Citi cards - major changes

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FYI
Just rang Citi re annual fee on Prestige card soon due.....down to $175.00
Wow. Well done. That only goes to show what a complete rip-off these card's annual fees always have been at full price when they're still economically viable at such a massive discount. Wasn't the Select/Prestige at one time something like a $800 or $900 annual fee? I know it was an utterly ridiculous amount because whilst I only have the Signature, I was struck by the full price $300 annual fee for that until I found out what the Select card annual fee was.

Just goes to show how devalued these cards have become and how desperate the issuers are to not lose customers.
 
Wow. Well done. That only goes to show what a complete rip-off these card's annual fees always have been at full price when they're still economically viable at such a massive discount. Wasn't the Select/Prestige at one time something like a $800 or $900 annual fee? I know it was an utterly ridiculous amount because whilst I only have the Signature, I was struck by the full price $300 annual fee for that until I found out what the Select card annual fee was.

Just goes to show how devalued these cards have become and how desperate the issuers are to not lose customers.
Fee reduction can be tied into your cc use habits - size of monthly spend, revolver or clearer etc.

Fee free for life offers from Citi certainly changed the cost/benefit structure and I suspect are partly to do with what is offered these days. as their margins have fallen significantly due to such offers.
 
The prestige at it’s peak was worth the $700 annual fee. It went from being the best earning Visa/MC to one of the worse now.

There’s still some decent benefits on it but not worth the substantial fee. My biggest gripe is that the stay 4 pay 3 benefit doesn’t count as a direct booking with the hotel like the USA version.

The signature card was given away for no annual fee a lot and is no where near worth the full price.
 
I’m not sure why we are arguing that downward price pressure on annual card fees is ‘bad thing’...

Bring on the competition.

When they switch people from basic to gold to platinum this enables higher interchange fees....

I doubt it’s harmful to profit. What was harmful to profit was all that previous card use paying ATO and any other “merchant” who didn’t pay for the allocated points. Removing that largesse is beneficial to card companies.

Sooo losing annual fees from profit is more than adequately recompensated by higher interchange fees and no points on ATO..... (And expired points too)
 
Bring on the competition.

What competition? All cards businesses have the same costs and revenue issues.

Have you noticed that all the Bank's products are essentially the same except for sign on bonuses and couple of other things.

Theres a reason for that.
 
FYI
Just rang Citi re annual fee on Prestige card soon due.....down to $175.00 with not too much pressure, so maybe could have gotten better, but I can get value from card at this rate.....I hope !!
The unlimited entry with priority pass is itself a winner in this case - for people who travel heaps in SE Asia.
 
FYI
Just rang Citi re annual fee on Prestige card soon due.....down to $175.00 with not too much pressure, so maybe could have gotten better, but I can get value from card at this rate.....I hope !!

Nice one. The Gentleman tried to negotiate them down to that and the most they would go is $350. So he is just trying to find another card so he can cancel this one.
 
So Car insurance is consider a Government charge I'm told tonight direct from Citi when did not get points!
No mention in Points Hack so I tweeted them to update June 2017 post!

P.S One off 1000 points given this last time ;)
 
Nice one. The Gentleman tried to negotiate them down to that and the most they would go is $350. So he is just trying to find another card so he can cancel this one.

I've got the Signature fee-free for life at the moment which is a total waste (it isn't used). Trying to negotiate a $395 discount off the Prestige annual fee. They're not playing ball as yet
 
I now put more things on St George Amplify as they pay Kris Miles on things that Citi pays zero.
 
I've got the Signature fee-free for life at the moment which is a total waste (it isn't used). Trying to negotiate a $395 discount off the Prestige annual fee. They're not playing ball as yet

Same here. My Signature fee free is currently put away not getting any use. Just put a small spend on there every few months as I have read about them cancelling peoples cards for having not used them in a long time. The "enhancement" of the Signature earn has forced me to change my banks and has provided me with more flexability.

My current credit cards are as follows

- Amex Edge/Explorer combo- 3 points per $ on Supermarket, 2 points per $ on everything else (Velocity, Krisflyer, Asia Miles, Etihad)
- Qantas Premier Platinum Mastercard for 1 Qantas Point per $ for where Amex is not accepted (Qantas)

So I warehouse points in Amex for flexibility and as a direct earning Qantas card for Qantas points.

Also have the ANZ Travel Adventures card which I got for the signup bonus points and for which I now only use for overseas spend with the currency fee free aspect of the card. Will cancel when it is due unless they offer to waive the yearly fee as the free flight and lounge passes add value to the card.
 
