Getting the $85 Citi AAdvantage annual fee waived.

 credit cards, finance deals, my personal finance  No Responses »
Aug 192010
 

I just got off the phone with Citi and got the annual fee on my Citi AAdvantage Mastercard waived again this year. However this year was a little more difficult in that the first customer service representative I spoke to was adamant about annual fees not being waived even though I mentioned I got it waived last year. However here’s how I managed to get it waived eventually.

  • I asked to be transferred to “retentions” which is the department that has the power to cut deals to get people to stay. I heard about them offering other people miles and whatnot also. Note that you might not get transferred to retention if you simply aren’t a customer worth keeping. I do spend over $50,000 a year on this card alone so they make a little bit of money on the transaction fees even after giving me AAdvantage miles.
  • It’s important to explain to the retention specialist what you want. If you leave them to guess what you want and they might offer a deal you aren’t happy with. I told him I thought the $85 annual fee was excessive and he said they can waive the annual fee after 5 transactions which I should be able to easily do.
  • He also stated this is a one time waiver but that I should continue to call back next year and “continue to use my card for all purchases”.
  • Don’t call and bluff to try to get annual fees waived. You might not even get transferred to a retention specialist and have your card closed right there on the spot. I was also prepared to close the account if I didn’t get the fee waiver.

Also at the end of the call he offered me a more personalized card with my photo on it since I do a lot of in person purchases. I told him to send the forms anyway but I’m not quite sure if I really want this. The security feature really protects them from fraudulent purchases but it might be cool to have a card with my photo on it.

 Posted by dan at 12:38 pm

Need a free .edu e-mail address?

 useful tools  3 Responses »
Aug 122010
 

In a previous post, I mentioned Amazon giving away a year free of Amazon Prime to students. The only screening requirement was essentially a .edu e-mail address. My brother who is years older and has been out of school for quite some time managed to get in on the deal and revealed to me the source of his .edu e-mail address. It turns out you can get a free .edu e-mail address from Australia.edu easily. I haven’t had a use for a .edu address since I joined Facebook in 2005 and they required all new users to have .edu addresses (it was better back then).

 Posted by dan at 1:48 pm

Amex SPG Card raises annual fee to $65

 credit cards  No Responses »
Aug 042010
 

I’m a big fan of the Starwood Preferred Guest hotel program. Therefore I obtained the American Express SPG card last year to earn easy SPG points from spending. I just got a letter in the mail a couple days ago noting some changes to the card and most notably a annual an increase in the annual fee from $45 to $65.

However they try to throw in a few changes to ease the pain.

  • Each year you’ll get 5 night credit towards elite status. This means cardholders will have less 5 nights needed to reach either Gold or Platinum. This perk is essentially useless to me because I get gold through the Amex Platinum.
  • From Oct 14th 2010 to Dec 31st 2010 you’ll receive a third night free when you book two nights at a Sheraton hotel.
  • They are getting rid of the 50%-off award that use to come in the mail annually since they claimed few card members used the benefit. That’s most likely true because the award was useless most of the time because it got you 50% off the hotel’s rack rate which was usually higher than the best available rate.

First American Express conducts a financial review and cuts my card limit from $7k to $1,700 and now this? I know this is a change that affects everyone but I seriously have to re-consider keeping the card. I love the card and think it’s worth keeping but with the stingy credit line which I end up having to pay off 2-3 times per month it may not be worth it to keep the card anymore. I have until April 2011 (my card renewal date) to decide though, hopefully I’ll get a credit line increase by then.

 Posted by dan at 10:26 am
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