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Let's Talk Credit Card Retention Offers

DrSaichand

TF Select
VIP Lounge
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 :p :) 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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Bodhi

TF Premier
VIP Lounge
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.

So that it here's my experience of Card retention offer with Yes Bank, do share yours if you have any in the thread below. Sorry for the long post in advance.
Thank you @DrSaichand
 

CC_Fetish

TF Select
VIP Lounge
Anyone who has a CITI card relationship since years can try this. I have a citi credit card only relation since 7 years. Called them up to shut my Shoppers stop card as I barely use it and I also have a Premier miles card now. But they just didnt want to let go and offered a flat 2k credit to my credit card statement if I stayed back. I said sure! The amount was credited in a week or so.
 

R!ppEr

TF Ace
VIP Lounge
got 50% fee waived off on my amex smart earn once and then MR points worth Rs.375/- the next year. for axis my zone got 3k points for retention! the smart earn is epic for my office rides on uber(10x MR points) and myzone got upgraded to privilege giving 12k edge points for fee payment :D
 

DrSaichand

TF Select
VIP Lounge
Amex generally gives reward points or spend based fee waiver if you call them for card cancellation or fee reversal.

Never seen hdfc, sbi, icici giving anything.
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 :p :) 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.
 
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paresh22

TF Ace
Your SBI Elite card spend must be good and giving SBI a good business that is why for card like Elite they gave 20,000 reward points. I have not heard anyone getting any waiver easily for SBI Prime or SBI Elite cards.
 

DrSaichand

TF Select
VIP Lounge
Your SBI Elite card spend must be good and giving SBI a good business that is why for card like Elite they gave 20,000 reward points. I have not heard anyone getting any waiver easily for SBI Prime or SBI Elite cards.
Yes, It was around 12L previous two years. but last year when I got ICICI Amazon pay card we have shifted majority of spends from SBI ELITE to APay. They enquired about the spends on other cards too on the call and my father explained this too.
 

vaibhav111

TF Legend
TF Family
VIP Lounge
Sr Moderator
I had an RBL SuperCard from 2020 to 2022. I applied for the card a week before the pandemic, and once I received it, I planned to close it within 30 days because the joining fee was 3000+ GST and the representative had persuaded me to apply for it. I had originally applied for the RBL LTF card, but the representative kept encouraging me to take the SuperCard instead. However, two days after receiving the card, everything shut down due to the pandemic and I was unable to contact RBL customer service. I used the card for 1.9 months and before the 2 years were complete, I emailed them to close it. They offered me an FYF, which I declined. I managed to get my joining fee returned in the form of vouchers, like 8-10 Flipkart vouchers. I also closed my Citi Paytm card, which I had since January 2019, by calling 4 months ago and they offered me a 1000 rs CB. I also closed my RBL Zomato card which I got in May 2022, by emailing them and they offered me a joining fee reversal. However, mine is paid card, I will again try to close the card or FYF as long as it is not charged to me.
 
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.

So that it here's my experience of Card retention offer with Yes Bank, do share yours if you have any in the thread below. Sorry for the long post in advance.
I have Yes Prosperity Rewards Plus card and I barely use it. It has 399+GST fee. Thinking of closing it. I think I should give them call to close it or offer it for free. It is 7-8 months old and I used it for only 5 to 6 times. What are the chances they will offer it as LTF?
 

DrSaichand

TF Select
VIP Lounge
I had an RBL SuperCard from 2020 to 2021. I applied for the card a week before the pandemic, and once I received it, I planned to close it within 30 days because the joining fee was 3000+ GST and the representative had persuaded me to apply for it. I had originally applied for the RBL LTF card, but the representative kept encouraging me to take the SuperCard instead. However, two days after receiving the card, everything shut down due to the pandemic and I was unable to contact RBL customer service. I used the card for 1.9 months and before the 2 years were complete, I emailed them to close it. They offered me an FYF, which I declined. I managed to get my joining fee returned in the form of vouchers, like 8-10 Flipkart vouchers. I also closed my Citi Paytm card, which I had since January 2019, by calling 4 months ago and they offered me a 1000 rs CB. I also closed my RBL Zomato card which I got in May 2022, by emailing them and they offered me a joining fee reversal. However, mine is paid card, I will again try to close the card or FYF as long as it is not charged to me.
Wow great to hear that RBL is offering retention offers too.
So by YES BANK, SBI, CITI & RBL have retention teams that do work to retain customers. Lets see how many more will join this club in the thread.
 
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DrSaichand

TF Select
VIP Lounge
I have Yes Prosperity Rewards Plus card and I barely use it. It has 399+GST fee. Thinking of closing it. I think I should give them call to close it or offer it for free. It is 7-8 months old and I used it for only 5 to 6 times. What are the chances they will offer it as LTF?
Be prepared to accept they can close your card without the offer but chances are very very high that their retention team will call you and offer a card upgrade and reward points. But Yes Bank cards are nothing much valuable in terms of reward rate but they will convert you cards to LTF very easily and also aim to get Yes First card range as they have very good longue access benefits. Also bargain to get Yes First Preferred/ Yes First Exclusive when retention team calls you and do insist on LTF as Yes bank is very soft in issuing LTF cards. like in my case. Card retention team easily upgrades credit card variants as I have done the same on my mothers Yes Bank Card.
 
Be prepared to accept they can close your card without the offer but chances are very very high that their retention team will call you and offer a card upgrade and reward points. But Yes Bank cards are nothing much valuable in terms of reward rate but they will convert you cards to LTF very easily and also aim to get Yes First card range as they have very good longue access benefits. Also bargain to get Yes First Preferred/ Yes First Exclusive when retention team calls you and do insist on LTF as Yes bank is very soft in issuing LTF cards. like in my case.
Will try.
 

DrSaichand

TF Select
VIP Lounge
Amex generally gives reward points or spend based fee waiver if you call them for card cancellation or fee reversal.

Never seen hdfc, sbi, icici giving anything.
ICICI
******
ICICI has retention team. in fact you can call them if planning to close the card after paying all the dues we can directly ask customer care executive to connect to "Card Retention Team" and without a question you will be connected to Card retention department. I have done this to ask Emerald LTF/FTF which they are offering me for a fee but they denied for it.

HDFC I seriously doubt they have such retention offers. should see with others. and I also doubt considering the Cashback offers and festive sales on HDFC, very few leave HDFC Card portfolio.

Axis no Idea as I don't hold their cards
 
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CVR

TF Ace
VIP Lounge
ICICI
******
ICICI has retention team. in fact you can call them if planning to close the card after paying all the dues we can directly ask customer care executive to connect to "Card Retention Team" and without a question you will be connected to Card retention department. I have done this to ask Emerald LTF/FTF which they are offering me for a fee but they denied for it.

HDFC I seriously doubt they have such retention offers. should see with others. and I also doubt considering the Cashback offers and festive sales on HDFC, very few leave HDFC Card portfolio.

Axis no Idea as I don't hold their cards
I had very poor experience with Icici amazon card. Asked them to close it, they didn’t try to retain. And I have held many icici cards since past many years. Now don’t have any icici card.
 
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