Citi Forward accounts being converted to Citi Preferred MasterCard on January 3, 2018
 

For those who still hold the (discontinued) Citi Forward card, Citi will be converting these accounts to Citi Preferred cards on January 3, 2018 which will include the following changes:

• The ThankYou bonus points categories will change to the current Citi Preferred categories, which were already very similar after the June 4, 2016 devaluation
• The 100 points bonus for paying on time and staying under your credit limit will be eliminated

The question now is whether the product change to Citi Preferred will restart the 24-month clock on sign up bonuses for the Citi ThankYou family of cards. Based on what I've been able to find I think the answer may be yes:

• Citi confirmed we will receive a new account number, which according to this article* will be considered a new account and reset the 24-month clock
• Proactively closing your Citi Forward card before January 3, 2018 may not prevent the 24-month clock from restarting based on this post in another thread saying Citi denied a sign up bonus for a Citi ThankYou family of cards because of a closed Citi Forward card.

*The comments section of the article cites a situation where an automated card number switch did not trigger the 24-month clock, however the example given was an AA Plat card being converted from Visa to Mastercard so it wasn't a change from one product to another.

I have not called Citi customer service as a suspect their answer will be inconsistent and/or may prove incorrect in practice so we will just have to wait until next year.

I received the notice as well. I closed the card since they wouldn't let me convert to something else nor move the CL. I already have a no fee CTY Premier so I the Preferred would just be an inferior product that I'd never use. RIP Forward, I'll always remember our fond moments getting 5% back at Amazon and restaurants...

Will do the same thing tomorrow. My wife and I have no need for a 2nd Preferred that we use 1-2 times a year.

Early on 4/2016 I used my Premier card to use most of my points on trips and cancelled it on 4/30. Also 6/2016 I quit using my Forward because of the changes so I only have ~200 points left on my Forward card.

According to the announcement (and b/c the replacement is from V to MC), the new Preferred card will have a new account number. So there's no way to prevent restarting the 24 month clock, correct?
In that case, I'd also prefer closing the Forward account.

Will that also mess up 5/24 as well?

It's just bad news all around. The only reason I was holding on to my Forward was because I was charging a nominal amount every month to get the 100 TY points benefit (...and b/c I couldn't product change to anything else). With the TY Preferred there's just nothing to write home about. I'm not too invested in the TY points system, but since I pay no fee for the TY premier and I also have an old Citi Professional with a good CL I'm going to keep hanging on. They've also been steadily adding transfer partners, which could eventually make TY points a bit more valuable for me.

+1 I am sad to see those benefits go. No rotating categories, and fairly valuable points.

I've had this card for a while, and I get new cards. I'd rather keep it for the credit history, or maybe balance transfers or bonus spend offers.

When the clock is going to restart? Also I've seen no mention of Citi Forward in Citi signup bonuses:
I successfully received signup bonus on Prestige even I had opened AT&T Access More in the last 24 months. So I think it's better to cancel. But I'm planning to downgrade my first Prestige in December after I'll receive my next year's $250 reimbursement.
This is also the end of my 202 ppd run. I was loading 50 cents to Amazon every month, after they gutted the card.

I currently have a TY Preferred card and it is a Visa, my Forward is also a Visa so I was confused why we would get a new card number but the announcement says that's the case. Is the Preferred now issued as a MC?

Yes. Citi is currently issuing all of their own brand cards on MasterCard network only. Co-branded cards (e.g. Costco) may be different.

I'll miss this card, though of course I haven't actively used it since the 5x categories went away. I definitely remember stacking that with the 1.6 cent valuation for AA flights for 8 percent back.

I don't need another TYP card, so I'll convert to the Double Cash just to keep the account around since mine is quite old and a CSR confirmed that I could do that. Thankfully Citi generally lets you product change between product families, though they don't have very many cards anymore.

I wonder if it would be possible to do the conversion to Double Cash BEFORE they convert it to the Preferred card. This would possibly eliminate the potential for them to consider the conversion to a Thank You card as a new account, thereby resetting the 24 month timer for cards in the TY family (affects eligibility for sign-up bonuses).

The forward is my only CITI card (opened over 7 years ago), so with this announcement, does it mean that I wouldn't be able to able for either the Premiere or Prestige card to obtain the sign up bonus?

The comment in Post 9 above is encouraging, but the only way to know is wait for data points or report your own.