Update 3/17/21: More people are being targeted for these retention offers on no annual fee cards again. Worth a try.
This year we’ve seen a lot of retention offers from card issuers. Normally retention offers are only offered when trying to cancel a card with an annual fee, but lately there has been reports that American Express are offering them on cards with no annual fee as well. Some sample offers:
- Business cash card: $100 credit instantly and additional $200 credit after $4,000 in spend within three months (same offer)
- Blue Business Plus: $50 credit instantly and additional $100 credit after $2,000 in spend within three months
Some have been able to get these offers via chat as well. It’s not hugely surprising that we are seeing these offers from American Express given some of the generous retention offers we saw on annual fee cards earlier in the year.
Any recent DP’s on no annual fee cards getting retention offers?
Hi everyone, I just asked if there’s retention offers for my amex every day card (the no annual fee one) and got offered 5,000 MR points. My card renewal is next month. I asked for a retention bonus through chat. I was transferred to someone and they gave me that offer. Last year I messaged amex about retention offers for the hilton honors card (also the no annual fee card) and was offered 10,000 hilton honors points. Years ago i was able to downgrade my delta gold card to the delta employee gold card which doesn’t have an annual fee (not sure if that’s still possible; im not even an employee but the amex rep offered it to me) so i’ll be inquiring about a retention offer for that card next month.
Chuck 
William Charles
Called in for Marriott $95 fee. Got shot down, including asking to check with a supervisor which sometimes works.
On the same call i had them check my other business cards. the agent checked each one, asked why i was considering cancelling, gave them a reason that seemed to make sense, she took 2 seconds and i got each of the following, all on no-annual fee cards, with no spend required
Simple Cash Plus – $50
Blue Business Cash – $50
Blue Business Plus – $100 (i was also offered a $200 statement credit on $4000 spend, which also worked out to a 7% back on $4000 spend, at a 1point worth 1 cent ratio)
What a haul….total time about 30 minutes, all in chat
Got $50 + $100 for $2000 spend on BBP
No retention offer on business plus, lol.
Just got a $75//1500 retention offer for BCP.
Longer version. I was about to go into Stop & Shop to buy $1k of Mastercards (3x points) and realized I had just been billed the BCP annual fee, so I called from the parking lot to ask for a retention offer. Will I have problems with the $1012 of purchases counting towards the $1500 required spend? Should have really called two weeks ago when the AF hit, since I just bought $1800 of cards at Acme.
BTW can I also ask for retention offers on a free cards under my name? Or should I do it for one of P2’s cards?
Update — went back and bought another $500 gift card the following day (Thursday) since I needed it to pay my estimated taxes. The $75 credit posted on Saturday.
Just got an offer for $100 / $1500 spend on P2’s Blue Cash Preferred card. Better than the $75/$1500 bonus I got myself!
Has anyone from November’s offers noticed a correlation between asking for or receiving these offers, and popups?
In November, P2 got $50 + $100 for $2000 spend on her BBP. I got no offer on any of my cards. Since, we’ve both gotten popups when trying to capitalize on the 100k Platinum and 75k Gold offers.
I’m willing to try again, but don’t want the algorithm to put me further into popup hell if I’m closer to getting out of it via organic spend since.
Just chatted for BCP, discussed math of grocery rewards and how CSR is now better, was given $75 for $1,500 spend in 3 months which is an extra 5% back by my calculations. They do have anti-gaming terms but I’m planning organic spend.
What did I miss that makes CSR better for groceries? And what sort of anti-gaming terms? To prevent you from buying gift cards at the supermarket as your $1500?
Well, right now CSR has 3x on up to ?$1000 per month plus 1.5x Pay Yourself Back so 4.5% back.
If you max BCP for $6000 grocery spend at 6% you get $360. Minus $95 annual fee, $265 cash back. $265 / $6000 spend = 4.42% cash back.
Of course, this is NOT taking into account CSR annual fee. Ours, however, is within first 1 year period, so we’ve already taken that into account, and this is just an extra perk.
I think some people are able to make it $0 annual fee for CSR with appropriate benefits ($450 if prior cardholder, -$300 travel credit, -$120 DoorDash benefit over 2 calendar years which is already at ~$30).
DP: Received the Blue Business Plus retention offer: $50 instant credit for keeping the card open another year and an extra $100 credit for spending $2,000 in 3 months.
This stacks perfectly with a current Amex Offer: Spend $500 or more, get $25 back (up to 10 times). All in, I’ll receive $200 back and 4k points for $2,000 in spend and $50 instant credit.
Great DP and point about stacking the BBP offer. Did you achieve this via chat or calling in?
I called in.