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Let's Talk Credit Card Retention Offers

DrSaichand

TF Buzz
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This is my first ever post in this community but I have been following TechnoFino team for long time so please pardon my mistakes if any and do correct me.

Banks spend a lot to gain a customer on their credit card portfolio. A lot of work goes behind Marketing, onboarding & maintaining a trustful customer who brings good revenue to the bank and most likely pay all the dues on time. But at times when customer want to break this relationship by closing the card, banks offer retention offers to make him stay with the bank. Though this sounds odd to few this is an ultimate trump card a credit card company plays to stop a leaving customer. Banks does this because it costs banks much less to offer incentives to leaving customer for their retention rather than the cost of accruing a new customer, that too in this competitive market. This also doesn't mean banks offer these offers to each and every customer that exploits this raw nerve.

Generally these offers are not published/discussed and further they vary from customer to customer based on their relationship with the lender. So I thought of initiating a thread to accumulate various credit card retention offers for long time so here we go please share your card retention offers of various banks credit cards under this thread so that we can better our portfolio further lets find out which bank goes a extra mile to retain their customer. Here's my retention offer.

YES BANK
**************
I have been with Yes Bank since 2017 and got Yes bank Unsecured credit card in the year 2018. Initially my card was Yes Rewards Credit card offered as a pre approved bases on my savings account and I had instantly accepted the offer as I was a student at that time. Yes Bank card being my first ever credit card, I got a credit limit of 20,000 and I was ok with it as my requirements were minimum.

By the time I graduated my usage and spends gradually increased and credit limit requirement started to rise. After the devaluation following the Yes Bank crisis the card offers and reward points were reduced to so low that it didn't made any sense to hold the Yes Bank Cards. In addition to that inspite of being loyal to bank and with absolute zero late payments Yes Bank used to offer poor credit limit enhancements of 3,000 - 5000 for every 8-12 months, but they offer credit card upgrades every 6 months so I was adjusted to it. last straw that broke the camels back was in the year 2021 I got my second credit card i.e Amazon Pay ICICI Credit card with the limit of 2,50,000 and instantly I called Yes bank to close my card as credit limit on my Yes Edge CC was 32,000 at the time of closure and I was hardly able to buy even a mid range phone with it under Bank offers (knowing card closure effects my credit score in bad way) they took the request and I thought card was closed.

but after 15-20 days later I got a call from their Credit card retention team and they offered me direct upgrade from Yes Edge CC to Yes First Preferred CC with 1000 rupees worth reward points in statement with absolutely zero annual fee. I was amazed and decided to remain with them. But eventually after a year due to my other banks cards portfolio I hold by the mid of 2022 I finally closed my Yes Bank card and Yes they again called me and tried to persuaded me to at least stay on card to avail longe benefits, but as I travel near to nill I have denied their 2nd time card retention offer and closed the card. my card closure is solely regarding my poor Credit Limit offered by the bank inspite being with them for almost three years.

SBI
*****

Yes you heard it right, SBI...!!! Suprisingly I also had good retention offer experience on SBI. My father applied for SBI Cashback card via website and as he is salaried, during initial launch of Cashback card there was a glitch for salaried people so SBI agent came home to collect documents. After all formalities they issued Simply save card fraudulently and we have followed up with the SBI customer care but no action was taken.

As my father already holds SBI Elite which is 3 years old, we requested them to close this Simply save card. Immediately within 30 minutes of raising card closure request SBI Card retention team called us and reverted annual fee of 500+18%GST and told to retain card, after 30 min of persuasion I have accepted for the same but my father was unaware of this.

But the immediate next month my father has placed card closure request without my knowledge and again card retention team contacted him and enquired why did we again placed card closure request inspite of annual fee refund for which he also asked them to deduct the fees again and close the card due to bad onboarding experience and he also told about the mis-selling issue and also explained Simply save variant is not that useful in the current card portfolio which he holds, after enquiring about all cards he is holding and spend pattern (which is quite wierd from their end) immediately they have credited 20,000 reward points even without asking in SBI Elite Card rewards account on call and asked to Check the same in the app they also promised that after 6 months variant change option will be enabled for Cashback card too so that we can change the existing simplysave to Cashback.

Being infamous for their slack nature SBI Card retention team gave good offers inspite of placing back to back card closure requests.
they reverted 499+18% GST = 588 (Annual Fees) and 20000 reward points = 5000 Rupees total of 5588

It took a while to understand this is for real 😛 🙂 But this doesn't warrant that SBI does the same with every customer as my father card has spends of 12L almost every year on Elite since a couple of years so that history might have helped him getting a good retention offer for the other card of SBI.


So that it here's my experience of Card retention offer with Yes Bank and SBI do share yours if you have any in the thread below. Sorry for the long post in advance.
 
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I had recent experience with Axis Bank. I already hold two Axis bank credit cards i.e, Ace and Flipkart from more than 1 and half years. When I called them for changing the address, they offered Privilege as it was pre-approved and generated instantly.

However, after 3 months, I realized that I could get Magnus and reap more benefits out of it. I decided to close Privilege as it was new and had 1700 annual fee including GST for which OfCourse I was already offered joining benefits worth 2000 in form of their multi-brand vouchers.

