Virgin America & Comenity Bank have announced that due to Alaska’s acquisition of Virgin America their co-branded cards will be closed on 1/04/18. Cardmembers will continue to receive all the normal benefits through 12/31/17 and the cards will all be officially closed on 1/04/18. This means that Bank of America has not purchased the back book from Comenity and Comenity will also not product change existing cardholders to another product. The first point doesn’t surprise me, but the fact that Comenity isn’t giving cardholders another card is surprising.
Comenity/Virgin America have put together a list of F.A.Q with answers here.
I just called Comenity to close my Virgin America Credit Card. The rep said she would close my CC today, but I wouldn’t receive my annual fee refund until sometime in February. Virgin America will send out the checks after the program ends on 1/1/18.
That’s pretty poor
Yeah, I asked if there was any way to expedite the refund and the rep said no. Let me tweet Comenity and Virgin America.
I thought this would be the case, since most Comenity cards get cancelled when their co-brand partnership ends. Offhand I can think of only one case when another bank actually migrated the old Comenity accounts to the new bank. Bank of America has (somewhat) conservative underwriting these days, and Comenity does not. It’s nothing to do with whether either of these wanted customers, but whether they were willing to come to an agreement, and apparently they couldn’t. Someone must have paid Comenity to link to the BoA application page, though.
Ah, I see it’s the Virgin site that links to BoA. Comenity got squat.
Alaska Airlines dropped the ball here. This is a disastrous way to deal with credit card holders. I can’t recall something like this happening in any of the airline mergers during the last decade. Alaska Airlines could definitely have reached a better agreement with Comenity, if they cared to push for it. Apparently Alaska did not care…
It would be Bank of America that would need to make an agreement with Comenity Bank. Alaska Airlines could put some pressure on BoA, but BoA would have to be the ones to buy the accounts from Comenity Bank.
Maybe the credit worthiness of the Comenity Bank accounts weren’t of high quality for BoA to justify the purchase. All sorts of reasons why BoA wouldn’t want the accounts.
It is a little weird that Comenity Bank doesn’t want those accounts anymore. Comenity Bank could simply give all the card holders a different Comenity Bank credit card. If Comenity Bank doesn’t want their own accounts (willing to just let those customers leave forever without selling the accounts to another bank), why would BoA want those accounts? Something up with that. I have no idea what’s up though. It is a strange situation.
I doubt BofA is willing to jump through hooops and pay for a portfolio of Comenity Bank customers. Probably not too many new customers to BofA they were dying to get their hands on.
From Comenity’s viewpoint, I believe they only issue co-branded cards and Visas. They don’t have a random plain Visa to issue you. They could have randomly chosen to give you a Big Lots, buckle, Lane Bryant, Credit Auto Repair, DSW, or Victoria Secret card. Would that have made you happy? The average consumer would have likely considered that much worse.
I guess you can call and see if you can PC to a Big Lots card!
dont banks usually PC you to another card when one of their partnerships end? closing a consumer’s card is serious and can affect their credit score. “closed by issuer” doesnt look good on a credit report either.
You can call to close the account yourself. Then it wouldn’t be listed as “Closed by Issuer” on the credit report.
Yes they usually do PC you to another card, but that’s for their own reasons. I’m not sure this would be listed as closed by issuer when it is closed but it probably makes sense to cancel early to ensure you don’t get a closed by issuer on your report.
I was approved for the card on April 19 and paid a $149 annual fee. If they close the card on Jan 4, then they are cutting the membership year 4,5 months short. Will they refund my annual fee?
I don’t think a partial refund will suffice, they need to issue a full refund, because they cannot dictate the different portions of a year is equally valuable to a cardholder. Perhaps a cardholder wants to take advantage of the card and its benefits only at the last quarter of the membership year. If they don’t let a cardholder do that, then they need to issue a full refund for the annual fee.
I agree. I downgraded from the $149 AF CC to $49 AF CC a few months ago. I wonder if Comenity will issue full refunds or partial refunds for us too 🙂
Unfortunately the annual fee refund is a prorated amount, not the full amount. You’ll receive the refund 1-2 months after the account is closed.
If you call and close the account yourself right now, you’ll receive more of the refund than if you waited until the account was automatically closed in January.
Are you somehow an insider who has access to this information?
No, it is just information in the FAQ (link in this article).
Good luck with that thought. The annual fee is just that -the ANNUAL fee — that you paid for the membership year. Banks only need to refund the pro-rated amount. If they change some benefits mid-year, like they usually do, they only offer some compensation to members to keep them happy for future spend… it’s not an obligation. And doing a CFPB complaint won’t I kept help your cause.
The first membership year is a different story. Cardholders have much more protection against changes in benefits, fees, and APR during the first year. And a case of negative changes during the first year is likely to be an easy win in CFPB or SCC.
Since you obviously have all of the answers, why are you complaining? You have it all worked out.
I don’t have all of the answers and have not completely worked it out yet. I am just sharing my understandings and findings and appreciate those who share theirs.
I wonder what kind of announcement we will hear from American Express when the SPG cards go away.
I’m not sure it’s a given those cards will go away. AMEX mY continue to issue Marriot cards, the same way that Barclays continues to issue Aadvantage cards. Those cards are a huge part of the AMEX portfolio, and they’re going to fight like hell to keep them.
Yeah, it’s definitely not decided yet. American Express might even try to get the whole portfolio from Chase as well.