dgordon

I just realized from looking at my credit card statement that I actually got the points posted before I took my trip. Somehow that departure date on the statement is dowm as the actual purchase date. I flew on August 19th, return 22nd. The statement ends the 18th, and both legs had points posted with departure date given as 6/23 - which is the date I purchased the tickets.

kiam

When you first open a new citigold account, you might have to pick one card, then after the account is fully opened and funded and you have more cards that you want annual fees to be waived, just make sure they are linked to your CitiGold and the fees will be waived for all cards as long as annual fee of each card does not exceed 85 USD (or 95 for Diners Club).

dgordon

I think you are right, since each card doesn't ask what other cards you have. In fact, you can apply and get whatever bonuses there are, and when the fee hits, call citigold and say that the fee is suppose to be waived and it wasn't. So, far that has worked. With Diner's you can also get secondary cards at no fee instead of the usual $35 for each card.

happyvoid

Any perks or bonuses for opening a citigold account? Anyone tried upgrading from a regular checking to citigold account?

kiam

That is the bad part about CitiGold US, there is no promotional offer at all, nor for referals. However, I still believe it is worth it with all the little perks I got.

When I opened mine back in Oct 2004, I upgraded from regular to CitiGold and the process was still quite painful. However, now they have online application system for CitiGold (last year they did not), so it should be much smoother now. They also have a link for those who are alrady citibank customers, this should make this application online even easier.

Visit this link.

http://www.citibank.com/us/cbna/citigold/

When I did was getting a AA Premium Debit Card first for the 4K bonus mile, once that is posted, then I changed it to ThankYou Debit Card for instant 900-1200 points per month without even having to spend on the card.

For credit card, choose one available on the list if you want to have one(subject to credit check) but if you don't want any, it is not required. Then once CitiGold account is fully opened, you can link the other annual fee citi cards (e..g Premier Pass Elite) you have in order to get the fee waived annually. I don't understand why this process cannot done during application. Maybe we have to wait for one more year for them to improve the application system.

If you have quite an amount of money put in Savings account all the time, open an e-savings account right after your CitiGold account is opened which gives you above 3% APR (default savings account for CitiGold is called Super Yield Money Market which gives only 2.something % APR). However, this e-savings requires another full blown online account application process (with another checking account). Once these 2 new accounts are opened, call CitiGold and close the new checking and link the e-savings to your citigold.

Don't forget, to avoid monthly service fee, min balance required is

100,000 or more in eligible deposits, credit balances, investments and retirement accounts OR
250,000 if you also include a first mortgage from Citibank.


Hope this helps.

dgordon

I think that the savings on credit cards is worth everything. I think when I first opened my citigold several years ago there might have been some mileage bonuses - they did for regular checking accounts, but my branch was new so I'm not sure. When I first opened the account, there was an annual fee of $125, then reduced to $95, then eliminated completely. So view that as a bonus. With the credit cards - first apply for an aadvantage card with the bonuses - some offer 15K. After you get the card and your bonus, then call citigold saying that you understood that the fee is waived because you are citigold. Do the same with the premier plus card - first get the 15K bonus (applying online), after fee posts call, and the fee will be reversed. For Diner's Club, there may still be the bonus of 12K for the year. For that there used to be a referral bonus, but their points would be 1000 per month, so I ended up paying the first year, got a 5K retention bonus for the second year, and then got the second year fee reversed. You won't get those points if the fee is waived, so you have to decide which is more important. I think it is worth having all three cards. Diner's Club is great for car rentals (primary insurance) and their restaurant program which provides a percentage off, and you can consolidate miles because you can transfer in - even from other people's accounts such as husband and daughter (I have secondary accounts for them (fee waived), not sure if this is a prerequisite) and was then able to take advantage of double points offer with BA when they had it. The aadvantage card is worth having as the select card allows a 7500 reduction in award tickets each quarter for particlar cities. The premier pass card I use to charge my plane tickets to get those extra flight points, and for supermarkets and gas stations because you get double points for that. I actually use my AMEX starpoints card even though it has a $30 fee after the first free year because I think starpoints are very valuable. If I have to use a master card, my first choice is my aadvantage card, as I don't like the fact that DC charges a fee to transfer to an airline. If they ever get rid of that fee, since it is now cobranded MC, I would probably use it more. You have, I think 6 months, to get the minimum in the bank. Also retirement accounts count, so if you have an IRA or Keogh sitting somewhere anyway, that is a good way to meet the minimum.

kiam

Plus they reimburse 75 USD for each asset transfer from your other brokerage accounts even if those accounts did not charge you (no need to tell them that)... When I transferred my stocks into CitiGold, one account charged me 60 USD and one was free, CitiGold reimbursed me 150 USD total. Isn't that great?

And correct, you have 6 months to fund 100K. And I agree with the idea of transferring your IRA to CitiGold as that will likely make you meet the minimum without having to do anything and still enjoy the benefits of CitiGold.

maulah

With all these Citigold benefits, you also get free bill payment service linked to your checking account. When I first opened my checking account there was a promotion of $200. So far I got $100. The rest I will get after six months.

However there is one thing that is worth mentioning. Initially I also wanted to transfer my brokerage account but Citibank brokerage customer service is pathetic. I have had brokerage accounts in Ameritrade, etrade, tdwaterhouse and on and on to take advantage of mileage promotions but no body comes even close to fidelity. They pamper you, spoil you and set the bar so high that I cannot imagine moving my assets anywhere else. There has never been a waiting period more than 1 min, 24/7 serivce and very competent and knowledgeable people.

kiam

Hate to go off the topic of OP again... I am sorry, Moderator !

