Citi PremierPass
 

I was wondering if anyone has this card or has applied for it? From what I know, it says you can get 15000 points after your first purchase? I have seen ads for this card lately, and I think even on Ft.

I’m interested in applying for this card, so any feedback would be appreciated…

Btw, I’m not sure if this is the right place to ask, if not please move it…

Thanks

You don't actually get miles, you get points in their program which you can redeem for flights. This effectively results in double-dipping, as you still get your standard FF miles in addition to the 1 point per 3 miles (and the 1 point per dollar). The unlimited companion tickets look nice if you do a lot of domestic flying. They claim the points can be redeemed on any airline, and have no maximum ticket value, so if they actually pull through, it looks pretty darn good.

My mistake, its actually 15000 points after your first purchase…

http://www.citibank.com/us/cards/car...lite/index.jsp

From looking at the site, its seems to me like a good card to have.....

Does anyone know if either the award tickets or companion tickets are upgradeable? They seem to be a different beast from airline-issues awards, so I'm wondering if they use actual revenue booking codes.

Have the card and received the 15k points after first purchase. Consolidated points from other citi cards but have not tried to book travel yet.

What do you mean? I have the Citi Dividends card - you think I would be able to tranfer my dividends points?

The travel company that Citibank uses for flight redemption is very close to being a scam.

It's extremely difficult to redeem a ticket that you want if it's an expensive ticket for them since it's a paid ticket.

Get ready to have your blood boil as they'll want to book you on a flight that is the cheapest for them to book.

They will say they have no award availability - even though it's a paid ticket and the airline has plenty of seats.

I feel very sorry for the telemarketers that answer the phone - their morale is very low since customers become very irate with how difficult it is to redeem a ticket.

Also be aware they'll charge you more in taxes than what they're supposed to.

Both an award ticket and a companion pass ticket are upgradeable since it's listed as a paid ticket.

Be aware for the companion pass they will try very hard to book you in a higher fare bucket than the minimum for the 2 for 1 program and add pseudo taxes.

Higher rates and interest
 

I inquired about the card as well. My wife and I have a Citi Diamond card we have had for about 10 years, and while we don't get any rewards or points on it, we do have a very low rate and no annual fee. The rates on this were prime + 8%, no fee for the first year, then $90 a year thereafter. Seemed a little high. We don't carry over balances, but considering the difficulty getting reward tickets, this definately makes up my mind.

It helps to have specific airline fares (by going to your airline website) in front of you so you can browbeat their agency into giving you the fare when booking the companion pass. Otherwise, you're a sitting duck to be price gauged.

purchase points vs. flight points
 

I just received my no annual fee PremierPass card and found there's a catch in the fine print. When you redeem the points you get from flying (flight points), you have to at least spend equal amount of purchase points(earned through purchases). For example, a domestic ticket requires 25k points and only up to 12.5k points can be flight points. The rest has to be purchase points.

Right - this has been discussed in detail in the credit card section of FT.

IF you can put 100K of purchases on the card and of those purchases 100K worth of flying is included, this could be a pretty good deal.

If you were to redeem the 200K points for 8 domestic tickets at an average value of $300 each then you just got yourself $2400 of value back from $100K spending. Not bad. If redeeming for more pricey tickets you could do even better.

The challenge is being able to redeem the tickets for an airline you choose.

I've redeemed two different international awards and it's a tough battle with their travel agency.