A few weeks back, I wrote about my recent call to Citibank to see what kind of retention offers they had available for the Citi ThankYou Premier Card. Being a Citi ThankYou Prestige cardholder, I wasn’t interested in paying the annual fee on the Premier card, as well. All three offers presented were interesting and worth considering, but none of them blew me away. Blog reader Jordan commented on my previous post, letting me know about the possibility of free points to downgrade:
Did you ask if there’s a bonus to downgrade? I got offers 1 and 2 when I called, but after declining them, I was offered 6000 points to switch from Premier to Preferred.
I had never heard of a point bonus to downgrade, but if this was available to me, it seemed like a no-brainer. I called Citi retention again last week, and was presented with the same three offers as on my first call. I said I was leaning towards downgrading, and asked if they had any offers which may accompany a downgrade to the ThankYou Preferred. Lo and behold, the representative presented me with the following offer:
Downgrade to the Citi ThankYou Preferred, spend $500 in your first three months as a ThankYou Preferred cardholder, and get 6,000 bonus points in addition to those earned on spend.
Wow. The offer Jordan received was still available, and I was thrilled! I was leaning towards downgrading to the free card anyway, and now I get more bonus points to do so? Yes, please!
Michael Prodanovich is a contributor to Point Me to the Plane, and author of The Ultimate Guide to Free Travel.
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5 comments
Aren’t you worried about resetting the 24-month clock on Thankyou points?
Well, I just signed up for the Prestige in July before they lowered their bonus, so that’s not a huge concern for me at this point. Also, its possible that it may not re-set it after all. I’ve read in some other blogs that a downgrade within a card family may not count as an open/closed account for those purposes, and may not re-set the clock after all.
Hmm…JUST got off the phone with them and they did offer the downgrade to the Preferred, but not with any bonus miles. Guess I’ll make another call.
Yup! It never hurts to hang up and call back! I actually had to do that just to get to the retention department, as the first representative with whom I spoke was unwilling to pass me on.
[…] called back today, annual fee was due. Offered 15,000 pts after $6000 spend if I downgrade to no annual fee Preferred. I have a decent amount of points that have still not posted and a sizeable CL so I figured this was worth taking. The initial CSR immediately transferred me to retentions after I said "I'm either gonna cancel or switch to a no annual fee card today depending on what my options are." Saw this post which gave me the idea. They got a better deal i think but $6k is doable as I currently have no other minimum spend going on. http://pointmetotheplane.boardingare…de-yes-please/ […]