One thing you might want to look into is the Citi AT&T Universal Card. You get 5 points for every dollar spent at grocery stores, gas stations, and drug stores. These points will go into the same ThankYou Network account as the points for your PremierPass Elite card. Using that AT&T Universal card won't transfer your flight points from the PremierPass Elite card into your ThankYou account, but it will ensure that you are either earning 2 (1 flight + 1 spending point for your PPE) or 5 points (on the Universal card) for every purchase you make at a store.

And if you drop the PremierPass Elite, you might want to just get the PremierPass. That has no annual fee, and you get one flight point transferred for every 3 you spend. Plus an extra 10,000 points for signing up. :D

Get as many as those ThankYou cards as you want. You get the signup bonus on all of them.

Actually, the AT&T Universal Rewards card has not offered 5X ThankYou Points at gas stations, grocery stores, and drugstores for about 6 months now for new applicants (old applicants are still grandfathered in). They only offer 5X points on AT&T purchases. I know you may not believe me because when you go to the AT&T Website the initial page describes 5X points at gas, grocery, drugstores, but when you click apply and then terms and conditions you will see that only AT&T purchases apply.

I am glad to hear that. Thank you for the reply. :)

Really? That's what I get for being busy and not keeping up with all of this. Looks like I beat them restricting that one by a few weeks or days. :D

Citi PremierPass card not a SCAM, but be aware
 

As stated before, this is not a SCAM. However I consider this to be very unpolite and in my case, unacceptable.

If you carefully read the Terms and Conditions, you will find the following:

If you are approved for a Card Account, a ThankYouSM Network Member Account (“ThankYou Member Account”) will be set up for you. ThankYou Purchase Points post to your Card Account at the close of each billing cycle, and at that time are transferred to your ThankYou Member Account. ThankYou Flight Points post to your Card Account and will transfer at the close of each billing cycle to your ThankYou Member Account when we transfer, or have previously transferred, an equal or greater number of ThankYou Purchase Points. ThankYou Points are not eligible for redemption until they are transferred to your ThankYou Member Account.

That means what at this point we all know, no flight points if you don't spend (almost) the same amount in $$. You can fast forward that by buying 2X goods/services, however it's still spending a lot of $$.

The problem I find here is they don't expose that restriction in a straight forward manner. Even more, they mask it under "We will set-up a TY account" title and then mix Thank You purchase points with Thank You Points and Thank You flight points. Very confusing. When you write a paragraph, the first words are the most important and should be explained or substantiated by the rest of the text.

More over, this is way the most frequent deception on this card, and this cap is not stated in the FAQ.

There's anything free, read the T&C. Everyone knows that there's anything so good, but this is also masked when they correctly advertise the 200k points cap. Very clever. They didn't forget about anything.

I consider that they commited this on purpose. I think they are hiding this cap in a premeditated way.

Many people felt into this card without understanding this because it is not clear. If -many- people feels bad about this, then I think this should be considered deceptive marketing. I'd wonder how many cardmembers asked for a refund.

Consider me a stupid, but however I read the Terms and Conds; I also felt in this card without understanding this.

This is just my opinion. I'm not a lawyer and this is not an advice. Just what I think.

I won't forget. I will probably stay out from citicards for a long period of time.

PS: This is a card for travelers, however they charge 3% as a commision for goods purchased out of the country. AMEX charges 2%. Do the math.

as for the foreign exchange, my understanding is amex uses higher exchange rates, so the TOTAL cost to you is about 3%, or same as everyone else. they just make it look like its lower by lowering the "commission" and raising the "exchange rate"

Exchange Rate
 

I'll check and get back to the forum with that data.

Something that just worked great for me when I was in Grand Cayman...they charged me in USD instead of GCD -- so I bypassed the 3% conversion fee from Citibank...charged everything on m crad...earned a hell of a lot points,....


