Any Citi Prestige Holders Receive (or not Receive) 5 Points Per $ for Expedia, etc.
 

Jus checking to make sure that people have received their 5% for bookings made on Expedia, Travelocity, etc. where the charge was not made in the name of an airline?

Anyone get the 5 points (or, alternatively, not get the 5 points)?

I can't specifically attest to the Expedia family of sites, but every OTA I've booked through thus far has received the 5X as expected.

If it codes as a travel agency, you will get 5X. If you don't yet have Prestige, but do have another Citi Mastercard of some sort, you can easily check how the site codes by making some kind of refundable booking and checking how the charge coded immediately on the list of pending charges. Hopefully that can then help you decide if you would benefit from getting the card.

I'd kind of forgotten about how exactly that benefit works.

I already have the Prestige card. I see that Expedia charges code as "Travel Agency and Tour Operators." My concern is that the 5 points for travel agents is not headlined on the information pages - but only appears in the fine print. So makes me a bit suspicious. For example, this page: information.citi.com/prestige/intro highlights 5% for air and restaurants, but the 5 points for travel agents only appears in footnote 1.

Rest assured, you'll definitely get the 5X in that case! All my OTA charges also were coded exactly as that and got 5X.

Great!

It's strange the way they hide the travel agency benefit. E.G., this page for new applicants: http://www.citi.com/credit-cards/cre...-prestige-card mentions 5X points for Air Travel and Restaurants, 3X for hotels and cruises, and 1X for everything else. It's only when you click on the footnote and land on this fine print page: http://www.citi.com/credit-cards/add...o-CitiPrestige the 5X for travel agencies is mentioned.

Maybe they plan on purging the benefit at some point. It is a pretty good one especially with OTA coupons and/or other portals (ebates etc.)

On the Premier their documentation only states one gets the 1.25 cpp for portal bookings on air travel, but (for now) it also extends to hotel bookings.

I suspect they have left that hotel booking benefit out because they plan on cutting that at some point, and want the leeway to do so, if it's not in the stated Terms & Conditions.

Removing an off label benefit is easier than taking a formal one away.....

That's my guess as well, so I'm just going to enjoy it while it lasts (hopefully "forever"). I'll probably hang onto my Sapphire Reserve for another year to hedge my bets, in case they do ruin the Prestige and/or Premier.

Why are we concerned about this now? Prestige has included agencies in its travel bonus category since 2014.

I think people are wondering about the 5x on travel agencies today. That seems a little awesome, yet poorly mentioned, which causes concern. It could also be like the FNBO TravelElite, or PenFed Pathfinder, where they don't want to oversell some benefits, and stoke further usage.

There have been so many tweaks to Prestige over the years, that its hard to rely on or trust anything they say.

Just enjoy it while it lasts.

For those who are Costco members, they can have some pretty good deals at their travel agency, but note that some bookings don't code up as TA but as direct bookings with the actual provider.

Citi does have a tinkering culture, with a good track record of announcing changes well in advance. If they were going to remove travel agencies from a bonus category it would have happened during the most recent Prestige refresh.

Yes, absolutely!

On the Prestige website it states: 5 "ThankYou Points for each $1 spent on purchases at airlines and travel agencies." What is considered a travel agency? My question, if I book airfare on expedia, is that considered a travel agency for which I would receive 5x?

Similarly, for hotels, if I book thru Expedia, should I expect 5x even if at the end the billing party is the hotel?

Usually when airfare is purchased from expedia it shows up as if the airline is the biller / invoicing company instead of Expedia thus making it seem as if the airfare was purchased directly from the airline. In this instance, should I expect 5x? My thinking is I should because 5x is offered when airfare is purchased from either a) a travel agency; or b) an airline directly.

I have both the Citi Premier and the Citi Prestige. Recently (in the last few months, I think), the Premier (online) started showing the Reward Points earned per charge when the transaction posts.

The Prestige doesn't do this. I had to look at the downloaded PDF statement and even there they just aggregate the transactions in the broad categories and total points earned in each. They don't break it down on a per charge basis, unfortunately.

5x at Restaurants 369
5x on Air Travel 760
3x on Cruise Lines 588
1x on Other Purchases 17