I’m coming full circle in my immersion into the credit card world. I’ve had a couple experiences with attempting to cancel a card to avoid paying an annual fee, and had great outcomes so far.
In my attempt to cancel the Citibank AAdvantage card that got me half of my miles for my family’s trip to Colombia, I didn’t even have to weasel my way into an $85 credit to offset my annual fee – they just offered it, straight up. That way I keep the card open for at least another year, accumulate more miles, and extend my credit history.
I canceled Nicole’s card without any problems. I would have liked to have kept it open to, but nothing was offered and I figured I wanted to make room for more anyways.
Most recently, I set out to cancel my Delta Gold Skymiles card, the card that gets me a free bag on Delta flights and that got me enough MQM to start to feel like a big-shot with Silver Medallion status and pretty regular first-class upgrades. I called up and tried to muster a genuine tone as I proclaimed that I wanted to cancel. I tried to get the associate to sweeten the pot by saying that I had five cards and was going to cancel two of them. The best I got despite my haggling was an offer for a $50 credit – half of the annual fee. I stalled and said I’d have to call back. I got creative and started scouring the American Express site to look into upgrading my Gold Card to a Platinum Card and hit the jackpot – an offer for 10,000 Skymiles, 5,000 of which are MQM. (I couldn’t find it outside of my login, so if you’re looking to do the same, login to your account first).
I did have to fork over the $150 annual fee, but the platinum card has the added bonus of a free companion certificate each year (which is easily worth $300), and of course I called back to take them up on their offer for the $50 credit.
This year my Delta miles took me to Roatan, Honduras (35k), and bought a ticket for my brother-in-law to come out for his sister’s wedding (32.5k). With the extra 10k I just piled on, I’ve still got 125k that are burning a hole in my awardwallet.
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