topic Re: What is Citi doing? in Credit Cards

What is Citi doing?

Anonymous — Wed, 03 Aug 2016 06:44:43 GMT

With the recent removal of certain cards sign up bonuses plus nerfs, what is citi doing?? Would they come out with another card that's good anytime soon? I love my prestige card but would like to have more options/ways to boost pts (sign up bonuses maybe a portal idk)

Re: What is Citi doing?

kdm31091 — Wed, 03 Aug 2016 13:26:42 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
With the recent removal of certain cards sign up bonuses plus nerfs, what is citi doing?? Would they come out with another card that's good anytime soon? I love my prestige card but would like to have more options/ways to boost pts (sign up bonuses maybe a portal idk)

It's pretty simple, they want people who sign up to be interested in the card for the long run. Not offering a sign up bonus pretty much ensures that those who sign up are interested in the ongoing benefits, not just collecting the bonus and SDing the card.

Re: What is Citi doing?

Closingracer99 — Wed, 03 Aug 2016 21:51:14 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
With the recent removal of certain cards sign up bonuses plus nerfs, what is citi doing?? Would they come out with another card that's good anytime soon? I love my prestige card but would like to have more options/ways to boost pts (sign up bonuses maybe a portal idk)

I <3 my Premier and it comes with no signup bonus at the time i applied. Only card if I remember in my wallet that offers 3X points on travel which includes gas. I know my BoA card offers 3% on gas but not on travel.

Re: What is Citi doing?

Anonymous — Wed, 03 Aug 2016 22:21:22 GMT

@Closingracer99 wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
With the recent removal of certain cards sign up bonuses plus nerfs, what is citi doing?? Would they come out with another card that's good anytime soon? I love my prestige card but would like to have more options/ways to boost pts (sign up bonuses maybe a portal idk)
I <3 my Premier and it comes with no signup bonus at the time i applied. Only card if I remember in my wallet that offers 3X points on travel which includes gas. I know my BoA card offers 3% on gas but not on travel.

It's also unlimited with a 25% bonus when redeemed correctly.

Re: What is Citi doing?

Anonymous — Thu, 04 Aug 2016 01:17:37 GMT

@kdm31091 wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
With the recent removal of certain cards sign up bonuses plus nerfs, what is citi doing?? Would they come out with another card that's good anytime soon? I love my prestige card but would like to have more options/ways to boost pts (sign up bonuses maybe a portal idk)
It's pretty simple, they want people who sign up to be interested in the card for the long run. Not offering a sign up bonus pretty much ensures that those who sign up are interested in the ongoing benefits, not just collecting the bonus and SDing the card.

While what you said makes sense because it's a loss to those companies when they offer a 40-80k bonus and people spend their $1-$4k to get it and redeem the rewards and close the card due to the AF, they still need to find a way to compete overall. There are so many travel cards that it makes it hard to keep them for most people on this site that enjoy categorized spending (meaning only using X card for Y purchases)

its hard for us "informed" folk to put all spend on one card regardless of category so people like us makes it hard for card issuers to keep things spicy. We need to all keep in mind that nothing is really "enticing" to us anymore because we are out for the biggest bang for the buck and that's why many carry 15 cards so they are covered. It's way too much and our lack of "commitment" to a card or two or three makes it hard for companies to lay out a "perfect" card. Blispay had a good idea with the 2% and interest free hoping it'll be a day to day card for almost everyone but we know that won't happen here. My opinion is the expectation of card companies is quite high and all we're doing is using and abusing. Sure there is some profit made over time but many of us aren't the ideal customer.

Not that I care if an issuer is happy with me but it makes it hard to be overly competitive

Re: What is Citi doing?

Anonymous — Thu, 04 Aug 2016 01:19:42 GMT

One thing that really chaps my ass though is when someone signs up for a card and then close it a month before a year due to the AF alone. That's just a user and it affects the awesome sign up bonuses because these cards aren't the daily driver.

Re: What is Citi doing?

Anonymous — Thu, 04 Aug 2016 01:21:48 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
One thing that really chaps my ass though is when someone signs up for a card and then close it a month before a year due to the AF alone. That's just a user and it affects the awesome sign up bonuses because these cards aren't the daily driver.

Might I add that companies will stop waiving the annual fee the first year too if people keep doing this.

If you don't want to pay an annual fee, call in and ask shortly before it's due. You agreed to the terms when you signed up for the card, and in most cases the annual fee is there to help the bank pay for the benefits you recieve with the card.

Re: What is Citi doing?

Anonymous — Thu, 04 Aug 2016 01:30:05 GMT

If you need the AF waived you're not using it to its potential so it's not necessary in your lineup

Re: What is Citi doing?

Anonymous — Thu, 04 Aug 2016 01:33:25 GMT

KDM makes a great point.

Citi will "lose" us more 'informed' people but imagine how many 'regular' people that bank with Chase and are just looking for an easier payment method will sign up for a regular run of the mill card just because it's easy to do all your financials under one roof. Long haul, every day spending customers is what Citi is probably looking for.

Re: What is Citi doing?

darwin_wins — Thu, 04 Aug 2016 03:12:49 GMT

I would be interested to find out how many people really try to churn the card as opposed to regular people. It is extremely difficult for most people to juggle more than few cards because they dont want to deal with the headache of remembering things.

