A couple updates on Citi and US Bank annual fee waivers
Hey all, I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted about getting annual fees waived using SCRA (Servicemember’s Civil Relief Act) benefits. I found out that fortunately, both Citi and US Bank now have email addresses to which you can email your orders instead of faxing, a technology that was responsible for the end of the Cold War.
I wanted to contact Citi to make sure my benefits were GTG (good to go), so I contacted them about my new orders. They now have an email address to which you can send a copy of your orders, whereas I don’t think they did before. Below is their contact info:
Phone: 877-804-1082
Fax: 866-533-0503
Email: militaryorders@citi.com
Also, I guess I just hadn’t been paying attention, but I had not heard back from US Bank regarding the SCRA benefits for my Club Carlson and REI card, although the latter is annual-fee free. I called them, and they said they hadn’t received anything. I absolutely hate fax machines, and that they’re still a fact of modern life. Also I should’ve been more diligent regarding follow-up on it. I keep a google docs spreadsheet with all my CC info, and clearly in the TO DO column it says “SCRA”, but I’d just neglected it. I called them, and they said they have an email to send orders to, which is much easier. Here is their website. Their contact info:
Phone: 855-791-2100
Email: 24hrmilitaryservicecenter.shared@usbank.com (that’s a long one I know).
Citi and US Bank reps both confirmed to me that they’d only waive the fees that were opened before becoming Active Duty. I’ve had the Citi cards for a while, so that shouldn’t be an issue, but it remains to be seen with US Bank.
On a side note, Amex confirmed that they would waive initiation fee and annual fee on their Centurion card if it billed while service member is on active duty. Trick is to get invited to apply for one in the first place.
@Veejay – if you get it, let me know so I can get an invite!
Anyone ever tried a product change/upgrade? I’ve got a fee waiver from Chase based on my last set of orders. Card was opened early January, orders had RNLTD of 31 Jan. Since Chase seems pretty stringent with this, I’m wondering whether I would lose my fee waiver if I do a product upgrade at the 1 year mark. Any thoughts?
@Veejay — I bet very few AD service members would be eligible just based on their income…..but if they get one that would be amazing!
@themilitaryfrequentflyer — I’m glad to clear the confusion on Citi. Looks like I won’t be getting any cards with them soon. Also, even if you did have accounts with them prior to being AD, they told me no fee waiver on the Prestige. Period.
Has anyone tried doing a product change? I got Chase to waive fees on my card based on a set of PCA orders. Can I change Chase products and keep the waiver intact?
Thanks for the reminder. Emailed my orders in last week. I have two citi credit cards. Citi Dividend for 4 years and Citi ATT more for a couple months. Since I went on Active Duty in June and I got the Citi ATT more card they only applied the benefits to my Citi dividend (which doesn’t have an annual fee)
I should have been smarter and applied for the ATT credit card before I went on active duty so they would have waived the $99 annual fee.