Hello,
My annual fee is coming up on my Amex Gold card so I called the Amex retention line and I was pretty direct I said "My annual anniversary is coming up soon and I noticed that the annual fee went up on the Gold card, can you check if I have any spending offers?" and the guy on the other end said "Let me see if your account has any offers available" and came back offering either get $75 or 10k MR points after spending $1500 in 3 months. I accepted the 10k MR points since it's potentially worth up to $200. It seems to me that these reps don't have the power to make up and offer and it's all up to the system whether or not your account has offers that are already attached to it even before you call.
We chatted a little about retention offers and the rep seemed very knowledgeable even though he was obviously speaking from overseas. He mentioned that each card has it's own cycle so just because you got a retention offer on one card doesn't mean you can't get an offer on another in a couple of months or so. I also discussed the green card and if there is any upgrade coming to it and he agreed by saying it's a hard sell given that it offers nothing and has an annual fee but he said he doesn't know about any upgrades in the meantime.
Regarding my Amex relationship I have 6 revolvers and 2 charge cards and I don't have a lot of spend anyways but most of it goes on my Amex cards. With that being said I spent around 3k on the gold card in my first year and 2k of that happened early on to hit the sign up bonus.
Regards.
Congratulations on the retention offer! Amex has always been the best at giving them for every single one of my cards. I'm hoping for a similar generous offer for my Platinum very soon.
That’s pretty much the same offer I got when I renewed mine last year. I’ve since put it on heavier rotation so I’m hoping for a nicer offer next time around.
The idea of a retention offer is that at the very least you almost break even on a card and getting that retention offer makes the card issuer pay you to keep it (technically)
If there is a card with $100 annual fee and zero benefits and they offer $80 retention offer it doesn't make sense to accept the retention offer or keep the card because you are still yielding -ve value on the card annualy and you don't want to get an offer on a lousy card only to not be able to get an offer on a good card later because you have been getting a lot of offers lately or whatever their analogy
That's my personal view on retention offers and why you should consider the numbers even if you are getting a retention offer
I'm on the phone with them right now and they're just repeating to me what I already know about the card to keep it...
Gonna see what they're going to offer me.
Just got offered 10K points for $1,500 spend.
EASY!
The lady kind of called me out on using the cards benefits, lol.
"You seem to use the card."
So I had to hit her with the, "Is there anything else you can do for me?"
