Wells Fargo closed my checking account. Are my credit cards next?

On June 26th, Wells Fargo emailed to say they’d be closing my Premier Checking account by July 10th because they “believe that the account has been compromised or impacted by potential identity theft.” Whaaat?!!! I had barely touched that account — I had deposited $500, and let it sit. There haven’t been any transactions since then, and I’ve received no warnings or alerts from Wells Fargo. My bet is that Wells Fargo had decided to close the account for some other reason and was using “potential identity theft” as an excuse.

Are my credit cards next?

I don’t care about losing the Premier Checking account. In fact, I was planning to close it anyway. I signed up for it only to increase my chances of being targeted for the Wells Fargo Premier Autograph Visa Infinite card and its 100K welcome bonus. And while it may not have been necessary to open the Premier Checking account, it seemed to work, as I was targeted for the offer two weeks after opening the account. My card application was instantly approved. In short order, I met the minimum spend requirements and had 104,000 points pending. I very much do care about those points.

My first thought when I received the email about the account closure was that my credit cards might be shut down next (in addition to the Premier Autograph card, I have the no-annual-fee Autograph Card). And, if that happened, I’d lose my points.

I wanted to transfer my points immediately, but most points were still pending when I received the email. Under “Rewards Activity,” I saw that the points were expected to be available on July 4th. Nearly every day, I logged in to ensure my points were still there and to check whether they had become redeemable early. The points are still there, but they didn’t become redeemable until July 5th.

My snail’s pace race to transfer points

I wanted to transfer my Wells Fargo points to Choice. Wells Fargo offers 1-to-2 transfers to both Choice Privileges and Wyndham Rewards. Both can offer decent value, but Wyndham points expire after 4 years (unless you have the Wyndham Earner Premier Card). I like that Choice points are easier to keep alive and can be used at many Preferred Hotels (even some that can’t be booked with I Prefer points).

My quest to transfer points to Choice was halted from the get-go. The first step to transferring Wells Fargo points is to connect your Wells Fargo Rewards account to the target airline or hotel program. I couldn’t get past that step. No matter what I tried, I got the same error message: “We couldn’t link your account.”

Greg or Gregory?…

Wells Fargo knows me as “Gregory,” but Choice Privileges knew me as “Greg.” So, on July 5th, I called Choice to change my name to Gregory. To Choice’s credit, the name change was quick and easy. But it didn’t help.

I tried again to connect my Choice account to my Wells Fargo account, but it didn’t work. I got the same error message as before. I tried the next day, and the next. Same, same.

Davis-Kean or Davis Kean?

A few days later, I called Wells Fargo support to report the issue. It was a painfully long call because I had to teach the support person about point transfers, and no, she didn’t need to know what hotel I was hoping to book, and yes, it’s a Wells Fargo feature that is supposed to work. To her credit, she eventually seemed to understand. She discovered that even though my Wells Fargo Rewards account lists my last name as “Davis-Kean,” my Wells Fargo Premier credit card lists it as “Davis Kean.” Maybe the hyphen on my Choice Privileges account was the problem?

I called Choice to change my surname to “Davis Kean” (no hyphen). Again, to Choice’s credit, the name change was quick and easy. But, again, it didn’t help.

Issue Escalation

On July 10th, I was getting particularly nervous. This was the day that my checking account was scheduled to close. I was worried that this would be my last chance to move my points, so I called Wells Fargo support again.

This time I got an agent who seemed to understand what I was trying to do. She put me on hold several times to try to get help from others, but without any luck. Finally, she said she would continue researching the issue and asked if she could call me back the next day. I didn’t love that idea since it seemed like my points could be gone by then, but I didn’t have any other ideas, so I agreed.

Fortunately, my points were still there the next day. Unfortunately, when she called me back, she said there was nothing she could do. She was apologetic but acted like she couldn’t do anything except close the case. I asked if she could escalate it instead, and she agreed. She then transferred me to a manager at the “elite customer service department.”

The elite customer service department manager couldn’t figure out the problem either. I told him about Wells Fargo’s mixed use of hyphens, and so he changed my credit card account to match my Rewards account. Now both have hyphens. Yay. But that didn’t help either. He said that he would research the problem with his colleagues and call me back on Wednesday (today, as I write this). In the meantime, I called Choice again to have them restore my hyphen. My restored hyphen didn’t help.

