Do you own a BPI credit card? Did you see an annual fee charge on your statement of account? If you do, know that the cc annual fee may be reversed if you will request for it and if your account meets the ‘waived fee’ criteria.
Usually the first year fee is free on most cards like those issued by BPI, BDO, Citibank, Metrobank, HSBC, Security Bank, and other banks. Then there is an annual fee chargeable starting on the second year, but if you meet certain parameters, the annual fee can be waived or reversed.
How? Make sure that you are diligently paying your credit card charges in full on or before due date. Meaning your account is in good standing all throughout the year. Meaning you’ve never have past dues and you don’t incur interest fees on your card because again you pay the whole amount due reflected on the SOA on time.
I’ve had my BPI Amore Visa credit card for couple of years now and I’ve never paid any annual fee on it. I regularly use it every time I am transacting in an establishment which accepts credit cards. So groceries, medicines, dine-ins, shopping, etc are all charged on my card.
I prefer using the card for its statement of account which is a good way to monitor past purchases.
My personal rules in using credit cards are as follows:
First, don’t use the card when you don’t have actual money to pay for the purchases. Treat the card as cash. No cash? Don’t buy.
Second, strictly pay the amount within 3 days of charging it on the card. I do not wait for the statement of account to arrive. I pay asap.
Third, keep only 1 or 2 credit cards. Having lots of cards tend to complicate things and life.
Calling BPI to Request for Annual Fee Charged Reversal
When I logged-on to my BPI Express online account this morning, I saw that there is a new charged of P2,050. I know right away that this is for the Amore Visa annual fee.
Right away, I called BPI domestic hotline number 1-800-188-89100 and was able to connect to a customer service representative. I explained my request to the csr that I’ve just been charged the annual fee for my credit card and I would like to have it reverse.
After hearing me out the csr said to kindly hold the line as she will need to check the evaluation of BPI on my credit card account. After about 2 minutes, she was back on the phone and said “Good news!”.
According to her, my BPI credit card was approved for the 100% reversal on the annual fee.
Reversal is usually done within 4 to 5 banking days but to avoid any possibility of interest charges, she advised that I settle or pay the P2,050 Amore Visa renewal fee for now. This is because the annual fee reversal will be reflected on the next statement of account.
She further said that the P2,050 that I will pay will be considered as “overpayment” and will be used againts new credit card charges.
Since I can’t go out to the bank and I don’t have a BPI peso savings account that is okay for online bills payment, I used Gcash to pay the P2,050.
I actually logged-on to BDO online to ‘send money’ to Gcash. Then logged-on to Gcash to access bills payment to pay the P2,050 on the BPI cc. A bit circuitous way to pay but it works. 🙂
I’ll be updating this post when I see the reversal finally reflected on my next BPI credit card statement of account.
UPDATE: The annual fee reversal of BPI credit card was processed fast. See this screenshot:
Oh by the way, my sister also have a BPI credit card, she also called and requested to have the annual fee charges reversed.
Her request was granted but the csr told her to make sure there is at least P9,000 new charges on the card in the next 3 months. Meaning she must use her card and spend that set amount, otherwise, she was told that the annual fee will be charged again.
*My sister thinks this particular advisory is just a bluff and that the fee will not be charged again even if the P9k spending within 3 months will not be met. But she didn’t risk it, she used her BPI credit card much often lately to met the ‘required amount’ in the given time frame hehe.
In my case, I never got that same advisory from the csr I talked with today, probably because I regularly use my BPI credit card, whereas my sister rarely use hers before.
Reversal and annual fee waiver may be dependent on other factors like spending history, paying history, and what not. I strongly suggest that once you are charge with the cc annual fee, that you try to request for its reversal. Sayang din yung pera na matitipid kung ma-a-approve naman.
Do the same principles work with other bank’s credit card? I think so.
*My husband’s BDO Shopmore credit card fees were also reversed. Shopmore cc fee is levied monthly; he made a one-time request in January for the previous year’s monthly fees.
To wrap this up, just try to request for annual fee reversal, it may be granted by the credit card company.
Hope this sharing helps. Thank you for reading Penfires. All the best!
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