Here’s the transcript of my call to U.S. Bank on my Radisson cards which I planned on keeping regardless of the annual fee (see Keep vs. Cancel: US Bank Radisson).
Me: I have an annual fee on my Radisson personal for $75, a $2 interest fee, and a $28 late fee. I would like those fees removed.
Agent: No problem.
Me: Thank you. Can you transfer me to the business side?
Agent: Sure.
New Agent: How can I help you?
Me: I have an annual fee, interest fee, and late fee. I would like those fees removed.
Agent. Sure, no problem.
Me: Thank you.
Thank you to reader ‘Phil’ for letting me know that he called and received a retention bonus from U.S. Bank. Like Phil, I never put a spend on the card. Unlike Phil, my request was immediately granted. Can banks stay this nice beyond COVID? I like free.
Why late fee?
Because I didn’t pay the annual fee, surely you could’ve surmised that.
I had the same question. It really wasn’t very clear after reading through both posts. I’m surprised that any churner would ever miss paying a card for any reason but I know things do slip through from time to time.
That was a lot of words to say you got something for free, including a pass on your screw up, and yet not enough to give anything of particular value to the reader. Readers here should know to ask for retention offers, like I suppose they should have known about that $2 thingy.
I picked up this card back in the fall with the 120K bonus. I also had four paid stays since then, and what surprised me is that franchisees do not need to adhere to Radisson Rewards Gold benefits. This was pointed out to me in the terms and conditions when I asked why the Radisson Midtown Manhattan wanted to charge me a $50 fee to check in at 1:45, when one of the Gold Benefits is an early check-in of up to two hours subject to availability. The hotel was running less than 15% occupancy according to the hotel.
After numerus conversations with customer service (I believe in China since they are Chinese owned), I was never given a straight answer, and nobody seemed to care.
I just finished charging $30K to the card for my three free domestic free nights when the card renews, but the card headed to the sock drawer until I can wrap my head around all of this. I’m not sure that I want to dig myself in any deeper with Radisson by stockpiling points.