llngoc

Before the September 22 change, I have always been using the concierge to help book and take advantage of the 4th night free benefit. I would search for the lowest price online from the hotel website and called in to walk through the booking with the agent.

Now with the new benefit, since we can only book through Thankyou.com, I have been trying to price a few stays at the high end hotels and is finding that the pricing on Thankyou.com seems to be higher than even the hotel's own site most of the time. For most 4 nights stay I quoted at around $500-600 per night, my end saving is only about $200 when compared to booking else where. Especially considered that if I booked through Amex FHR, I can get late checkout and breakfast for two (which is at least $50-80 per day in a high end hotel for two) and sometimes even get a room upgrade. Is Citi inflating their per night stay pricing somehow?

I find the 4th night free benefit pays for itself until now and if this price discrepancy is true, this is no longer a compelling benefit for the Prestige card. (However, I still need to keep it for the 5x dining until another 5x dining card comes along)

Do you have the same experience with thankyou.com's hotel pricing?

akr1970akr

You have to check pretty carefully to make sure that the 4NF is really a benefit to you, esp considering the drawbacks, if you are staying at a major loyalty chain place.

I find the bigger issue is the narrow selection, which is an issue for all the bank portals.

Some resort areas, which might have 80+ properties available through their local central reservations, might only show 15 or so on the various bank portals / OTAs.

That is the bigger long term problem (for me).

Although I can probably extract some value out of the 4NF next year, I don't value the benefit very much anymore going forward, and will most likely cancel the Prestige unless we get some decent retention offer. The loss of the ancillary benefits - and so far no replacement - is also crazy for a putative 'travel' card.

dkerr

Be sure to check what taxes and fees are included. As booking with ThankYou.com is pre-pay I expect that taxes are included, whereas booking at a hotel website for payment at checkout may only quote the base room rate excluding taxes. Irrespective of this, be sure to check Ts&Cs as you may not be eligible for elite benefits if not booked at the hotel website.

llngoc

I plan to use it only for non-loyalty international luxury bookings like Aman or Four Seasons. At least it seems like the price is not inflated and matches the flex rate from the hotel's website and the price is usually high enough that one booking's saving is enough for 2-3 years' AF. :-) For most of the domestic bookings, I would not use this benefit as the price is not really competitive and the savings is not that great.