u/Sayonara13331

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The story is a bit long and I have added a TL;DR:

A year back I got the Flipkart Axis Bank card. At that point I had applied for multiple cards and everything kept getting rejected because I had no loans, no EMIs, basically no CIBIL history. Finally got approved for this one with ₹500 joining fee, ₹500 annual fee and a ₹28k limit.

Used it for some time and later applied for the SBI Cashback Card, which was the one I actually wanted from the start. Once I got that, I decided to close the Flipkart Axis card.

I checked the app but couldn’t find an option to close the card. Googled it and found out that apparently you need to call customer care for closure. Since the annual fee date was still far away, I postponed it.

At some point I force closed the Axis app because the notifications were getting excessive and constantly filling my notification bar.

A few months later I got a message saying ₹425 annual fee was charged and the statement had been generated. It was ₹425 instead of ₹500 because of some cashback adjustment.

That was entirely my stupidity because I had delayed closing the card and ended up paying the fee anyway. So I paid the statement amount and immediately called customer care to close the card.

The representative asked the usual retention questions and kept requesting that I continue for another year since the annual fee had already been paid. I refused because I knew I’d probably forget again next year and lose another ₹500+.

After a few minutes she transferred the call to her manager.

The manager again asked whether I was sure about closing it and then offered me a lifetime free Axis card instead. I declined that too initially.

Then he added that they could also credit back the annual fee amount into the new card balance, since they couldn’t refund it directly to my bank account because I don’t have an Axis savings account.

At that point it actually became a decent deal, so I accepted.

Ended up with a new LTF Axis card and around ₹590 credited back.

Started the call trying to close a card after losing money due to my own procrastination and somehow came out ahead in the end.

TL;DR: Forgot to close my Flipkart Axis card before the annual fee got charged. Paid ₹425 fee, called to close the card, retention team convinced me to convert to an LTF Axis card and credited back the fee amount. Somehow profited from my own mistake.

Has anyone else had similar retention call experiences with Axis or other banks? Curious how far banks usually go to stop card closures. And also I wonder why they do this. I will probably only use the card to use up the ₹590 that is in it and then will not use it again.