Btw, agreed with you on Fidelity, that is why I still have some assets there. They are VERY GOOD. Can't help losing being their customer.

For the 200 USD Bonus, yes, you will get it.....I got it (TWICE) prior to migrating to CitiGold.

dgordon

My transfers took place a couple of years ago. I will find out why that was never mentioned.

Family flyer

I scrolled through many of the posts and didn't see a dollar cap on award tickets. If there isn't a cap, this card appears to be an excellent way to get award tickets to difficult destinations like Hawaii. And since you get miles for flying, you wouldn't actually need to charge $35K for each Hawaii ticket.

dolmar

There used to be a referal bonus years ago on US based Citigold account. When I opened my account back in 1996 they used to give you $200 saks gift card for ever person you refered to Citigold who opened an account. This promo was valid in Los Angeles. I know from time to time there have been other offers not sure if there is one going now or not tho. I orginally got a Citigold account because I got a mortage with Citibank over $250K and there benfits looked nice. They will let you household account to meet the requirements too. Ie my account is householded with my brothers and parrents and 1 aunt and 1 uncle and even my grandparrents. So by linking your account to your family members it really should not be hard to meet the $100K balance requirement. All of our account are 100% independant of each other. I do not know or see other account info on my statement or on my ATM card.

I posted in the other thread about there fee's and befits and i will post it here again just to make sure people see it.

There have tier above 100K lvl for Citigold depending on what tier you are will depend if they waive or give you any other benfits above the standard Citigold benfits. On my statement on page 1 there is a section called rates and charges under there for example my account says "Your Combined Balance Range $2,000,000 - $5,000,000" goes on to say "Rates Preferred" "Monthly Serice Charge None"

I personally do not have anywhere near $2,000,000 in my account but I think that number is the combined ballances in all the account householded. I know for me they will rebate all ATM charges even the non citibank atm charges. They also give me free "Voucher Checks" that work great for Quicken ie 1 check on top with the 2 stubs. I use Quicken online via Citibank and they waive the $9.99 fee. Quicken downloads all my bank and credit account with 1 step update. I also pay all my bills from inside of Quicken and can even move money between account all from inside of Quicken. They also give me free outgoing wire transfers and charge me reduced fee on stock trades based on the tier i am in. Stupid as this may sound I have a Smith Barney FMA + account and Smith Barney really nickle and dimes you they will not waive the annual fee on there rewards credit card for me on an ongoing bais but I called Citigold and asked if they could and sure enough there where able to get the fee waived for me on an on going bais. It seems they can waive the fees on any Citibank SD issued card under $125 dollars reason i say $125 is I have one of the older Citibank AA private select visa cards with no millage cap that charges an annual fee of $125 a year and they have been waiving the fee now for me. I once asked if they could waive the fee on Carte Blanche or Chairman card i was told they could waive the fee on either one of thoses two card. And they could not even waive a portion of the fee for the Chairman card like Smith Barney is able to do even with $100 credit on annual fee i think if you have Diners Club + Citi PremierPass Card - Elite Level then you basically have most of the benfits of the chairman card for free anyways so the even at the reduced $300 annual fee it not that great of a deal.

neophyte

Citigold is a mysterious product, indeed.

They don't list detailed term and conditions on their site, some people get reduced brokerage commissions and some don't.

I do have the second-highest "Everything Counts" account which requires minimum 10K cash or 20K cash + debit.

Citigold has now this on their site:

Reduced equity commissions for online trading under "Investment privileges" tab, but nothing spelled out. So I dialed Citigold once again and once again could get nothing but rumbling out of their agent. I'll double-check tomorrow, but he said that "reduced" online commissions are $24.95 (as opposite to regular Cititrade online commissions of $24.95)

My thinking is: I'd be happy to park 100K with Citi and max out Rewards and get all credit card goodies, but I don't have idle 100K - I need to do some trading, and even at 50 trades per year it will cost me about $750 more vs Ameritrade or Power E*Trade of Fidelity Gold.

dolmar

Well just so you know i pay $9.95 for online trades done at Citibank.com and on Smithbarney.com i pay 24.99 + commssion. I never buy stocks from Smith Barney anyways I have 3 managed money accounts with 3 differnt money managers. Then I have my personally stock account where I pick my own stocks at Citibank.com.

I do not know if you need 200K or 500K or 1million tho to get stock trades as low as $9.95 or if they have anyother price points. Also between my family we have 3 Citibank mortages too so not sure if that plays a big role too or not. Remember Citibank is make money off the mortaged we have with them. CitiGold is run like a private bank. And it seems you account is put on analysis to see what above the normal benfits or fee structure they can offer you.

Best bet i think is for you talk to guy at your local branch who helps you to see what he can do if anything.

P.S. Citibank have a account called E-Saving account that pays 3.25% so parking 100K is not so painfull.

dgordon

I think it may make a difference if you have a relationship at a branch and talk to your personal banker. I don't use my account to trade - have transferred my retirement accounts and divided those up but I don't actually trade so it hasn't come up. But the negotiaitions you want would be better handled in person at a branch speaking to the branch manager, or your assigned personal banker, etc.