mangoMan

Data point: My wife and I have a joint Citi Gold account and are in CA. Did not receive any targeting email. I was not able to register for the CG subscription program using my credentials, but had success with my wife's credentials. $200 towards Costco and Amazon Prime? Yes please!

yugi

I didn't get invitation, but I registered and received confirmation


Then I received monthly update:





yes, you can renew your costco membership online.

yugi

I received this benefit for both myself and my wife. We have linked Citigold accounts.

akr1970akr

So are you getting 2 x $200 benefits? Awesome if so!

yugi

Yes, I'm planning to get Amazon prime and Costco membership.

treshie

This Citigold rebate program is for targeted Citigold clients only. Citigold clients who were not targeted should not even know about this program. Your RM knows about this because this kind of program requires them to attend training. So he is probably just pretending to know nothing since they have strict order not to disclosed this to clients who are not targeted. At least when I called my RM and asked him about this rebate program, he told me I was not targeted but they are actively rolling out to eligible Citigold clients and I will be automatically emailed once I have been targeted. Though I'm almost 100% sure I won't be targeted. Maybe if they are making a lot of money out of me that is the only time I will be targeted

akr1970akr

Well, almost by definition if one is CG they ought to be making some money off that customer category.

Its only their own fault that they have allowed a few back doors into CG that do not make them any money.

And on the flip side they have hosed some customers who were induced to get / keep CG status by taking out mortgages....and then later deciding that those were non qualifying balances.

My RM knew nothing about the program, disavowed its existence, and instead suggested I refi my house with him. (awesome!)

We did get the offer to show up on another account though, and in theory it was triggered a few days ago, but I have not seen any mail/credit show up yet. So we'll see what happens.

mikesyr18

Citi hosed anyone with a balance of $50,000 or more in investment and checking account balances by upping the minimum to $200,000 - regardless if they have a mortgage with Citi or not.

But then again, what financially savvy person takes out a mortgage through a bank? Credit unions offer lower rates, fees, and better service.

Citi's goal was to significantly reduce the total number of Citigold customers to provide better service (in my opinion) - although Priority customers should at least have access to the same level of customer service and ATM fee rebates (which they don't).

gutenmorgan

It’s funny, Citi sent me a letter that they were downgrading me from the private bank to a standard non-citigold account and I briefly considered my options. Literally couldn’t think of a reason to try and stay at citigold level—they tie up a ton of cash for low interest. By contrast, went to hsbc premiere which gives me a $750 bonus purely for using direct deposit, offers me a high yield savings of 2.25%, has greater international presence and at least locally, has a branch 50 feet from citi’s. Absolute no brainer. Called citi to tell them tonight and of course private banking rep said my account doesn’t even include a notation that the downgrade is happening. It’s been a good 15 year run but I’m excited by the change.

phant0m

If they had a High Yield Savings I would probably keep it at CitiGold for the subscription and annual fee benefits. Other than that, I don't see any advantages over what Schwab offers for free.

gutenmorgan

Yeah, and my Citi Private account actually didn't include some of what sound like CitiGold benefits (subscription, reasonable interest rate, etc.). Presumably it included things I wasn't even thinking to ask for/take advantage of (being content with the "everything free and great support" perks).

akr1970akr

Service packages can be different in different countries,even cities within a nation e.g. NYC gets a much higher level of CitiGold perks than Bumbleskrump USA.

If one is trying a new competing high level bank product, I'd run them both in a parallel for a while to make sure everything works as you are expecting.

I got a couple incoming wire fees waived in the last few days (not even sure why those would be charged normally) thanks to CG.

And fwiw, as mentioned upthread, we're now getting Amazon Prime for 'free'.

At least we use the heck out of that.

I think we had 150+ shipments YTD from them.

And God knows how much digital stuff the kids buy on their Kindles.

themicah

I have Private Bank status through my employer and I have fees waived entirely for wire transfers, cashier's checks, money orders, checkbook refills,etc. I don't use those things very often, but when I do it's nice not to pay fees for them. And having the ability to send a free same-day wire transfer to anyone in the world using the Citi website is pretty great. I've used the wire transfer function to fund investment accounts for new-account bonuses, to pay my contractor when we renovated our home, to buy a car from hertzcarsales.com, to help my sister refund a former roommate's apartment security deposit after the roommate moved back to Europe, etc. I also once used a free cashier's check to pay someone who wanted a paper check when I left my checkbook at home but was near a Citi branch. Kind of stupid, but it allowed me to hand that person a check and cross it off my to-do list.

I don't know how many of these are CG perks and how many are PB-specific.

I don't seem to be eligible for free Amazon Prime, though.

gutenmorgan

^^^^^ This basically describes my own experiences/point of entry. seems like the private bank perks are more purely financial/convenience oriented (aside from the abysmal savings account interest rates) than some of the citigold bells and whistles (amazon prime etc.). Anyway, HSBC premier seems to offer the same financial perks, so we'll see! Might be less of a difference between citi private v hsbc premier than citigold v same. (though for a several-year period my ATM goodbye screen used to thank me for being a citigold member despite my always having been private only)

mia

HSBC Premier (USA) will not consistently pay competitive interest. They offer promotions for "new money". You will need to cycle out/back to qualify.