As there doesn't seem to be a list of what Hotels do or don't qualify for the bonus category spend, I have the QFF Fee Free Signature & so far have found that both QT & Pan Pacific Hotels will earn the max 1pp$ spend.
 
As there doesn't seem to be a list of what Hotels do or don't qualify for the bonus category spend
This is deliberately done so they can change their bonus partners will nilly as they see fit without all the extra hassle and responsibility of having to notify their cardholders all the time. The farthest they will go is to just say they have "bonus partners" that are "major" retailers or hotel groups or airlines or whatever, but you'll never be able to actually nail them down or obtain a list of them. I really don't know why the service providers would be willing to partner with a credit card provider who deliberately doesn't advertise the specific partnership with them. Surely the publicity of the bonus points scheme is all they get out of the deal.

Most purchasing decisions these days are made at home in front of a computer well before the transaction actually takes place, where there is the time and quiet to weigh up all the pros & cons of which vendor to buy from, which payment method to use etc. Part of that decision making process would normally include the prospect of bonus point earns, if you know about them. With Citibank though this is impossible or a guess at best, because they won't tell you specifically who they partner with for bonus points. How do the companies/vendors possibly get any marketing benefit out of such an arrangement?
 
This is deliberately done so they can change their bonus partners will nilly as they see fit without all the extra hassle and responsibility of having to notify their cardholders all the time. The farthest they will go is to just say they have "bonus partners" that are "major" retailers or hotel groups or airlines or whatever, but you'll never be able to actually nail them down or obtain a list of them. I really don't know why the service providers would be willing to partner with a credit card provider who deliberately doesn't advertise the specific partnership with them. Surely the publicity of the bonus points scheme is all they get out of the deal.

Most purchasing decisions these days are made at home in front of a computer well before the transaction actually takes place, where there is the time and quiet to weigh up all the pros & cons of which vendor to buy from, which payment method to use etc. Part of that decision making process would normally include the prospect of bonus point earns, if you know about them. With Citibank though this is impossible or a guess at best, because they won't tell you specifically who they partner with for bonus points. How do the companies/vendors possibly get any marketing benefit out of such an arrangement?

The answer is they don't. The decision on whether to pay the extra points is made based on the card schemes classification of the biller. And that means it is not Citibank that is deciding.
 
The answer is they don't. The decision on whether to pay the extra points is made based on the card schemes classification of the biller. And that means it is not Citibank that is deciding.
That's true, but it's naïve to believe that Citibank as the card issuer can't find out and publish which businesses are billing under which codes on the Visa or MasterCard system, cross-reference that data to figure out which vendors will provide bonus points and then present that information in a digestable tabular format fo communicate to their card holders if they wanted to. They don't do that because that would require work that humans would ultimately have to do (even if only human programmers to write the algorithms to allow machines to work it out automatically) and humans are expensive to employ.

The mere fact that Citibank have effectively 'offshored' the administration of their bonus points scheme to Visa and MasterCard by using their billing codes as the determining factor of who's 'in and who's 'out' shows just how unwilling they are to take on any extra costs or responsibility in managing their own bonus scheme wholly in house where they could maintain complete control and understanding of how it works to communicate to their card holders if the wanted to.
 
Has anyone tried using their 2 free limo in APAC, then cancelling the card?

Have a tripped booked for March next year but have not use this years limo
 
Thanks. Would be great if anyone had any experience with the bonus points post where they got it from etc eg bigw Kmart etc

I have the CitiBank Signature card from the "free for life" offer a few years ago. My card sits in a drawer whilst I churn through various others, but to keep things simpler for Mrs 2905 and our son, they still use the supplementary Citi cards for non-Amex spend. I recently started keeping an eye on what and where they spend and then how much my Citi Rewards points balance increases by. It would appear that:
  • Costco yields 1.5 Citi points per dollar.
  • Subway yields 2 Citi points per dollar.
Looking over my Signature statements for the past year or so, it would also seem that my local Chinese restaurant / takeaway (Lisa's) and a couple of other places that most likely fall under the restaurant definition are yielding 2 Citi points per dollar as well.

I can't help you with Big W or K-mart though, but FWIW, both yield 3ppd using an Amex Platinum Edge. :)
 
Thanks for the info :) yeah I don’t use the Citi signature much these days.
 
WATER RATES are they:
"The Government related transaction category is now more specifically defined / broadened to include transactions with government or semi-government entities"???????????
 
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