Has anyone had experience cancelling an ANZ credit card and successfully getting an annual fee refund?
I contacted ANZ to cancel my credit card and requested a pro-rata refund of the annual fee, but they declined to issue a refund. They informed can't refund annual fee because they're charged for the privileges and rewards associated with the card. even if the card is cancelled midway through the year, those benefits were already available for use during that time.
That sucks but ultimately on you for not checking the T&Cs
How much is the fee?
I managed to get pro-rata refunds 2 times over the last 6 months. One through the chat, another one chat didn't work, but giving them a call did work. It's very random from what I read here, maybe I was just lucky.
Some people claim to get pro rata refunds, but I don't believe it's anywhere in the T&Cs that you signed up for. You shouldn't be entitled to a refund, especially if you're churning for bonus points.
A pro rate refund is fair though
Don't ask for a cancel, ask instead for a product change to one of their low annual fee ($30 etc) cards - it will take about a week however when your new card is activated, their system automatically pro rata refunds the old (higher) card fee, and charges you the new (lower) one. You can also reduce your credit card limit for the new card around this time. You'll then need to "spend" the pro rata refund that's sitting on your card and causing it to be temporarily "negative". Takes a bit of effort and time but you eventually get it, and definitely worth doing for the bigger fee cards. Source: I've done this just this year for cards from ANZ, NAB, and Citibank (which is run by NAB).
Interesting, was about to cancel.my NAB signature Qantas card. Do I have to downgrade to the same reward scheme e.g Qantas Rewards or would I be able to go for the lowest annual fee Low Rate or Low Fee etc?
Also will downgrading result in a new credit enquiry?
You can downgrade to any card, doesn’t need to be in same family, so go for the lowest annual fee. And nope, no new credit enquiries, the banks see it is a “product switch”. They’ll carry across your larger credit limit, so reduce that when you activate the new card (if for example you’re still churning cards).
From memory for NAB you need to live chat or call them for product switches - most other banks incl ANZ, Westpac and St George have online options to do it yourself
Thanks mate, just did this for my NAB signature rewards card. Should end up saving a couple hundred.$ so definitely worth the effort
NAB refund the full annual fee in the 13th month (if you hold on to get the points from your 12th month's statement period). I've even read on reddit of someone that held it for the full 13th month and then cancelled via the app with full annual fee refund (pretty ballsy tbh). But I'm not sure about pro-rata refund if you bail after the first few months.
Thanks for all the info. Do you know if a separate "reward program fee" is also pro-rated refunded, or is it just the "annual fee"?
Eg,
reward program fee $55
annual fee $40
I’ve done swapped to the anz low rate, still got charged all the $470 worth of fees, hopefully they will get automatically refunded in a week
Yep from memory mine took a couple of days to pop up, fingers crossed yours will be similar
Have you received the refund yet?
no but someone from anz on chat confirmed it will be refunded
it worked, i paid $490 got refunded $449.72. so effectively paid $40.28 for anz low rate ($30 annual fee and $10 additional holder fee and $0.28 for the banking cartel
now i cannot pay the card back with my old bpay number, do I get additional interest free days?
Here's a data point: Was approved for a CC last month, received the bonus and cancelled the card a few days ago. Asked the support chat for a pro-rata refund of the annual fee and was told by a lovely team member that it was not possible and is clearly outlined in the TnCs. I then tried calling their line and was able to get a pro-rata refund over the phone no questions asked. Keep in mind:
- I only had the card for a month, they might be less lenient if you've had it closer to a full year.
- I also had a large sum of funds in my anz savings at the time, it is possible that a team member took that into consideration compared to an empty, ghost account used for churning.
- Everyone is generally happier during the festive season :)
Seems reasonable. It’s also stated in the T&Cs that no refund is provided upon cancellation.