Originally Posted by
Safetravel3
I hope some better products would come out soon. I doubt that, from a business perspective, Citi would exit the premium credit card segment. The 4th night benefit seemed to be a silly idea to begin with, and taken advantage by some. Comparing to the Prestige, CSR is an attractive product but Chase probably is losing money on it. Amex platinum is a strange product too: too expensive for ordinary people, and the perks are not attractive to real road warriors. We all fly first or business and, for example, OneWorld first class lounges are probably better than Centurion lounges. We all have lifetime hotel elite status. So I don’t know where does Amex Platinum fit? Many people just take advantage of the perks. Hope the new Citi product could assess these concerns. I still love Citi’s airline transfer partners.
I think when they were introducing the product they needed some real differentiating attributes versus the other flagship cards. The 4NF, Admirals Club, Golf Rounds, etc. were not available in that cohort, so it could a) appeal to those who wanted those things, and presumably there was some market research / focus group testing picking them to begin with and b) since it wasn't a 'me too' product it might have a chance of getting people already carrying flagship cards to pick it up too. Our household has CSR and Prestige for example.
We love the 4NF - its basically the only way to get discounts if one is always traveling at peak times like Xmas, Labor Day etc. For a variety of reasons we are always forced into that, so its valuable for us.
I also like how easy the airline travel credit is to use. It seems like that kind of triggered the wave of easy to use credits among the upper end cards. Personally, I think the Amex structure is a little off market now.