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Citibank VISA being replaced with Mastercard?

Citibank VISA being replaced with Mastercard?

Old Aug 12, 2015, 9:59 am
  #1  
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Citibank VISA being replaced with Mastercard?

I just got a letter in the mail from Citibank letting me know they're replacing my Visa with a Mastercard. Anybody else get this?

My general understanding is that Visa is more widely accepted than Mastercard, so this is generally a bad thing.

Anybody know why they're doing this? Is everybody affected, or just me?

Anybody else getting switched over? What are your thoughts on the matter?
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Old Aug 12, 2015, 10:16 am
  #2  
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With very few exceptions, places that take one take both.

Does the notice give a timeframe? If I were delusional, I'd think it included a PIN.
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Old Aug 12, 2015, 10:21 am
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mia
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Originally Posted by uoficowboy
Anybody know why they're doing this?
Read here:

Citi and MasterCard Sign New Global Agreement That Expands Relationship

Citi will begin aligning the company’s consumer proprietary credit and debit portfolios to the MasterCard network in 2015. Citi will continue to work with other networks, including on consumer co-brands and commercial cards.
Citigroup Reaches Deal With MasterCard on Consumer Cards

Citigroup Inc. reached a deal to issue most of its global consumer credit and debit cards on MasterCard Inc.’s network.
As part of a 10-year agreement, New York-based Citigroup will start to shift more of its consumer business to MasterCard this year, the companies said in a statement Wednesday. The bank said it will continue to issue co-brand and commercial cards on other networks. The terms weren’t disclosed.

“This is a big conversion and it’s one that will happen over the course of several years,” Jud Linville, who runs Citigroup’s credit-card business, said in a telephone interview. “Deals like this are a milestone achievement.”

The agreement could result in as much as $125 million in annual revenue shifting to MasterCard from larger competitor Visa Inc., adding as much as 8 cents a share in annual earnings, according to Darrin Peller, a Barclays Plc analyst. Sanford C. Bernstein & Co.’s Lisa Ellis estimated Visa may see as much as 4 percent of its revenue move to MasterCard
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Old Aug 12, 2015, 10:23 am
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Originally Posted by Points Scrounger
With very few exceptions, places that take one take both.

Does the notice give a timeframe? If I were delusional, I'd think it included a PIN.
I'm pretty sure they said within a few months. I'll confirm when I get home tonight. The letter did not include a PIN.

I should mention that I think I'm a pretty good customer - I put $1-2K/month on the card and always pay on time. I've had the card since 2010, though they gave me a new CC# about 6 months ago due to some fraudulent activity.
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Old Aug 12, 2015, 11:05 am
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My wife got notified a few weeks ago that Citi would be switching her Citi AA Sig to Citi AA WEMC in Sept, which corresponds with her anniversary and card renewal. I did not get one. I have 2 Citi AA Sig cards, one being one of my oldest CCs. I was interested in switching one myself. When I called, they had no issue switching mine to AA WEMC. I got my new card last week.
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Old Aug 12, 2015, 11:52 am
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If Citi wants to move from Visa to MC, why then their new Costco card will be a Visa?
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Old Aug 12, 2015, 12:00 pm
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Originally Posted by jk2
If Citi wants to move from Visa to MC, why then their new Costco card will be a Visa?
VISA and Citi jointly negotiated the deal with Costco. Citi isn't mad at VISA, they just made a better deal with MasterCard. Chase is doing the reverse, migrating MasterCards to VISA network, but they won't be able to touch the IHG cards because MasterCard has the contract.

The days of MasterCard/VISA interchangeability are over.
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Old Aug 12, 2015, 12:34 pm
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Originally Posted by mia
The days of MasterCard/VISA interchangeability are over.
What exactly does that mean?
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Old Aug 12, 2015, 8:56 pm
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To update this thread - my current card is an AA Platinum Visa Signature, my new one is an AA Platinum Select World Elite Mastercard.

They say it'll arrive in 4-6 weeks.
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Old Aug 13, 2015, 6:03 am
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Originally Posted by Points Scrounger
What exactly does that mean?
It means that MasterCard and VISA are aggressively competing with each other for bank and merchant contracts. We will see more banks choose one network over the other, and more merchants who will accept one card type but not the other.
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Old Aug 13, 2015, 8:30 pm
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so will that constitute a different product wrt bonus timelines?
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Old Aug 14, 2015, 8:41 pm
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Originally Posted by g8trgr8t
so will that constitute a different product wrt bonus timelines?
If you cancel a Visa, it doesn't count as a close of an MC within that last 18 months. So that's good.

If you wait and let them convert the Visa to an MC, that seems to count as an open of the MC, and thus resets your 18 month clock for that type of card. So that's bad.

(All 18 month clocks at Citi are measures with respect to the last open or last close of the same type of card, and it seems to be whether you opened or closed manually or whether Citi opened or close automatically.)

So it depends how you handle the Visa->MC conversion whether it's good or bad, and the best thing is to know it's going to happen (by reading FlyerTalk threads about the cards you have) and cancel proactively before the process even starts. If you wait to learn about it until after Citi has already converted you from Visa to MC, it's too late now to worry about signup bonuses, your 18 month clock has already been reset.

And in case there are any changes to the above "crowd-sourced rules", they'll be explained on a card-by-card basis in those specific threads, not in this thread.
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Old Aug 15, 2015, 1:00 am
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Originally Posted by uoficowboy
I just got a letter in the mail from Citibank letting me know they're replacing my Visa with a Mastercard. Anybody else get this?

My general understanding is that Visa is more widely accepted than Mastercard, so this is generally a bad thing.

Anybody know why they're doing this? Is everybody affected, or just me?

Anybody else getting switched over? What are your thoughts on the matter?
Definitely not just you. If they're switching a product over to a new issuer eventually everyone with the product will be switched. I honestly don't care about a switch, visa and mc are accepted everywhere I use it. Nowhere I've been to accepts one and not the other. There's no reason to think that you're the only one being switched, you're not special.
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Old Aug 15, 2015, 9:38 pm
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This could spell the end of all current holders of Citi Forward 5X VISA....
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Old Aug 16, 2015, 8:12 am
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Originally Posted by neutralist
This could spell the end of all current holders of Citi Forward 5X VISA....
Exactly which types of cards is Citi switching Visa->MC?

AA: Yes.
HH: No hint yet. New card offers are still for Visa only.
AT&T: Has always been an MC already.

Those are the only kinds of Citi cards I have (or have considered recently), so I 'm not familiar with what else they've converted. Someone else will have to add to the list.
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