topic Re: Citi Prestige Guide in Credit Cards

Citi Prestige Guide

Anonymous — Sun, 16 Oct 2016 16:45:55 GMT

I'm new to the Citi Prestige and since it has some very nice benefits, I wanted to set up a thread where those of us who are new to the card as well as seasoned members could learn and share information.

If you have the Citi Prestige, any insights you would like to share are much appreciated.

Just a few basic ideas to start the conversation:

1) What have you found to be the most useful features of the card?

2) Are there any unique or different ways to use the card or its benefits that you have discovered?

3) What tips or tricks have you learned as a seasoned cardholder that you wish you had known as a brand new cardholder?

4) Do you have any CLI tips or experiences to share for this card?

Thanks very much for any contribution you can make to the thread.

Re: Citi Prestige Guide

wasCB14 — Sun, 16 Oct 2016 17:15:38 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I'm new to the Citi Prestige and since it has some very nice benefits, I wanted to set up a thread where those of us who are new to the card as well as seasoned members could learn and share information.

If you have the Citi Prestige, any insights you would like to share are much appreciated.

Just a few basic ideas to start the conversation:

1) What have you found to be the most useful features of the card?

2) Are there any unique or different ways to use the card or its benefits that you have discovered?

3) What tips or tricks have you learned as a seasoned cardholder that you wish you had known as a brand new cardholder?

4) Do you have any CLI tips or experiences to share for this card?

Thanks very much for any contribution you can make to the thread.

FT has a major Prestige following and is a great resource. I've encountered some incorrect information about Prestige on here. FT is better about correcting that stuff.

Best features: Admirals access (but not for new accounts like yours) and travel delay insurance (it beats CSR and Platinum).

I like to combine the extended warranty with price rewind for many purchases.

The 4th night free is limited to one room per reservation.

I was happy with my SL.

Re: Citi Prestige Guide

Anonymous — Mon, 17 Oct 2016 02:19:36 GMT

Question: what has been others' experience with how airlines fares are coded via entities such as Expedia or Hotwire?

Have you been able to be reimbursed solely for fares booked directly with the airline, or do certain other entities code flights as airfare on your statement?

Thanks

Re: Citi Prestige Guide

redpat — Mon, 17 Oct 2016 10:46:41 GMT

I'm very disappointed in the nerfed perks of this card. I always book direct w/AA so I can't answer that question. As for CLIs, my card is six months old which in most cases will give you an SP increase option, they increased my line by 8k. If you ask any earlier it's a HP for CLIs.

One of the best benefits of this card is their travel protection benefits and I'm knocking on wood that haven't had to use yet.

I might app for Citi AA exec before my next AF because of AUs have Admiral Lounge access also. 4th night is great but I only used that perk three times, while I used AA lounge for over 40 visits and golf 3 times which really made this card one of the best. In addition, I get 4th nights free w/ amex plat on FHR and in offers so I might not be losing much by closing the card next year, PCing or moving the CL.

Re: Citi Prestige Guide

Anonymous — Mon, 17 Oct 2016 17:41:19 GMT

I'm a new cardholder, but will add my contribution to the thread:

Approved this past weekend for $11,000 CL on Citi Prestige. The benefits I am most interested in are the $250 airfare credit and the 4th hotel night free. I like very much that the 4th hotel night is free with Citi and there is no limit to the number of times each year that you can get a 4th night free.

I'll be using the lounge perks in several countries on an upcoming international trip, but I'm not really someone who has time to spend in airport lounges (usually I get out to see the city, or eat in a nice restaurant instead while waiting for a flight!), so this perk does not matter as much to me. I don't golf so that perk going away doesn't matter to me.

I can see that by using the $250 airline credit and using the free hotel night benefit just once, that the annual fee easily pays for itself, so I'm impressed with that and find that valuable. I also have heard wonderful things about Citi's Concierge line handling really difficult situations very well for cardmembers.

My questions are:

1) As listed above, has anyone had experience with airfares being credited when they are not booked directly with the airline? I'm asking about alternate services such as Expedia and Hotwire, but also have another example. My international trip next year is to a remote island where the hotel concierge books the airfare between the main island and the smaller island (it is required to be done that way) and we pay them directly.

I'm wondering if that will be reimbursable and will imagine it depends on how it is coded. I wonder if Citi would cover it if I can prove it was airfare-related. It's a very expensive airfare so having part of it covered would be appreciated.

