ChocolateFactory

From my experience, Citi agents get an similar error message and have no idea what is going on. They will just tell you that the partner system has rejected the transfer.

jspear

Agent after agent has told me that they cannot transfer the points manually. And like others, they say they've escalated the problem and will let me know when it has been solved and I never hear back. And also like others, I have wondered if my middle name and suffix (Jr) might be part of the problem, but my one successful transfer to Singapore occurred without using my middle name or suffix, which both appear in my Citi account. Flying Blue lists my name EAXACTLY the same as Citi has it and yet that failed too. BTW, I have Premier, Costco and Double Cash Citi cards.

Do others have success with asking support to transfer over the phone? Possible I've gotten a string of inept agents?

ChocolateFactory

I can’t imagine it’s related to middle names because I don’t have a middle name and transfers to Choice never worked for me. And as far as I know, all other data matched too. (It also didn’t really help that neither Citi nor Choice agents seemed to be aware of the partnership.)
Bur I’ve been able to transfer to Turkish without any issues.
Never had any such issues with Amex or Chase…

mia

Have you merged the Premier and Double Cash ThankYou accounts? When you attempt the Transfer you are choosing the Premier account?

If the telephone agents are also unable to make a transfer this is apparently a technical problem with your account, and Customer Service should connect you to technical support. If they are unwilling to do this, or if technical support cannot fix the problem I would file a CFPB report. This has the advantage of bringing the problem to the attention of a different set of people at Citi. This does not mean they must solve the problem, and the CFPB won't "investigate", it's just a way to get their attention. Make the complaint very simple, "Citi advertises the ability to transfer ThankYou Points to airline partners such as Turkish Airlines. When I attempt to use this feature it fails with an unhelpful error message. I have contacted Citi Customer Service N times about this error. Citi has not explained or fixed it. I know that other Citi customers are able to use this feature. I request that Citi's senior management investigate and repair my individual account and notify me, in writing, when I can make a Transfer."

https://www.consumerfinance.gov/complaint/

jspear

Very helpful, Mia. thank you. My accounts are merged into one balance. And I have tried initiating the transfer by first clicking on the Premier account, and then also by first clicking on the Double Cash account. Errors both ways.

By the way, I'm on hold with Citi yet again, and the agent wasn't even aware that transferring points was a possibility. She twice erroneously connected me to Citi's contracted travel department, who can book tickets with points but can't transfer them. She now knows this and is trying to get additional help. Such a lovely way to spend a Saturday. :-) 36 minutes and counting...

ChocolateFactory

My experience exactly. I also only have a Premier card...

mia

It's an oversimplification, but the most experienced staff probably do not choose to work nights, weekends or holidays.

jspear

Yes, quite possibly. Here's the latest. There may or may not be interesting nuggets of information here for folks, but I did learn a few things on this latest call:
* 45 minutes with Nicole and three Supervisors in Customer Care. None could get the transfer to work, they surmise there's a problem with my account (tho they can't explain the success of the SQ transfer), so transferred to tech. support.
* 10 minutes with [name unintelligible] who quickly tries to pawn me back off on Customer Case, but then he gets intrigued when I tell him about my transfer failure test with nine airlines. Still can't help, so it's back to Customer Care.
* Rupert picks up. Very empathetic and apologetic, but ultimately unsuccessful. Discussed the first name, last name, middle name, suffix question, and he says definitively that Citi only attempts to compare first name and last name, ignoring the rest. Says he will "file a report with the back office team." They usually take 5-10 days to reply, he tells me, but since my intended flight is in 5 days, he says he can try to expedite the matter to a 48-hour turnaround time. Got a case number.

jeffersun

no, not clear
clear

We also had no idea you had so many names. I would have surmised that it was a name mismatch, but again I'm not a mind reader. I did another transfer to VS, instant.

Tixoboy

Hmmm. FWIW, I am once again unable to transfer miles to Qatar Airways. This is so frustrating!

Tixoboy

Tried again this morning and my transfer went through, so I probably just hit one of their "maintenance windows".

esawka

I am attempting to transfer points from Citi to Avianca and am receiving this error:"When we tried to complete your Points Transfer, we encountered a system error. Please try again or contact Customer Service for help."

First and last name are the same on both accounts and I have multiple contact phone numbers on both profiles. Called customer service twice and both representatives said that they get the same error on their end... anyone have any tips or tricks on how to get this transfer to work? I have both a Double Cash + Premier card and the accounts on ThankYou are merged

MaxVO

With some TYP transfers it was necessary to add the airline prefix to your membership, e.g. AV#########
Give that a try.

esawka

That is a good idea, I attempted this but unfortunately it did not work. Called Citi customer service again and they said to try adding my middle initial to my LifeMiles account "just in case" that is the reason for the system error, so I sent a request over to LifeMiles support to do so.

esawka

Alright so I've done this and it didn't work, and then I have also added my middle initial to my LifeMiles account and it still is not working. Any other success stories?