Questions and Answers

Hi Lucky!
Thank you for your great site–excellent advice! I am currently approaching the end of my 12 months of owning the Citi Platinum card and the annual fee of $95 will be due. I called Citi and asked if I could downgrade to the Citi Bronze card which has no annual fee. They said I could, however I would first have to pay the $95 annual fee on the Platinum and then I would be credited the $95 and it would show up on the Bronze card. So I would end up having to spend that $95 on something that would not give me the benefit of airmiles or meeting minimum spend. The Bronze card gives 1 mile for every $2 spent, so it is not a card one would want to be using. Would you do what they are suggesting, or simply cancel the Platinum card and not pay any annual fee, but have the negative effect of having canceled a card and reducing one’s overall credit line?
Thanks!

Seamus – you could downgrade to a no-fee card like the Citi Double Cash. That would keep the credit line open and should not impact your average age of account.

Keep in mind that just owning the Platinum card will give you benefits like free first checked bag and an earlier boarding group as well as 10% rebate on miles you spend on award travel each year. So if you take 2 round-trips on AA each year and check a bag each way, the card pays for itself.

I switched my Citi AA Platinum card to the Citi DoubleCash card instead of paying the annual fee, since I also have the Barclays AAdvantage Aviator Red card and that replicated the benefits from the Citi AA Plat. For the Barclay’s my retention offer was 500 miles instantly, 5k miles after spending $1000 in 90 days and a waived annual fee. Doubt it’s the best retention offer but I went for it anyway. Barclay’s is very adamant about the 90 day period. I completed the spend in a day but i was told twice that I have to wait the full 90 days before the 5k miles will post. I was given another 1k miles though

OK, so you had duplicate benefits, then it makes sense to cancel the Citi AA card because you could get another signup bonus for it later but if you cancel the Barclay’s AA card you can’t get that card again.

If you want to keep the line of credit open, you could ask if you could downgrade to a 2nd Double Cash card. They may say no, but it won’t hurt to ask. Then if another Citi AA signup bonus comes along, you could offer to close the 2nd Double Cash card and move its line of credit to the new card.

[QUOTE=”MidSouth Skier, post: 12385, member: 184″]Seamus – you could downgrade to a no-fee card like the Citi Double Cash. That would keep the credit line open and should not impact your average age of account.

Keep in mind that just owning the Platinum card will give you benefits like free first checked bag and an earlier boarding group as well as 10% rebate on miles you spend on award travel each year. So if you take 2 round-trips on AA each year and check a bag each way, the card pays for itself.[/QUOTE]

Thanks very much, Mid South! I’ll think over your suggested options…both sound fine.