2) Has anyone had any difficulty with using the airfare credit in your first calendar year and then again a few months later in the next calendar year?

3) The above questions I listed about perks, tips, and things you have learned about the card that would help others - any and all answers are defintiely helpful. Thank you.

Re: Citi Prestige Guide

Anonymous — Mon, 17 Oct 2016 17:55:38 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I'm a new cardholder, but will add my contribution to the thread:

Approved this past weekend for $11,000 CL on Citi Prestige. The benefits I am most interested in are the $250 airfare credit and the 4th hotel night free. I like very much that the 4th hotel night is free with Citi and there is no limit to the number of times each year that you can get a 4th night free.

I'll be using the lounge perks in several countries on an upcoming international trip, but I'm not really someone who has time to spend in airport lounges (usually I get out to see the city, or eat in a nice restaurant instead while waiting for a flight!), so this perk does not matter as much to me. I don't golf so that perk going away doesn't matter to me.

I can see that by using the $250 airline credit and using the free hotel night benefit just once, that the annual fee easily pays for itself, so I'm impressed with that and find that valuable. I also have heard wonderful things about Citi's Concierge line handling really difficult situations very well for cardmembers.

My questions are:

1) As listed above, has anyone had experience with airfares being credited when they are not booked directly with the airline? I'm asking about alternate services such as Expedia and Hotwire, but also have another example. My international trip next year is to a remote island where the hotel concierge books the airfare between the main island and the smaller island (it is required to be done that way) and we pay them directly.

I'm wondering if that will be reimbursable and will imagine it depends on how it is coded. I wonder if Citi would cover it if I can prove it was airfare-related. It's a very expensive airfare so having part of it covered would be appreciated.

2) Has anyone had any difficulty with using the airfare credit in your first calendar year and then again a few months later in the next calendar year?

3) The above questions I listed about perks, tips, and things you have learned about the card that would help others - any and all answers are defintiely helpful. Thank you.

As mentioned above, FlyerTalk is the best resource on this. For example, there is a thread there: Report Citi Prestige Success/Fail $250 airline expense reimbursement with a wiki that gives success and failure scenarios for different airlines, including bookings via agents and using gift cards etc. Also, discussion on what date counts for the calender year (statement date, so stuff purchased late in Dec may well count against the following year credit)

And lots of other threads on Prestige. Much more data there than on here

Re: Citi Prestige Guide

Anonymous — Mon, 17 Oct 2016 18:15:30 GMT

Thanks LTL and I will certainly check it out, but I would like us to build a guide on myfico as well, by our members and for our members here.

I'd definitely like to hear our own members' perspectives as well. That's valuable information

Re: Citi Prestige Guide

Anonymous — Mon, 17 Oct 2016 18:40:25 GMT

@redpat wrote:
As for CLIs, my card is six months old which in most cases will give you an SP increase option, they increased my line by 8k. If you ask any earlier it's a HP for CLIs.

redpat, I saw your SP CLI post today over in approvals and that is really encouraging!

I would love to have an 8k SP CLI at the 6 month mark, but I'm sure Citi would like more extensive usage to grant that. We'll see what happens.

Re: Citi Prestige Guide

Anonymous — Mon, 17 Oct 2016 21:05:47 GMT

I personally love the card. Yes the nerfing isnt the best of news but while I have used the golf credit that isnt a huge deal for me to lose. The Admirals Club loss isnt great but I have access to them via my Executive Card so it doesn't affect me. You still have plenty of lounge choices via Priority Pass so you can usually find a lounge if you need one. By far the biggest plus to this card is the 4th night free. Yes, Amex offers some hotels for a similar benefit but those choices are limited to more high end hotels as opposed to the Prestige which provides the benefit to almost every hotel/motel/vacation resort that exists. I'm using it for a limited capacity beach resort on an island off the coast of Australia and this is saving me quite a bit for the 4th night. It was very simple to book the reservation and I look forward to using it again in the future.

I have had no problem with the travel credit and they have reimbursed me for my purchase of American Airline gift cards very quickly both in 2015 when I first got the card and then again early this year. Similarly my Global Entry purchase was credited within the same statement period as the charge.

