Citi Premier Retention

Anonymous · ‎03-23-2014

The AF on my Citi Premier is coming up, and after the major nerfing, no way is this card worth $125 (or indeed any figure greater than $0) so I called the retention department to see what could be done.

Two points of interest:

1) She said that the AF cannot be waived because the card has no FTF. Right, that's why Capital One's cards are all so expensive!

2) She said that the restriction on moving CLs around drives her mad. Obviously hurts in rententions.

So I got two uncompelling offers, $125 credit for $4000 spend in 3 months, or $75 for $1000 in 3 months. Since the card offers lower earning than my other cards, spending $4000 on it wastes at least $40.

So I wanted to downgrade to Preferred, but quoting the CARD act, I need to wait a month or so for that, so I will call back then.

It's a real pity what they did to this card...

grinlikechelsea · ‎03-23-2014

@Anonymous wrote:
The AF on my Citi Premier is coming up, and after the major nerfing, no way is this card worth $125 (or indeed any figure greater than $0) so I called the retention department to see what could be done.

Two points of interest:
1) She said that the AF cannot be waived because the card has no FTF. Right, that's why Capital One's cards are all so expensive!
2) She said that the restriction on moving CLs around drives her mad. Obviously hurts in rententions.

So I got two uncompelling offers, $125 credit for $4000 spend in 3 months, or $75 for $1000 in 3 months. Since the card offers lower earning than my other cards, spending $4000 on it wastes at least $40.

So I wanted to downgrade to Preferred, but quoting the CARD act, I need to wait a month or so for that, so I will call back then.

It's a real pity what they did to this card...

I thought the CARD Act was only applicable if you were moving to a higher AF from a lower AF before 12 months?

B335is · ‎03-23-2014

I would be interested to know what the next Citi CSR would offer + their explanation for no AF waiver.

It's funny how they can manage to reallocate when an approval is in the works but not when a customer is prepared to cancel.

policebox · ‎03-23-2014

Have you tried calling the backdoor number and talking to an underwriter, rather than retention? At least about moving your credit line to another card?

Anonymous · ‎03-23-2014

@policebox wrote:
Have you tried calling the backdoor number and talking to an underwriter, rather than retention? At least about moving your credit line to another card?

Citi currently does not allow CL reallocation. Even the EO isn't able to overwrite this.

It's either you change the card to another product, or you close it.

@B335is wrote:
I would be interested to know what the next Citi CSR would offer + their explanation for no AF waiver.

It's funny how they can manage to reallocate when an approval is in the works but not when a customer is prepared to cancel.

Well, Flyertalk has a more in depth explanation, but when you are reallocating during an approval, you are essentially closing 1 account, and then them taking that CL to approve you for "new" credit that they had previously given.

You can always close 1 card, and then ask for a CLI on the other card, though it will also be a HP.

They used to allow reallocations, but they seemed to have stopped that to make churning less attractive.

@Anonymous wrote:
The AF on my Citi Premier is coming up, and after the major nerfing, no way is this card worth $125 (or indeed any figure greater than $0) so I called the retention department to see what could be done.

Two points of interest:
1) She said that the AF cannot be waived because the card has no FTF. Right, that's why Capital One's cards are all so expensive!
2) She said that the restriction on moving CLs around drives her mad. Obviously hurts in rententions.

So I got two uncompelling offers, $125 credit for $4000 spend in 3 months, or $75 for $1000 in 3 months. Since the card offers lower earning than my other cards, spending $4000 on it wastes at least $40.

So I wanted to downgrade to Preferred, but quoting the CARD act, I need to wait a month or so for that, so I will call back then.

It's a real pity what they did to this card...

How much spend do you have on that card?

those 2 offers are very bad.

Maybe you can try calling again in a couple weeks to see if you get a better offer.

They can't waive the AF at the very least?

B335is · ‎03-23-2014

Im probably missing something here but regardless of a new approval or retaining a customer the total credit exposure remains the same. If they approve new apps through reallocation it really isnt discouraging me from churning their cards. If anything I close out an old unused HHonors card and move that limit to the new card.

Anonymous · ‎03-23-2014

@B335is wrote:
Im probably missing something here but regardless of a new approval or retaining a customer the total credit exposure remains the same. If they approve new apps through reallocation it really isnt discouraging me from churning their cards. If anything I close out an old unused HHonors card and move that limit to the new card.

it honestly doesnt quite make any sense like you said, but sometimes they wouldn't allow customers to reallocate CLs right away too. It's a recent policy shift that's somewhat poorly implemented for the most part because it confuses the hell out of certain departments and many CSRs.

Flyertalk has a more extensive thread with more info about this.

Hopefully Citi re-allows CL reallocation again. They used to be okay with it in the past, then they did away with it, then they reintroduced partial reallocation, then they did away with it again. Seems to me that they are trying to test out different policies to see which works best.

Anonymous · ‎03-24-2014

@policebox wrote:
Have you tried calling the backdoor number and talking to an underwriter, rather than retention? At least about moving your credit line to another card?

I beleive that retention probably is as good as underwriting for this. As enharu says, rules for Citi keep changing, and currently the rule is no moving of lines.

Anonymous · ‎03-24-2014

@Anonymous wrote:

It's a real pity what they did to this card...

How much spend do you have on that card?
those 2 offers are very bad.
Maybe you can try calling again in a couple weeks to see if you get a better offer.
They can't waive the AF at the very least?

Spending was pretty small on this card (~ 10-15K over the year) so I can't expect great offers. But these seem relatively standard as reported in FT. Others have got offers of extra points with certain amount of spend each month, but as this is basically a 1x card, I don't feel a great desire to spend on it.

Waiving the AF seems to be not allowed at present for normal users, similar to the CSP. So I will either downgrade to keep the CL or simply cancel, just wanted to see what I would be offered....

Anonymous · ‎05-01-2014

Update: So, as instructed I called back "at the beginning of May", and talked to a different agent. Basically same lousy offers, AF waived if you spend $4.5K in three months, or $75 waived if you spend $1K.

So I downgraded, to the Citi Dividend. For the first 12 months they apparently give an additional 1% on top of the 1%, but with the same yearly limit of $300 earnings. So I guess I can use it instead of QS until that limit is reached.