Tl;dr – Mrs. Blackbeard recently received two retention offers to keep her Amex cards open
It’s always helpful to share datapoints that may help folks play the points and miles game. The annual membership fee recently hit on two of Mrs. Blackbeard’s Amex cards – her Business Gold and Personal Platinum cards. As she was genuinely contemplating closing those accounts (she’s also a Personal Gold and Business Platinum cardholder), she contacted American Express’s membership team to discuss options. In the end, both cards had retention offers on them, which, while not the most lavish, were enough justification for her to keep the card open. Here’s where she landed:
For her American Express Platinum card, she received an offer of 35,000 membership rewards points for spending an additional $4,000 over the next three months.
She also received an offer of 35,000 membership rewards points for the American Express Business Gold card, though the required spend on this one was a bit higher, at $5,000 over the next three months.
She’s a power user on the Amex Platinum; in fact, she’s the sole holder of the card in our household, as I no longer am an Amex Platinum Business or Personal cardholder (I’m a believer that you truly only need one Platinum card per household). With the card’s 5X bonus on flight purchases (directly through the airline or through Amex), it’s the longstanding clubhouse leader in racking up points on flight purchases. Though much of her other spending on this card wasn’t bonuses, she uses some of the other card benefits, at least enough to offset the annual fee. So the additional membership rewards Amex offered were enough justification to keep it open, especially considering some upcoming purchases that would easily meet the required spend.
The Business Gold decision was more touch-and-go. She signed up for the card and received a lofty signup bonus, more than justifying the annual fee. Though she’s used some of the flexible business credits, she hasn’t done so every month and otherwise hasn’t put too much spend on the card. In many ways, the card is redundant for her. That said, since she did have a string of straightforward purchases that would get her the required spend, she’d net an additional 35,000 points, which when combined with the 35,000 she will receive from the Platinum offer, would be enough to do some damage in booking a solid premium cabin flight for our upcoming trips.
If you’ve recently dabbled in retention offers, I’d love to hear about your experience in the comments!