While there is a lot of competition in the high end travel card with the CSR, Platinum and Prestige card I think this card still has great value because of the 4th night free and the increasing number of airlines that Citi is iadding for point transfer. As noted in another thread they just added JetBlue and I think we will see more in the future.

I plan on keeping the card at least for another year and see what happens when I hit 24 months on the card in terms of a new bonus and I may very well apply for a 2nd one (at least temporarily).

Re: Citi Prestige Guide

wasCB14 — Mon, 17 Oct 2016 21:17:04 GMT

Yes, they have JetBlue and Virgin America...but not at very attractive conversion rates (1000:800 and 1000:500).

Re: Citi Prestige Guide

Anonymous — Mon, 17 Oct 2016 21:19:28 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I personally love the card. Yes the nerfing isnt the best of news but while I have used the golf credit that isnt a huge deal for me to lose. The Admirals Club loss isnt great but I have access to them via my Executive Card so it doesn't affect me. You still have plenty of lounge choices via Priority Pass so you can usually find a lounge if you need one. By far the biggest plus to this card is the 4th night free. Yes, Amex offers some hotels for a similar benefit but those choices are limited to more high end hotels as opposed to the Prestige which provides the benefit to almost every hotel/motel/vacation resort that exists. I'm using it for a limited capacity beach resort on an island off the coast of Australia and this is saving me quite a bit for the 4th night. It was very simple to book the reservation and I look forward to using it again in the future.

I have had no problem with the travel credit and they have reimbursed me for my purchase of American Airline gift cards very quickly both in 2015 when I first got the card and then again early this year. Similarly my Global Entry purchase was credited within the same statement period as the charge.

While there is a lot of competition in the high end travel card with the CSR, Platinum and Prestige card I think this card still has great value because of the 4th night free and the increasing number of airlines that Citi is iadding for point transfer. As noted in another thread they just added JetBlue and I think we will see more in the future.

I plan on keeping the card at least for another year and see what happens when I hit 24 months on the card in terms of a new bonus and I may very well apply for a 2nd one (at least temporarily).

Thank you Irish, this is very helpful information!

Re: Citi Prestige Guide

Discover2016 — Tue, 18 Oct 2016 11:22:31 GMT

I also recently got the Prestige and I was also very curious about the travel credit. I will fly next week and will put it to the test and report back here. Also something odd with Citi, about a week after recieving my Prestige card, I got a second one in the mail which I found odd.

Re: Citi Prestige Guide

Anonymous — Tue, 18 Oct 2016 13:07:59 GMT

@Discover2016 wrote:
I also recently got the Prestige and I was also very curious about the travel credit. I will fly next week and will put it to the test and report back here. Also something odd with Citi, about a week after recieving my Prestige card, I got a second one in the mail which I found odd.

Thnaks, Discover2016, and please let us know how it goes after your flight!

That is funny about the second Prestige card - maybe I should expect two of them in the mail this week? ha ha

Re: Citi Prestige Guide

jsucool76 — Wed, 19 Oct 2016 11:29:24 GMT

Big fan of the prestige card myself.

While not exclusive to the prestige card, I did do this post a while back. I need to update it though. Might provide some info for ya.

http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Credit-Cards/Comprehensive-Guide-to-Citi-ThankYou-Products-and-Rewards/td-p/4219062

Re: Citi Prestige Guide

Anonymous — Sun, 20 Nov 2016 11:42:00 GMT

Thanks, everyone. I've had the card a little over a month now and have been using it daily as my primary card.

Here are several insights thus far that I hope will be helpful to someone:

Pros:

1) Citi is extremely quick to credit back the $250 annual airline credit to your statement. The credit appeared immediately once the statement cut.

2) Keep in mind that in order to be eligible for the $250 annual airline credit, a cardholder must book the flight directly with an airline. Expedia, Kayak, Orbitz, Travelocity, Hotwire, and any other secondary travel services are not eligible.

As an example, I have a $500 flight next year that is required to be booked through the hotel concierge as part of the stay. (It's on a remote island and cannot be booked any other way). I really would like to use the $250 airline credit toward this flight, but it will be ineligible since they do not allow you to book via the airline directly.

3) The $250 annual airline credit is automatic in their system when a flight is booked directly with an airline. Citi cannot override this automation even if you provide proof of purchasing a flight via another method (i.e., the example I mentioned above. I will have proof that I spent $500 toward an airline flight, but since it was not booked directly with the airline, Citi does not have the ability to override their automated system and credit me manually.)

