frudd38

Anybody cancel within 37 days of annual fee post date for a refund lately? Wondering if anything has changed for this card in particular

CashRevert

any guess of when bonus points offer would be up again?

heard citi said on their earnings call they're going to cut down incentives....

FZD

No signup bonus at all for the Prestige right now?

VegasGambler

Just to close the loop on this, after dealing with incompetent / unhelpful / completely useless CS reps for 2 weeks, and never actually getting a card, I closed my account.

• I applied and was immediately approved. The confirmation screen said that my card would be sent to me by fedex.
• I immediately called them to tell them that I would be unable to receive fedex packages at my home address. They told me that they couldn't do anything yet, but to call customer service in 2-3 days once my application had been turned into an account, and they would be able to change the address.
• I called back a couple of days later and they said that my card had been sent by fedex and they were unable to change the address. I explained that I wouldn't be able to receive it, and they said they couldn't do anything about it.
• I called back a few days after that and they said that the card was being sent to me by regular mail (not fedex). I asked them to check their records, since I had been told fedex on multiple occasions. After checking, they found that it was sent by fedex and was being returned. I explained the situation with not being able to receive fedex packages and gave them my work address, and they said that they would overnight me a card to that address.
• I called back 3 days later (today) to explain that I had not gotten the card. They said that they see a request to overnight a card from 3 days ago, but that it had not been processed. I was then transferred to someone else.
• After being on hold for 10 minutes, the person that I was transferred to told me that she did not see a record of the 2nd card being requested. I explained that the last person that I talked to could see it. She said that she could put in another request to send me a card. I asked her to close my account instead.

Compare to my experience with getting the CSR (Chase):

• I applied online and was immediately approved
• They sent me the card via UPS.
• I called Chase to explain that would be unable to receive the card. A very knowledgeable and helpful CS agent did a change of delivery address with UPS and I had my card in my hands the next day.

In all honestly, regardless of the benefits, nothing is worth the cost of dealing with incompetent customer service. It ends up costing more time than it's worth. I'm sure that there are people who will disagree with this, and that's fine, but when you're selling a premium product, customer service is everything. This is something that Amex understands, and it's something that Chase understands in their attempt to lure clients away from the Amex platinum, and it's why most people don't know what the Citi Prestige card is, despite the benefit (which is quite valuable)

RobertHanson

Not to mention that you are probably one of the only 6 people who applied for this card in the last couple of months, due to the total lack of any sign up bonus. They apparently don't care if anyone gets one or not.

cchang4

Folks,

My $350 AF is up for paying. I am seriously debating whether I need to keep this card.
From point perspective, I think CSR is my ultimate goal since I travel UA almost exclusively. Even though I can redeem TYP for avianca, earning TYP is not as easy as Chase.

So, the better benefit left is only the 4th night free, which would earn more than $100 even if I use it once a year. The only problem is with little kids, staying in one place for 4 straight nights does not seem always a choice for me. In fact, I only used this benefits twice in the past two years.

On the other hand, the $100 effective AF after the 250 airline credit is low. I am wondering whether I missed anything important that can justify to keep this card. I called today and was provided no retention offer

I have a US bank altitude on the other hand, but I think I eventually gonna cancel it and replace it with Chase CSR.

danhouston

on the prestige's retention of $50 stmt credit for 7 mos, any DPs of when the credit does post? few days after the stmt close date, or a month after the stmt date? TIA

RobertHanson

In your case, it's effectively a no AF card. Yes, $350, but minus $250 for the airline statement credit, which covers mostly anything flight related, even taxes on award travel. Then you have been saving $100 a year on 4th night free. At which point you've got your whole $350 back. Keeping it open means: any TYPs you may still have don't expire, your 24 months from opening any TYPs card stays open to apply for a Premiere with the current 30K sign up, (which hopefully goes back up to 50K), and you keep the best Priority Pass card as well. Why would you cancel when it's not costing you anything, (other than the bookkeeping to offset the fee)?

RobertHanson

Make that Premier sign up bonus 50K, despite the fact that the only link in the FT Premiere thread is 30K.

cchang4

Thanks!

I was told that if I buy a mileage tickets, even UA tickets using UA mileage points, but paying fees with Prestige, I still get trip cancellation, delay protection etc benefits, can anybody confirm?

TIA

CarefulBuilder14

Delay protection, yes. Cancellation protection only for what you:
Charge to Prestige
Pay with TYs
Pay with miles that were once TYs.

So you'd lose the United miles. I keep a Hyatt card to use for taxes when I fly a Chase UR partner. It covers points and miles with UR partner awards, regardless of the origin of the miles.

This is according to CS reps for CSP and Prestige, and my reading of the benefit guides. In practice, coverage seems to vary, especially for things like mileage restocking fees.

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cchang4

Thank you so much! This makes more sense for me to keep the card since I just booked a few flights using prestige. At least I got the delay protection.

mia

Not necessarily. You would probably be able to redeposit the miles, but Citi's insurance would likely not reimburse the fee if they were UA miles.

mikesyr18

I understand your frustration. Unfortunately Citi will continue to be the laughing stock of the big banks until they get rid of the clown at the top (Corbat) and the VP's making the other decisions. To think Corbat can run anything is a huge mistake on the shareholder's part. Inside and out Citi is filled with stupid people. They can't even put a quality website together for Christ sakes. Anywhere where Citi can pay next to nothing, they'll do it. Just look at their customer services, reps, raising the bar for Citi Gold, letting Hilton go as a transfer and card partner, removing the AT&T Access and their 5% categories card, and the nerfing of their ThankYou cards, especially Prestige... They're just slowly taking away any reason to bank with them.

It's good that there's competitors who spend money so the customer experiences as a whole is better, i.e.: Chase, U.S Bank, and Bank of America.

RobertHanson

Actually, they didn't "raise the bar for Citi Gold", they somewhat clumsily changed the names of the programs, opening a higher level program using the Citi Gold name, and keeping the old Citi Gold program with a new name. So if you were Citi Gold before, you still are, except it's now called Citi Aluminum, or some such.

Considering the number of Citi cards, some with 100K sign up bonuses, I've gotten over the years, I'm glad they don't really have their game together. Far better than AMEX (once per seven years) or Chase (5/24) IMHO.