Ive only had my Prestige for a month now and was already able to get about $900 value from the benefits offered not including the the 50K TYP.
Im travelling to South Africa in December and I was able to use Citi Concierge to book my 4 night stay in Cape Town and get the 4th night free which is worth $520 a night.
I also used the $250 airline credit for my short flight from Johannesburg to Cape Town. Used the $100 Global Entry credit as well.
My understanding is that the 4th night free benfit can be used an unlimited number of times but only once per reservation.
If you travel even just once a year for atleast 4 nights covering the annual fee should be easy.
It's a great set of benefits for folks that travel (especially internationally) and stay in relatively expensive hotels. I actually rarely stay in hotels for 4 nights, but once a year at a $200/night hotel would make it worthwhile in conjunction with the airfare reward. For folks that are regularly on the road 4-5 nights a week, this card would be a gold mine.
@happypill wrote:It's a great set of benefits for folks that travel (especially internationally) and stay in relatively expensive hotels. I actually rarely stay in hotels for 4 nights, but once a year at a $200/night hotel would make it worthwhile in conjunction with the airfare reward. For folks that are regularly on the road 4-5 nights a week, this card would be a gold mine.
This is the issue I have. When I travel I am usually not in one location for four days as I like to move around especially in other countries, so even for major cities I may only spend 3 nights. The other difficulty I would have with this is that I tend to use points to pay or a combination of points/cash. If you have to go through the citi website to make the booking does that prevent you from using these payment methods? What room rate are you getting via citi? Can I use my normal discount codes? Is the room rate inflated? By doing this am I losing the ability to gain additional loyalty points in the hotel program? I can see this woring well (assuming they aren't raising the rate via their booking service) if you were going somewhere like disney or vegas (actually it would work very well in vegas as the prices on rooms skyrocket on the weekend, so you book starting midweek with low rates and then come friday it really pays off) and not stay at a chain property.
;
@red259 wrote:
@happypill wrote:It's a great set of benefits for folks that travel (especially internationally) and stay in relatively expensive hotels. I actually rarely stay in hotels for 4 nights, but once a year at a $200/night hotel would make it worthwhile in conjunction with the airfare reward. For folks that are regularly on the road 4-5 nights a week, this card would be a gold mine.
This is the issue I have. When I travel I am usually not in one location for four days as I like to move around especially in other countries, so even for major cities I may only spend 3 nights. The other difficulty I would have with this is that I tend to use points to pay or a combination of points/cash. If you have to go through the citi website to make the booking does that prevent you from using these payment methods? What room rate are you getting via citi? Can I use my normal discount codes? Is the room rate inflated? By doing this am I losing the ability to gain additional loyalty points in the hotel program? I can see this woring well (assuming they aren't raising the rate via their booking service) if you were going somewhere like disney or vegas (actually it would work very well in vegas as the prices on rooms skyrocket on the weekend, so you book starting midweek with low rates and then come friday it really pays off) and not stay at a chain property.
You would not be able to use the 4th night free benefit together with rooms redeemed for points. You have to book using Citi Concierge which is then done by a travel agency. They do guarantee to match the lowest listed rate. You can however in some cases earn points for your stay. So for example if you book a Starwood Hotel you can also earn the Startwood points for the stay which would be earned for all 4 nights but I think this will depend on the hotel chain.