Just one con at this point:

1) With Citi, no one in particular seems to be in the driver's seat in regards to Thank You Points. This can create a level of scrambling for the customer. An example: I charged a cruise and several other related charges to the card and had a question regarding whether components of these charges specifically were credited to TY Points at 3x, 2x, or 1x. (I figured it was most likely 1x but wanted to confirm several specific charges).

Since Thank You Points are not detailed to that level online within my account, I asked about this in chat. After the chat person spent 15 minutes giving me general information about the Thank You Program and not answering my specific questions, I was referred to a separate website for Thank You Points and told I needed to log into chat there and ask my question.

I encountered the same situation on the Thank You website - the rep in chat spent 15 minutes talking about the program in general, saying they couldn't see my Citi Prestige account to answer specific questions, and that I should go back to chat within my Citi account to ask those questions! Yipe. Confusing and circular of them to send me back to the first person. I'd already spent 30 minutes between the two and could not get a single person to break down the crediting of specific Citi points relative to specific charges for me.

At this point, I haven't had the time to call in and not sure if they even know the answer if I called in. I really don't want to go through general descriptions about the program again and just want to talk with someone who can both see my account and break down points crediting for specific charges.

It is unusual that Citi would send you to chat on a separate Thank You Points website when those reps cannot see specifics about your Citi card account.

Citi needs to integrate both operations to best serve customers.

I'm enjoying the card very much thus far and it has become my daily driver.

Re: Citi Prestige Guide

Anonymous — Thu, 29 Dec 2016 19:49:47 GMT

Continuing to enjoy the Citi Prestige and its benefits. Two questions/ pieces of information I'd like to ask here to provide ongoing intel for others, hopefully:

Citi Prestige cardholders, please respond:

1) Please post your data and info if you were able to receive a CLI on Prestige prior to the 6 month mark. I recall one or two posts in whcih members were successful in doing so, but would like to add data points here. The SP link seems to almost always be showing up in all 3 of my Citi accounts, so at least in my situation, that in and of itself is not an indicator.

2) Has anyone been successful in lowering the Prestige APR below their standard offering of 15.74%? I've been able to get my other Citi cards as low as 13% APR (permanent redux) and 4% promo APR, as examples, but no luck in reducing Prestige APR. Success stories from Prestige cardholders re/ this much appreciated.

Thanks, everyone!

Re: Citi Prestige Guide

redpat — Thu, 29 Dec 2016 12:17:30 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Continuing to enjoy the Citi Prestige and its benefits. Two questions/ pieces of information I'd like to ask here to provide ongoing intel for others, hopefully:

Citi Prestige cardholders, please respond:

1) Please post your data and info if you were able to receive a CLI on Prestige prior to the 6 month mark. I recall one or two posts in whcih members were successful in doing so, but would like to add data points here. The SP link seems to almost always be showing up in all 3 of my Citi accounts, so at least in my situation, that in and of itself is not an indicator.

2) Has anyone been successful in lowering the Prestige APR below their standard offering of 15.74%? I've been able to get my other Citi cards as low as 13% APR (permanent redux) and 5% promo APR, as examples, but no luck in reducing Prestige APR. Success stories from Prestige cardholders re/ this much appreciated.

Thanks, everyone!

You can ask for a CLI before but it will more than likely be a HP. I waited six months for the SP option, cli of 8k to 25k

As for APR never asked and don't really care PIF, I do have a 1.99% offer ending in June 2017.

The card is only used for 4th night free and for my admirals access though, nerfed benefits and 1.60x nerf for AA pretty much ended my use for the card.

Re: Citi Prestige Guide

Ysettle4 — Thu, 29 Dec 2016 13:18:39 GMT

All of the benefits are intact until July 2017 so nothing is nerfed yet and plenty of time to benefit til then.

Re: Citi Prestige Guide

pip3man — Thu, 29 Dec 2016 13:40:13 GMT

My APR on the Prestige currently sits at 13.49%. I was only successful in getting them to lower it once!

Re: Citi Prestige Guide

NYFan63 — Thu, 29 Dec 2016 14:00:02 GMT

This is all helpful info. Thanks for sharing and thanks to humu for starting the thread. I was debating apping for the Prestige or the CSR or CSP. This has been helpful in my decision making...