Upon calling to cancel the card, it took 25 minutes and they offered 5,000 ERP to not cancel the card. I took it and 1 month later, I again called up to cancel the card, this time also it took 30 minutes and call forwarded to escalation where they again offered 5,000 ERP but this time I simply declined, and they closed the card.

I then applied Magnus offline and luckily got approved.
 
Raised a closure request for my Kotak Urbane Gold Credit Card, since it's the most useless card I've ever used. They offered Mojo Platinum LTF. I asked for Zen or White but they said it's not possible. I said okay since it kinda gives 1% value back (with some ridiculous redemption rules) which is far better than Urbane's 0.1%.
How long did you use this card for? How much did you spend each month?
 
I had recent experience with Axis Bank. I already hold two Axis bank credit cards i.e, Ace and Flipkart from more than 1 and half years. When I called them for changing the address, they offered Privilege as it was pre-approved and generated instantly.

However, after 3 months, I realized that I could get Magnus and reap more benefits out of it. I decided to close Privilege as it was new and had 1700 annual fee including GST for which OfCourse I was already offered joining benefits worth 2000 in form of their multi-brand vouchers.

Upon calling to cancel the card, it took 25 minutes and they offered 5,000 ERP to not cancel the card. I took it and 1 month later, I again called up to cancel the card, this time also it took 30 minutes and call forwarded to escalation where they again offered 5,000 ERP but this time I simply declined, and they closed the card.

I then applied Magnus offline and luckily got approved.
You are one of the lucky few who had such experience with Axis 😂
 
Got retention bonus from Citi bank credit card 😜.

I had Citi bank card in 2019 but I closed that as not that useful.

In 2022, again I took Citi card because of Cashkaro 5K + 2K Citi spend offer.

Now I got the 7K and wanted to close this card because it is paid card.

It has only 30K/year spend based fee reversal, still I wanted to close card.

From three months, I called them three times to close card they offered me retention bonus of 1K, but I was not using that card so they suggested me to do at least one transaction and pay the bill post that will give you bonus and I got now.

So, will keep this card for now, I know I got only Bonus of 1K fee not the GST which will be Rs.180 😅

1685767069675.jpeg
 
I had recent experience with Axis Bank. I already hold two Axis bank credit cards i.e, Ace and Flipkart from more than 1 and half years. When I called them for changing the address, they offered Privilege as it was pre-approved and generated instantly.

However, after 3 months, I realized that I could get Magnus and reap more benefits out of it. I decided to close Privilege as it was new and had 1700 annual fee including GST for which OfCourse I was already offered joining benefits worth 2000 in form of their multi-brand vouchers.

Upon calling to cancel the card, it took 25 minutes and they offered 5,000 ERP to not cancel the card. I took it and 1 month later, I again called up to cancel the card, this time also it took 30 minutes and call forwarded to escalation where they again offered 5,000 ERP but this time I simply declined, and they closed the card.

I then applied Magnus offline and luckily got approved.
Going to close mine privelage card too. Lying idle, renewal too high
 
During this month - OCT 2023 i wanted to close three of my CC's due to annual fee.
RBL BAJAJ SUPERCARD - 999 + GST - Reversed only 999 - Retention team not ready to offer LTF. Took my request and straight away CLOSED my card 😳
CITI REWARDS - 1000 + GST - Reversed 1000 + GST👍🙂 - Card is still active as of now.
KOTAK ROYALE SIGNATURE - 999 + GST not reversed - Offered LTF👍😉

A big THANKS for all the info that i gained through TECHNOFINO👍👍👍
 
Axis Magnus - Closed. No retention offer (even though spent significant but stopped since June). 2nd Axis card (last year Ace) without any retention offer for me.

AMEx SmartEarn - Though, I spent required amount for fee waiver, asked them to upgrade due to latest benefit changes (to any card). They didn't agree neither offered anything to keep this card. No retention benefits.

Seems like I'm missing something.
 

Did that (hoping offer available in Oct) but that agent not willing to provide any retention, all that person says 'use card for movie tickets, meet and greet' nothing much to offer. So, I asked someone else, next day got another call (different person) says same without any retention offer. So, I lost hope and proceed with cancellation. I even tried PNO mail, no luck there too. It applied immediately.

AMEX, actually not willing to close but to retain that credit history with upgrade. I do not understand, all they saying If I want another card apply fresh (that actually benefit me, considering referral benefits) but loosing credit history. And heard AMEX values overall relationship etc. but seems like not applies to me, even with Gold charge they didn't provided a simple upgrade (I got platinum card as upgrade offer in mail but I asked them somewhat Travel range since July, no luck - they say whatever you receive in mail that only applies other apply fresh).

Maybe agents got my call, not much helpful.
 
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Axis Magnus - Closed. No retention offer (even though spent significant but stopped since June). 2nd Axis card (last year Ace) without any retention offer for me.

AMEx SmartEarn - Though, I spent required amount for fee waiver, asked them to upgrade due to latest benefit changes (to any card). They didn't agree neither offered anything to keep this card. No retention benefits.

Seems like I'm missing something.

Yes as @TheMentalist mentioned, I got additional 10K offer sometime back when the Magnus and Burgundy magnus circus was happening.
No question asked and they gave 10K when I asked can I close the card as you guys are putting too much terms and conditions. 🤑
 
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