A couple of weeks back I wrote a post asking Should I Hold Onto 2 Chase Ink Cards? Since writing the post I’ve closed one of my other Chase cards. While closing my United Explorer card Chase only allowed me to move $53 from the card’s credit line.
This left me with 5 cards with Chase. I figured that I would close my Ink Bold card since the $95 annual fee came up and I was recently approved for an Ink Plus. This allowed me to still earn 5X points at office supply stores and when paying cable, internet and phone bills.
I decided to call Chase to see if there was anything they could do to help me with the annual fee.
After explaining the situation, I was told that I would be placed on hold for 1-2 minutes so the rep could research the account to better assist me. The rep returned to the call pretty fast and told me that she looked into the option of using reward points to cover my fee. However, she saw that I didn’t have enough left with only 68 points in my account. (Even if I had the points necessary to cover the fee I wouldn’t have accepted this option.)
She then told me that she looked for other options.
I was then told that she usually sees an offer of spend $5,000 in 5 months, get 10,000 bonus points. However, I was told that my offer was better.
This immediately got me wondering what she could offer me?
I was then offered a $95 statement credit, making my Ink Bold card free for the next year if I accepted.
This offer seemed pretty solid but it wasn’t really exciting. I was really hoping for lots of points. (Yea, I know that I’m probably dreaming!)
I told the rep that the offer seemed pretty good but asked if there was any other options. She then immediately told me that this was the only offer that the computer showed for my card.
I thought it over for a moment and decided to accept the statement credit.
While I still don’t think that I need to hang onto two Ink cards, I figured that I’d accept the offer for now and wait for the statement credit to post. Soon after, I plan to call one last time to see if Chase might have another offer for me. If I strike out, then I’ll just go ahead and close my account.
What do you think- good plan or am I wasting my time?
I sent secure email to chase twice for my and my wife in bold card for retention bonus and was told by emails – nothing. Look like I will need to call instead of secure emails
Graham- I just called the # on the back of the card and explained my concerns.
vc3- I planned to close my card but with the fee credited back I plan to try again and see if anything else might be offered. BTW- I’ve also wondered how Chase (or any bank for that matter) decides what retention offer to extend to card members.
My wife and I both got the spend 5K for 10K points. Both turned it down and canceled our cards. She had the card opened for about a year and was a low to moderate spend on it. I had mine open for 2+ years and had moderate spend on it. We both now have newer Chase biz cards with the same benefits as the ones we closed.
Not sure what Chase is doing to evaluate what retention offers to keep customers.
I need to call Chase in the next day or so myself for a retention offer, so I might as well ask….what phone number/department did you call?