As promised, the elite customer service department manager called me back today, but he didn’t have any new ideas. Once again, he promised to research the problem with his colleagues and call me back in a couple of days. Before hanging up, though, I had some new information for him…

Yesterday, I went through all the other Wells Fargo transfer partners to see if I could link my loyalty account and transfer points. I had the same problem connecting to JetBlue as with Choice. But with all of Wells Fargo’s other transfer partners, I had no problem connecting my account and transferring a single point. The ability to transfer just 1 point at a time is a great feature of Wells Fargo’s Rewards program. All of the transfers completed instantly.

The new account solution

I thought of this as I was writing the post above… When Citi first enabled transfers to I Prefer, I had a similar problem to the one described above. Citi’s website refused to believe that my I Prefer account number was legit. Ultimately, I created a new I Prefer account and that worked fine. I then contacted I Prefer, and they were able to merge my accounts.

So, this afternoon, I created a new Choice account. Boom. That solved the problem! I have now successfully connected to the new Choice account and transferred 1 point. So, should I transfer all of my points now? If I had thought of this solution earlier, I would have done it. But now I’m less certain. Choice points are on sale through July 20th for as low as 0.57 cents each. So, even with Wells Fargo’s 1-to-2 transfer ratio, I’d only get the equivalent of 1.14 cents per point value from my Wells Fargo Rewards.

What to do?

My credit cards and points survived the July 10th closure of my checking account. Does this mean that Wells Fargo will leave them alone? Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t know why the checking account was closed, so it’s hard to guess what will happen to my other accounts. I still think it’s prudent for me to redeem my points sooner rather than later.

Transfer options…

Here are my brief thoughts about each of Wells Fargo’s transfer partners:

• Choice (1-to-2): This was my original, ahem, choice, but with points on sale for 0.57 cents each, it’s not as attractive as before.
• Wyndham (1-to-2): This feels like a decent option, as long as I commit to signing up for the Wyndham Earner Premier card to keep my points active if I don’t use them before they expire in four years.
• Air France KLM Flying Blue (1-to-1): Another decent option. I find excellent uses for Flying Blue miles every now and then, so it wouldn’t hurt to have a good stash of them.
• Avios (1-to-1): Maybe. I don’t use Avios often, and transfer bonuses from other programs are common. But Avios can be valuable for booking British Airways awards with moderate surcharges (by paying more Avios) and for booking both British Airways and Qatar awards that aren’t available to other partners.
• JetBlue (1-to-1): Meh… I do love that JetBlue offers free award changes and cancellations, but they don’t tend to have the best award prices.
• Virgin Atlantic Flying Club (1-to-1): I would consider transferring to Virgin, but I already have a huge stash of points. I don’t need more.
• Cathay Pacific Asia Miles (1-to-1): Nope. I had taken advantage of a big transfer bonus in the past, and I’ve been sitting on a lot of miles for years. I’m not eager to get more.
• Avianca LifeMiles (1-to-1): Nah. I’m not a fan of this program, especially since they’ve ditched most of their attractive mixed cabin pricing.

Choice and Wyndham still seem like my best bets given that I could easily get any of the airline miles from my other transferable points (Amex, Bilt, Chase, etc.). Wells Fargo is the only program that transfers to Choice and Wyndham at a 1-to-2 ratio.

What do you think?

I don’t know whether my Wells Fargo points are really at risk, but it seems prudent to use my points sooner rather than later. So… what do you think I should do?

• Risk it: Hold on to my points until I have a real use for them. Who knows, maybe Wells Fargo will introduce new and better transfer partners.
• Transfer to Choice 1-to-2: Transferring to Choice was my original goal, so why not do it?
• Transfer to Wyndham 1-to-2: This seems like a good alternative, but I have to consider the 4-year expiration issue.
• Transfer to Flying Blue: Based on my past experience, these are the points I’m most likely to use toward great value.

I thought writing all of the above would lead me to the final answer, but I’m not quite there yet! To log your vote or give other suggestions, please comment below!

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