Call Results: My Retention Offer For The AAdvantage Aviator Red World Elite Mastercard

It’s already been one year with the AAdvantage Aviator Red World Elite Mastercard, meaning it’s time to evaluate whether this card is worth keeping or closing before $95 annual fee kicks in.

In year one, I earned 60,000 bonus miles, used the card a couple of times for the free first checked bag(s), and received a 10% refund on my mile redemptions. Pretty standard stuff I know, but it easily outpaced the $95 annual fee.

Still, I’d be remiss if I didn’t at least call for a retention offer. It seems like my luck with retention offers has been somewhat “cold” as of late, and I wasn’t even sure what kind of offers (if any) Barclays typically gives on their credit cards.

So how did my retention call go?

Call Results: My Retention Offer For The AAdvantage Aviator Red World Elite Mastercard

Let me preface the following with the fact that I only had about $2,000 worth of spend on this card last year.

Predictably, after making the call and getting a live representative, I was read a list of the card’s benefits and then offered the option to downgrade to a card with no annual fee card. I pressed on, “I appreciate that, I was just wondering if there were any retention offers or fee waivers available to me?”.

The representative came back and said, “I’m sorry sir, there are no such offers available at this time – however, we can extend a spending bonus offer to you, would you like for me to read you the offer?”. “Yes”.

The Offer

The offer was as follows: 5,000 bonus American Airlines miles if I spend $1,000 before December 31, 2018.

I value American Advantage miles conservatively at about 1 MPC, so this offer is worth about $50 to me. I know there are others out there that value American Advantage miles at 1.4 MPC (about $70), so the real value is probably somewhere in between.

The Bottom Line: Call Results: My Retention Offer For The AAdvantage Aviator Red World Elite Mastercard

So what was the end result? Did I take the offer?

Well, after factoring in opportunity costs on my non-bonused spending options, I figured this is a pretty good offer that goes along way in defraying the cost of my annual fee. Additionally, I’d be getting 6x miles on all non-bonused spending.

Yes, I took it. Not the best offer and not the worst offer, but it allowed me to justify keeping the card for another year.

Cheers!