I carry all the cards in my wallet ( of course i dont have a lot of them) and I i will use what is best for the occasion. I still think very few people churn compared to rest of the population, also I think Citi does profit from regular folks.

As for Blispay, I dont think I know anyone who has heard about this card at all. Only people who visit the boards know about it so if they go out and advertise may be a lot of people will sign up (but who knows, they may not given that one or 2 cards is what most people want and I am not talking about people who sign up in stores because hey you can get 25% off this purchase )

Re: What is Citi doing?

Anonymous — Thu, 04 Aug 2016 04:03:34 GMT

@darwin_wins wrote:
I would be interested to find out how many people really try to churn the card as opposed to regular people. It is extremely difficult for most people to juggle more than few cards because they dont want to deal with the headache of remembering things.

I carry all the cards in my wallet ( of course i dont have a lot of them) and I i will use what is best for the occasion. I still think very few people churn compared to rest of the population, also I think Citi does profit from regular folks.

As for Blispay, I dont think I know anyone who has heard about this card at all. Only people who visit the boards know about it so if they go out and advertise may be a lot of people will sign up (but who knows, they may not given that one or 2 cards is what most people want and I am not talking about people who sign up in stores because hey you can get 25% off this purchase )

A small portion of the population could mean millions of churners in a rather large country. Let's say Citi is offering a 50,000 ThankYou points on their Premier card if you open the card and spend $2,000 on it in the first two months. Many churners would understand how to use the points properly to get maximum value; therefore, ever churner would get $625 in airfare travel just for signing up for the card. Let's say five million churners signed up... That's $3,125,000,000 wasted on people who churn cards for a living. Three billion dollars down the hole for those who will probably keep the card for less than a year, not to menion the loss in annual fees which is $95 per person, so another $475,000,000 on top of it, totaling $3,600,000,000. Imagine how happy your shareholders would be if you were able to return three billion, six hundred million dollars to their shareholders? Pretty darn happy.

Re: What is Citi doing?

Anonymous — Thu, 04 Aug 2016 05:37:28 GMT

You think there are 5 million churners in a country of 320 million? Dude 1.5% of the country is not churning lol

Re: What is Citi doing?

Anonymous — Thu, 04 Aug 2016 06:15:54 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
You think there are 5 million churners in a country of 320 million? Dude 1.5% of the country is not churning lol

Are you sure about that?

Re: What is Citi doing?

Anonymous — Thu, 04 Aug 2016 07:57:29 GMT

Based on people I know, I am pretty certain about that. Most people I know still have no credit cards and if they do, it's issued by the bank they bank with and is not really a big rewards card. The rich people I know don't care about the rewards enough to use any more than 1 or 2 cards.

I'm sure many people may come across an advertisement for a bonus offer and jump on it, with the full intention of taking the bonus then closing the card, but those are not the churners you are talking about.

The Costco portfolio was huge, one of the biggest in the industry, and had a total of 8 million accounts.

Re: What is Citi doing?

Anonymous — Thu, 04 Aug 2016 15:21:47 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
You think there are 5 million churners in a country of 320 million? Dude 1.5% of the country is not churning lol
Are you sure about that?

I would put big money down on that. Too bad there's no real way of finding out unless one got internal numbers from a bank's CC division

Re: What is Citi doing?

Anonymous — Thu, 04 Aug 2016 15:35:37 GMT

I would imagine more than 1.5% churns. I would imagine easily double that..

Re: What is Citi doing?

Anonymous — Thu, 04 Aug 2016 16:28:48 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I would imagine more than 1.5% churns. I would imagine easily double that..

I wonder how many people use this site. A good majority of them would probably be churners.

Re: What is Citi doing?

Closingracer99 — Thu, 04 Aug 2016 16:52:13 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
I would imagine more than 1.5% churns. I would imagine easily double that..
I wonder how many people use this site. A good majority of them would probably be churners.

Meh I don't really churn... The only card I apped for the sole purpose of the signup bonus was the CSP for the 50,000 points after spending $3,000 ( 2014) which I just turned into a CS before the AF because it didn't my spending cause I don't find the parters useful for me. The Citi AAdvantage i got 50,000 points after spending $3,000 and the Citi Premier which both have $95 AF's I am planning on keeping for the forseable future

Re: What is Citi doing?

Anonymous — Thu, 04 Aug 2016 17:14:51 GMT

I seriously doubt 1.5% of the population churns.

I know it's anecdotal but I own a very busy retail store and I can tell you that most people pay us using their debit cards and out of all the people I know (ALOT), no one is "into" credit cards like I am.

Re: What is Citi doing?

Anonymous — Thu, 04 Aug 2016 17:16:49 GMT

Keep in mind if people are credit card shopping then the points guy often comes up and he will make people see value in cards with an AF and that may lead to something too. Obviously card churning is popular otherwise AmEx wouldn't allow you to only get a bonus once and chase wouldn't limit their bonuses on the same cards to one time and then you get it again after it's been closed for two years or whatever. Now cap1 is tightening the reigns some... It's clearly more than a mere 1.5%