mia

herks question has been merged into the established thread.

seawolf

Was told by Citigold today no waivers for citibank credit cards (in this case AAdvantage Mastercard). Seems like no reason to keep a Citigold account.

dw

I confirmed with Citi today that the fee waivers have ended on the Private Bank side as well, as of last fall. The Dodd-Frank Act was cited as a reason, but I have no idea whether there is actually something regulatory that would prohibit such fee waivers, or rather if the discontinuation of the fee waivers is due to a loss of credit card income for Citi as a result of more stringent regulations.

themicah

Interesting. I also have a Private Bank (that shows up as Citigold when I access it online) but have never received any notice of a change in policy. I do recall that they tried to charge me for a money order not too long ago at a branch. I was surprised and pointed out that the account was a Private Bank account and a manager waived the fee. At the time I thought it was just a clueless teller, but maybe it was because the policy had changed? I'd never gotten money orders before, but cashier's checks had always been free.

I guess I'll find out about the credit card annual fee when my main Citi AA card comes up for renewal in March.

Edited to add:

Citibank's website still shows Citigold fee waivers for things like money orders, cashier's checks and even safe deposit boxes, as well as the 3% overseas ATM fee. I can't find anything about credit card annual fee waivers, though.

LGA

Thanks, herks, seawolf, and dw. I asked someone at a branch about the fee waivers. She was vague, so I had to press to get her to look up the detail.

She said cards open as of (or was it previous to...?) October 2011 would still get the fee waivers.

Distinctly less advantage to CitiGold now...

roki

If you don't make use of the branch services (OC/MO/Safe Dep Box), then yeah, the biggest value increase for Citigold is:

FOREX waiver
Monthly TY point bump with standard activities (600 for basic, 925 for citibank, 1300 for citigold).

Household balances apply, too, so if you set up like me (Individual checking, me as primary; joint checking, girlfriend as primary, 50K in my account, household hers to get the Citigold benefits too), you can pull in 1300 x 2 x 12, so 31,200 TY points annually simply for having the account (meaning: no spend requirement). Pair that with the TY Premier, and that'll get you ~$425 in airfare. Not a bad deal, but not for everyone.

j3brooklyn

I don't think this is correct. I suggest you call Citibank and inquire about the credit cards that have fee waivers with CitiGold. I recently called and was given a list of cards that qualified. I upgraded my AAdvantage Gold MC to Platinum in order to qualify. Nothing to do with when the card was opened.

yoyo

I have very similar setting as yours (wife instead of GF) but the branch manager told me with two TY accounts the requirement is 100K total. How long have you had your citigold accounts? Are you sure only 50K is required?

dgordon

Often at the branches they don't really know. I have 5 checking accounts. The amount I have at the bank fluctuates but they have never said $50K is requirement. Right now I made sure that there was $250K at the bank to get a lower rate for a new Home Equity Loan, but now that I have closed on the account I can remove that money an the lower rate stays for the life of the loan. At branches they will tell you that you can't combine all those accounts to thank you points but you can. And now there is the potential to get more than 1300 max on a citigold account. Some things that counted before don't but some new things do. Before overdraft protection counted, now it doesn't, but setting up automatic savings counts so I have set up $5 transfer to my MM account automatically. Also for those who would like a direct deposit (which counts) but don't have one a PayPal deposit counts as a direct deposit as well as having dividends from a brokerage account transferred over (ACH deposit). It doesn't have to be an employer paycheck.

roki

I am absolutely sure of that, yes.

As long as you and your wife live in the same household, they can household you. Direct from policy:

"A household link gives a customer the ability to combine multiple banking package balances to waive the monthly service fee. Balances, within linked accounts, count toward relationship pricing. Customers may earn preferred interest rates on selected components depending on total balance amount in all linked packages. Households include married and unmarried couples."

To me, it sounds like the manager was giving you a line to try to get more balances out of you. I've had my accounts for a couple years, but only recently (January) bumped up to CG. My parents have the same setup. Two individual checking and MMA accounts, and one join MMA with the balance (+/- $50K). They get the points and no fees as well, and never go above $100K.

Sounds kinda shady.

Also, here is the new point calculator:
https://online.citibank.com/JRS/popups/rrcalc/calc.html

I said 1300 because that's what you can get without additional line/loan products. Also, some branches have 10K TY point offers for new Custom Credit Line (unsecured LOC), and that gives you a 200 point bump. It's basically $100 (or $133 airfare) + $25 in TY points annually for as long as you have it, for the price of a credit pull. No annual fee with CG, also.

yoyo

Roki,
Thanks for this info. We joined about 10 years ago with only one account and the requirement had always been 100K deposit. We opened a second checking account to get my wife the 40K TY points 5 months ago and at that time we were told the requirements have been dropped to 50K but since we would be having two TY points account the manager said to avoid fee the total should still be 100K. I will call citi to confirm. Thanks again.

LGA

I called. Yup, going forward, new CC accounts are not slated to have the annual fee waived. I asked him to clarify the "going forward" bit - new cards as of ___? And the answer was October 2011.

yoyo

Seemed to me that meant all the old CCs prior had all been grand fathered in with fee waived?

LGA

Right. Maybe I should've written "new accounts" instead of cards...

So I think it's that accounts that were open already in October 2011 will be grandfathered.

HCA

I think I may upgrade "back" to citi gold before my CC annual fee hit again this year.