Citibank Ultimate Savings Acct.
 

Well, I have all my banking at Citibank and wanted to put some savings into a CD, but I saw the ad on line for the "Ultimate Savings account."

I will let everyone know if there are any problems.

Do you know if there's a monthly fee for this account? The Package Details and Fees page doesn't list this account type in the fee schedule.

If cashflow is not a problem for you, it might be safe to charge up to $30K as the initial funding deposit.

However, I remembered Citi's terms is to keep the funding deposit for at least 30 (or more?) days in the account. So depending on your billing and statement cycles, you probably won't be able to "move" it and pay off the cc balance. I also recalled a deposit fund cap at $250 (or $500 or something..) from Creditcard. (Don't remember which bank it was. I opened too many bank accounts for miles/points over the years. :o ) So you might not be able to do the $30K thing.

Secondly, I recalled reading some posts that Citi either delayed or failed to pull the fund from the CC so it took much longer (for delayed incidents), or account never opened (for cc charge failure). (Read more from this thread: Earn 10,000 Aadvantage bonus miles)

Thirdly, some are not happy with how the India Banking Center is serving them.

If you think you can handle it after factoring in all these "disturbance," by all means, go ahead.

I think there are monthly fees, however, I already have other accounts with them so it is no problem for me because my combined balances cover all minimums.

Just called to ask what the difference is between esavings and ultimate. According to Citi, the only two differences are that Ultimate has a higher interest rate and esavings requires that you link a checking account. I asked her why anyone would choose esavings, she said she didn't see why anyone would. Also, there are no monthly fees. The note on the website (according to Citi) refers to the fees which might be incurred by a linked account. I wasn't the first to ask and the CSR noted that the website was badly worded.

Funding Ultimate Savings Account with a credit card?
 

is that considered a purchase and therfore earns miles/ponts or is it considered a cash advance and generates no miles/points?

if the card/issuer matters, i'd be using either Marriott Chase Visa, AA Citi Biz MC or Amex

What was the incorrect info that you edited out? You removed all reference to credit card funding from your post.

What did the ad for the Ultimate SAvings account offer?

Could you add some info to this post. I see someone else provided a link for an offer than ended in 2006.

What are they offering now? Ans what problems did you encounter or avoid?

Thanks.

When Citi first introduced Ultimate Savings, it was offering a 4.5% rate while E-Savings was still at 5%. Since then Citi has raised Ultimate to 4.65% and lowered E-Savings to 4.5%. Go figure.

If you go to CitiCards.com, you can see an offer to sign up for $50 (if you don't have an existing Citi banking account).

A better deal would be E*Trade's Complete Savings account, offering 5.05% APY plus a $25 sign-up bonus:I don't know if any bonus miles for signing up, but if you're considering Citi, I'd recommend E*Trade instead. And no, I don't get any kickback - this is entirely for FTers' benefits. :)

The Citi e savings account was interesting when you could get 10 or 20K AA bonus miles for opening one along with a free checking account and a linked AA credit card. But, that, so far as I know, is now over and Citi apparently has adopted a policy of chiseling down the e savings rate (which started at 5%--now 4.5%).

On the other hand, Citi does have a pretty good online site and free electronic bill pay.

All in all, Citi is okay as a transaction account, if you need a local checking account. Otherwise, I would look else where (Vanguard or Fidelity?) if putting in large sums. And, wait for another bonus offer from Citi.

I believe the E-savings account counts toward Thank You Rewards points and Ultimate does not. If you want both the points and the better interest rate, I think you can just open both accounts

BL17

For those who are curious the OP had suggested using a credit card to charge the initial deposit of up to $10k or $20k. I suspect the post was deleted when he discovered that the charge would be characterized as a cash advance (subject to high interest rates and fees) rather than a purchase (though I have not contacted Citi for guidance).

IME you don't get many TY points from having a Citi checking and e-savings - something like 150 per month on my statement which doesn't go very far :(

That being said, 4.5% on a demand account (i.e. money you can withdraw at any time without penalty) is excellent compared with 95% of bank checking and savings accounts in the U.S., and most of the B&M interest checking accounts have high minimum balance and/or service fees.

The nice thing about the Citi accounts is the unlimited transfer feature (online or ATM) - you can transfer funds between the savings and checking accounts as bills come due (or simply transfer directly from savings to pay your CitiAA MC the day it is due). Plus 5000 free ATMs at 7-11s and plenty of physical locations to accept your cash and check deposits (no delay as you would have with an internet-only bank). And some no fee international ATMs (consult the wiki to compare ETrade, etc.)

For those who want another option, you might consider the new free Charles Schwab Checking account (see story at http://sfgate.com which pays 4.5% interest and apparently rebates ATM fees.

Does anybody know of a savings account that you can fund with a credit card as a purchase not a cash advance?

The only way you might do this would be to sign up for a new card with a low or zero interest & no fee balance transfer offer. Xfer to a different card to get a credit balance and then request a check. Note: they usually won't transfer more than the balance of the target card, so you might have to run up a hefty bill. You could always buy some expensive refundable first class tickets and then refund after the transfer.

This also is probably not worth it given the relatively low rate.