|

Citi Retention Offer for AA Exec Card makes the Annual Fee $100

Screen Shot 2015-06-26 at 8.41.46 AM

Last year many people, myself included, jumped on the 100k bonus miles + $200 statement credit offer that Citi had on the AA Executive Mastercard. Many people were even able to churn the offer multiple times by getting several cards. Well, now that we’re coming up on the next round of annual fees a year later, it’s decision time.

What the Card Provides

The benefits of the card are decent. I can see that for a regular Joe traveller many of these would make a big difference:

Screen Shot 2015-06-26 at 8.41.08 AM

The big issue is that for those of us with Executive Platinum status, most of these benefits are worthless as they overlap or are less value than what we receive through status. In fact, for just the Admiral’s Club benefit alone we would be paying a $100 premium over the $350 it normally costs EXP to renew.

So for me, the card doesn’t make sense for a $450 annual fee. I just got the AMEX Platinum card and am flying Delta a lot more these days (the shock, the horror!) so paying for another $450 card doesn’t add up for me.

The Latest Offer

Yesterday, I called Citi with the intention of canceling my card, but I wanted to see what the latest Citi retention offer was. I had read reports recently that Citi was essentially telling folks to pound sand when calling to cancel in the hopes of getting a waiver or some offer, so my expectations were low. The first agent tried to get me to switch to a no annual fee AA Citi card. I said I wasn’t interested. The next Citi retention agent was nice and told me about an additional offer that was available for keeping my account open.

The offer works like this: Citi will give a $50 statement credit for each of the next 7 billing cycles in which $1,500 in new purchases is placed on the account. That means the total value of this is $350! Essentially, that makes the annual fee for next year just $100! I was sold, score.

Whoa

Bottom line is if you’re coming up for renewal this month or next, give Citi a call and see if you can land this retention offer. It’s totally worth it for just the Admiral’s Club benefit alone.

Fly Classy!

Similar Posts

2 Comments

  1. Great data point. Thanks! My renewal is next month and I’ll give it a try. I have used my card every month so I hope they see that in the account review.

Comments are closed.