I will try that when I am in other places and see if ther merchant can charge me in USD instead of local currency and let us see what happens....

example of exchange rates from my last trip >

7/21 eu
atm 1.26
amex 1.29

7/25 gbp
atm 1.85
amex 1.89

AMEX is far better than Citicards for transactions in non-USD
 

Citibank PremierPass Elite full statement closing dec/15/2006:

11/27 AEROMEXICO CAPITAL FEDER ARG AR ,4,239.40 ARGENTINE PESO Standard Purch 1,388.83

11/27 Interbank exchange 1USD=3.078
Citibank convertion 1USD=3.052 (-0.85%)

11/28 GRUPO TACA CAPITAL FEDER ARG AR ,2,063.00 ARGENTINE PESO Standard Purch 675.84

11/28 Interbank exchange 1USD=3.8
Citibank convertion 1USD=3.052 (-0.91%)

12/15 12/15 00000000 PURCHASES*FINANCE CHARGE*FOREIGN TRANS Standard Purch 61.93

3% of $2064,67 = $61.94



According to Yahoo Finance December 15 (closing date) interbank exchange rate was 3.058. As is obvious by looking at the previous differences, Citibank exchange rate is applied on the closing date. Citibank applied 3.052 which is 0.2% less than interbank reported by Yahoo.

Citibank then charged 3% "Foreing Trans". Although it says "standard purch" I did not get any TY points for that charge.

Citibank totals a consistent 3.2% commision on the exchange rate.

American Express Purchases

Here we don't need the complete statement because they don't add a finance charge at the end.



11/16/06 MXP 599.00 USD56.53
RESTAURANTE CASA MANDARINA (CUERNAVACA)

11/15 Interbank Exchange Rate 1USD=10.8459
AMEX exchange rate 1USD=10.5961 (-2,30%)


12/11/06 MXP 1,004.40 USD94.56
F INN ACAPULCO ACAPULCO GUERRERO

11/11 Interbank Exchange Rate 1USD=10.8422
AMEX exchange rate 1USD=10.6218 (-2,03%)




As per what they say in the statement and we can see here, AMEX makes the conversion on the date they process the charge.

In the statement there's a specific note stating they make the conversion on the date the charge is processed by them or their agents (I'm not sure if that the same as "posted"). It also says that the exchange rate is the upper value published by any gov agency or the interbank exchange rate taken from "trusted" sources (not yahoo :)) on the day or the day before the conversion, incrementing it by 2%.

You get MR points for this commision.

AMEX totals a non-consistent 2.17% commision on the exchange rate. It's probably 2% depending on the rate sources.

CONCLUSION

Neither AMEX nor Citibank charge commision for purchases in USD out of the United States. Verified on transactions in Ecuador and Panama.

AMEX uses a conversion rate that you know and understand when you make your purchase. In some unstable countries, Citibank can surprise you with a huge price increment because they will convert it at the closing date instead of the date of purchase.

AMEX charges 2.15% commision over the rate while Citibank charges 3.2%. Even if Citibank gives you 2 TY points for every USD spent out of the country (supposing you have enough flight miles); that extra point value is $0.01 per each dollar and there's the 1% difference.

AMEX is far better for transactions out-of-the country.

You get points for the commisions.

I would use AMEX out of the US and the Citibank PPass in the US. The only reason I think I can use Citibank PPass outside the US is if I want to take advantage of the fixed points business class tickets.

AMEX is far better for transactions out-of-the country
 

Sorry, doble clicked

AMEX is far better for transactions out-of-the country
 

Oops, I did it again! (was very slow and hit space)

The best option is to use neither Amex nor Citi for non-USD purchases. There are 0% fx cards out there (see the big thread in MilesBuzz or the Wiki entry). I personally don't trust Amex. Generally they're in the 2.25% range but every once in a while I'll see a 5% or something like that (always in a non-major foreign currency).

Watch out! Some companies will charge you the foreign exchange fee even if you charge in USD. Effectively you will pay for exchange twice!

I second this. Most, if not all Capital One cards charge 0% with fair wholesale forex rates. Many credit unions charge only 1%. I haven't paid more than wholesale on a credit card in quite some time.