it was a great time to open an account and fund it with the 3X credit card. Now with […]
how often can you get a retention offer per year per card?
I believe it is twice. That is what I was told when I last inquired about a year ago.
I called this am and got the same first offer. When I asked if there was anything else, she offered the extra 2, which i accepted. However, I’m capped at 35,000. I wonder if I could’ve gotten rid of the cap if I had asked.
@eddy, I got the same exact thing! An extra 2 points per $1 for regular purchases (so that equals 3X on regular purchases and 4X on dining) but it’s capped at 35,000! 🙁
my parents foolishly changed their AA Exec to DoubleCash and Dividends, respectively. Any offers for those cards?
The Dividend isn’t a foolish conversion and is probably a better card overall with the exception of these offers. I haven’t called on my Dividend, but it never hurts to try.
I agree with Joey- narrative is confusing. Please answer his question.
I’m confused. You changed the citi exec AA card to a thankyiu preferred a few months ago to avoid the annual fee. Then recently around July 28, you called to possibly cancel that thank you preferred card and got this amazing retention offer? I thought one nornally gets retention offers when it is close to a year of having the card?
I think that I will write up a quick guide to Citi retention in the next couple of days, because there does seem to be some confusion. No, you don’t need to wait a year. You can call and ask for offers any time.
That is a solid retention offer, but it varies on how they see the spend on the card. If they see a lot of spend, the offer(s) will be better. They want to keep you as a customer.
Not necessarily the case with Citi over the past year. This card has had no spend on it in about 12 months and this along with a 5X at gas, grocery and drug stores for 3 months are the best two offers they have on this card.
Does anyone have more info on the Citi ATT CC w/ 3 ThankYou Points for every dollar you spend on purchases made online at retail and travel websites??
Want to hear peoples reviews or analysis because that sounds so ridiculous to me and I do shitload online shopping.
Havent seen the ATT card talked about too often.
Do you actually have to ask or do they make an offer if you call to cancel your card?
You usually at least have to suggest that you are considering cancelling your card, and get transferred to a retention person (at least that’s been my experience with Citi). That person will likely make you an offer or two, but you might need to ask if they “have any offers that might make it interesting to keep the card”? Once they start reading off the offers, listen to them all closely (probably good to jot down notes). And then ask if there are any others. Sometimes, as Shawn points out, the last one (that they might not have read to you if you didn’t ask) is the best one!
Here’s a question for Shawn (or anyone else). Am I correct that these offers don’t get documented anywhere that can be seen by us (on our online account)? I think that’s correct, based upon my previous experience. So you kind of just have to keep track of it on your own – making sure that the bonus points are being reflected in your monthly statements.
I am actually going to write something up on this in the next few days, but I always send a secure message to get confirmation that it has been added along with the end dates. Within my original message I spell out the terms exactly, so everything is confirmed and there are no misunderstandings.
Well that makes perfect sense. Similar to when I do a chat session with a credit card company or online retailer … and they make a promise I’d like documented … always careful to save a copy of the chat session. Thanks.
I have 2x TYPs everywhere on my citi at&t access card. For 6 months.
Wow. Christmas, indeed. I think 3x TYP is even better than 2.625%. 🙂
I had a similar call on my TYPreferred last week. But the best offer I was given (and took) was 4x extra (thus 5x) TYP on grocery/gas/drugstore for 3 months, up to 35k TYP.
I have heard of that offer as well. We would have definitely taken it too, but I like 3X everywhere for longer with no cap. Either one is tremendous.