8,500 Miles for Spending $1,000 With a Quick Phone Call (Always Do This With Citi Cards!)

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8,500 Miles for Spending $1,000 With a Quick Phone Call (Always Do This With Citi Cards!)

I love when an annual fee posts on a Citi card. Because that means it’s time to pick up the phone and ask for Citi retention offers. While Amex is sometimes generous, I’ve found Citi is the best at giving incentives to keep their cards – especially those with annual fees.

I currently have 6 Citi cards (3 AA cards, Prestige, AT&T Access More, and Rewards+). And called because the fee on my Citi Prestige just posted.

While I’m excited about keeping that card this year, I figured I’d ask if they could scoot bonus points my way, especially since I depleted them to go to Puerto Vallarta again.

There was nothing available for that card, but then I asked the helpful agent to check the others.

I call about once every 6 months – every single time, I’ve gotten at least 1, and usually more, worthwhile deals. This time was no exception.

If you have Citi credit cards, it’s always worth calling for a retention offer

Here’s my latest!

Citi retention offers: Spend $1,000, get 8,500 AA miles – done!

So yeah, nothing for keeping the Prestige. But the phone agent threw out an offer that was too good to pass on my Citi AAdvantage Platinum Select card:

Spend $1,000 within 3 months, get 7,500 bonus American miles

That’s in addition to the 1 mile per $1 spent the card already comes with – for a total of 8,500 miles!

So 8.5X AA miles on up to $1,000 – pretty great deal!

The call took ~15 minutes, and was a surprise because the annual fee on that card isn’t coming up for a few months.

At 2 cents each, I value that many miles for $170 worth of AA award flights (8,500 X .02). Citi retention offers are unique to each card account, so your offer might be bigger, smaller, or nonexistent. But It’s always worth it to call and check.

If you have multiple Citi cards like me, I recommend calling once every 6 months or so.

I also got a balance transfer offer on my AT&T Access More card – 0% interest through February 2020 for a 3% fee, which, meh.

Assessing my 4 AA cards

This was also an opportunity to consider part of my card collection, because I actually have 4 AA cards to my name right now (!):

Citi AAdvantage Platinum Select – $99 annual fee
Citi AAdvantage Amex, which I kept for Amex Offers and is no longer available – $85 annual fee
The CitiBusiness AAdvantage Platinum Select I got a few months ago for the 70,000 mile offer (now expired) – $99 annual fee (will cancel next year)
Barclays Aviator Silver – $0 annual fee and will keep forever to help boost credit score

I’m planning to keep one of them for the 10% mileage rebate on up to 100,000 miles redeemed per calendar year (which more than covers the cost of the annual fee).

Worth the cost of admission

I could keep the old Amex card, because the annual fee is a bit lower at $85, and comes with all the same benefits.

But another consideration is MasterCards are more useful with Plastiq payments – especially for mortgages, car payments, and student loans. Because Amex put the kibosh on certain payment types (including mortgage payments – you can only use a MasterCard or Discover card for those).