She got this card last year because it had a great welcome bonus & was well worth the $325.
Whenever an annual fee hits for a subsequent year, I always consider whether it’s worth keeping the card for another year or just canceling (you typically have 30 days after the annual fee hits to cancel the card & request a refund of the fee).
In order to make that decision, I check to see if there are any “retention offers” to keep the card.
Retention offers are additional bonuses the credit card company will give you to incentivize you to keep the card for another year.
They won’t always have these, but knowing whether you qualify will help with your decision about canceling.
After checking with AMEX this morning, they offered my wife an additional 20,000 points (~$200 in cash value or ~$400 when redeemed for travel) for $2,000 in spend over a 3 month period.
As you can see, it’s basically another welcome bonus.
Combine that with the fact that we get about $340 in benefits from the card each year already ($120 Uber cash + $120 Dining Credit + $100 Resy credit).
$200+ (retention offer) + $340 (useful benefits) = $540+ in value
That makes it a no brainer to keep it another year and pay the $325 annual fee.
I recently had this same situation come up on my AMEX Platinum card.
I was planning to cancel the card but I asked about the retention offer first.
They offered me 25,000 extra points for a few thousand in spend over several months.
Combining that with the benefits I was getting from the card, it was an easy decision to keep the card another year.
Use these additional retention bonuses to optimize each card you have & let them help you make the decision about whether to cancel or keep the card when the annual fee hits again.
Cheering for you on your Travel Hacking journey!
