Has anyone been asked to send an image of the 65K offer to [email protected]? I was told to do that by the chat agent to match.

Went on chat today to ask for a 5k match (60k offer to match 65k offer). The agent asked me if the offer was received via mail and addressed to me. I replied that I had seen it online on a website. The agent said they can only match offers sent specifically to me and sent by mail. I even asked if there was another department she could submit it to, but she said no.

So I'll try HUCA. Maybe if I chat in the evening it will go better.

Citi is so weird. Whenever I call in after applying and they put me on hold for 10 minutes, they always seem more concerned with verifying my address/phone number/identity than asking why I have like 40 cards on my credit report or like 12 of the same Citi AA card. After being put on hold, I always think they're going to come back after reviewing my application, in some accusatory tone, "why do you need this card for the 12th time", but they always just want me to prove I'm not some fraudster. I'm always trying to think of BS reasons to explain why I need the card for the 12th time in case an agent ever actually asks me that question.

Same here. Took 2 tries for me to get an agent to send the 5k match request. However, for my wife, no luck after three HUCAs.

To each his/her own, but to me it's not worth the humiliation for 5K miles.

I'm getting to the same point...tried via chat yesterday and was given a phone # to call. For a measly 5K, I didn't bother again.

Has anyone been able to close a card using chat recently? I was able to do it a few months ago, but not any more.

I think it is pretty clear that Citi knows exactly what is going on with mailers and for whatever reason wants it to continue. That said, it seems that they periodically adjust things to loosen or tighten the process in order to maintain a stream of new applications within some range. The fraud/identity stuff appears to me to be a CYA thing either for regulators, insurance, or some internal audit staff. AFAIK, the only people who get the identity treatment are those of us who are repeatedly applying for these cards.

I can see some middle manager at Citi deciding it looks better on their quarterly numbers to show how many applications they've received for this card and they simply don't care about the 60k miles. Maybe they get them SO CHEAP from AA that they don't care? Maybe Citi knows AA is going to devalue their miles to be worth less than a penny in coming months? Maybe they really want to stick it to Barclay by having 23458945 more AA cardmembers than them? Maybe they are going to one day decide to claw back all the miles from these mailers en-masse? I really can't understand what's going on. There is no way Citi doesn't know what's going on. But they don't seem to care. Meanwhile, Chase instituted 5/24 on cobranded cards and would shut down ALL of your Chase cards if they found you applying for too many cards. I'm fascinated by how Chase and Citi have taken such opposite approaches here.

I strongly suspect that incentives are misaligned somewhere. This is actually not uncommon. It can either be because a particular org's KPIs are misaligned with what's best for the company (eg, they are judged on number of new cards, rather than overall profitability) or the company wants to put forth certain numbers to investors (I've certainly seen mind-boggling profit / margin tradeoffs at companies, where a company refuses a large stream of profit because the margin is too low, and the story about the company that that want to tell is based on margin, not earnings)

I agree; there is no way they don't know what's going on though. It's posted about on FT, reddit, various blogs, and presumably other public message boards. It's not a secret.

This is truly not difficult to understand. Credit card issuers bundle and sell the card credit lines, same as mortgages, auto loans etc. Citi makes money when they sell these securities, and more money for servicing the card accounts afterwards. To make the securities marketable they need cardholders with high FICO scores -and- they need other cardholders who pay interest. We are the high FICO component.

https://www.citigroup.com/citi/fixedincome/cccs_mtf.htm

Why has Chase taken the opposite approach with regard to 5/24 and its cobranded cards?

I do not know specifically, but Chase and Citi are very different businesses, and they pursue different strategies.

Chase has an extensive domestic branch network, but no significant consumer presence outside the USA. Chase's card business was largely built through acquisition, and they issue cards for a wide number of co-brand partners.

Citi operates branches in many countries, but their USA retail presence is spotty. Citi's credit card business is largely home grown. They have only a few co-brand partners, and they issue worldwide.

Either way, something somewhere is broken. If it's not at Citi then it's on the side of the people who buy Citi's securities. It is not possible for this to be increasing real value, so it's just increasing perceived value, and someone's perception is wrong.