Citi launching new Signature card

[Foreigner]

Re: Citi sending "upgrade from Platinum" mailout

Guys,

I just received a letter in an all-black, plastic-pouched envelope offering me the Select card with the same "enjoyment" package described by others here, annual fee $700.

The offer is not subject to a credit assessment and is not subject to an income check (I think it has been mentioned by others that Citi wants to see evidence of $130K/year for new customers). I guess the offer is based on the turnover of my Platinum card.

All I need to do is sign a small card that is pre-filled with my Platinum card number and agree to the $700 fee ($0 for supplementary cards), which will be charged pro-rata on my next statement. The acceptance card rather loosely states that after the upgrade all other T&Cs remain the same - but clearly that is wrong because things like the Select reward program are in fact different to the Platinum reward program and there are extras such as the airline club card that are unique to Select.

However, there doesn't seem to be a compelling reason to upgrade - and there's a big downside, like that $700 fee which as others have said can only be ameliorated with a big annual spend on the card.

I already have an airline multi-club card (Priority Pass I think, it came cheap with some other offer a while ago, good for Virgin Lounge in Australia) but I rarely use it. I'm a Qantas Club life member anyway (Priority Pass won't get you into any Qantas Club.)

The "customer assistance centre" number is 1800 801 732 but is only open from 8 am to 8 pm. This suggests it is Australian-based. I'll try calling during the daytime to verify this.

All in all I am very underwhelmed. I really do wish that Citi would fix its systems, offer competitive interest rates, devise a less clunky website etc rather than offering bling. Citi shares are still trading near their abysmal bottom post-GFC. I guess we can't really expect much coming out of Citi, given that the US Govt is a major shareholder and calls many of the shots at Board level.

May seem out of topic...Citi provided me a debit card to access my mortgage account. For me the real gripe was creating my password. I never have come across such complicated rules for creating pw.

 

[M@rcoPolo]

Thanks for the interesting tidbit. Were you a platinum fee free for life?

I have a Platinum fee free for life and received the same offer... may try to call them and check if they will keep it fee free but I think I know what the answer will be

 

[edman]

Got my offer as well.

I would have thought for a "premium" offering they could do a little better than offering Citi Qantas Rewards for $49 extra.

Has anyone used the Visa Airport Meet & Assist service before? Curious to see what the service is made up of.

 

[trippin_the_rift]

Got my offer as well.

I would have thought for a "premium" offering they could do a little better than offering Citi Qantas Rewards for $49 extra.

Has anyone used the Visa Airport Meet & Assist service before? Curious to see what the service is made up of.

Received the offer today as well. Doesn't seem like much value in the product.

Also curious to know what Airport Meet & Assist is too...

 

[paul4471]

Pardon my ignorance but I'm trying to work out the SPG conversion as that is still the only way to move Aussie points to AA right?

An earlier post suggested that it was 0.66 SPG points per $1 on the Citibank card.

I just signed up for an Amex Plat Business card. Would I be right in my calculation that on that card it is 0.50 SPG ponts per $1 spent

 

[WA flyer]

I also received this "offer" yesterday and found it dissappoointing.

I curently use a Citi "free for life" Visa and Citi Mastercard, both capped at 120k P.A, and use the Westpac Krisflyer for the remainder of my 400k or so of non-Amex spend each year.

I have managed to negotiate the Citi M/C to $120 (half price) and the uncapped Kris for free this year.

As I already have a Priority Pass with my Amex, this amounts to $580 a year for meet and assist and "Mr & Mrs Smith ($25 P.A) in my case.

I think i'll pass!

 

[vbap]

Also received the offer and am also a fee-free-for-life citi visa plat.

Called up the to see if the fee would be waived:
"No, Sorry Sir, we are not able to do that"
"Oh, too bad"
"So, Sir, Would you like to accept the offer?"
"Umm...No...."

 

[cove]

First month with this card has not been a problem with using it.
We have had an issue of logging online.
We visited Melbourne Citibank and a very helpful person is getting that fixed.

 

[WA flyer]

But wait! There's hope.

Citi Take Flight!

As a comparison, flying SQ it takes 80k KF points (68k with online discount) to fly to Narita Airport, Japan

With Citi Select transfer that would mean a spend of $68k
Westpac a spend of $68k (using the Visa card to simplify. Lower if using Amex)

That same flight would cost 128,130 CR points, but would mean a spend of $64k

I used to dismiss take flight as a rip off, but this isn't bad, and you have a selection of airlines to choose from.

I should have read the thread through before I hastily wrote this card off!

I just did a quick calculation on flying Y QF Perth to London.
Using QFF it is 112k points ($112000 spend) or using Citi take flight with this card 159k ($79500 spend)plus 18372 QFF points (assuming no status) and 130 sc's.

So effectively 61128 points reduced points balance for this flight and sc's! This may workout even better on other airlines

Another benefit is the availability of flights, with lots of options to choose from.

 

[ZeroPoint]

The reduction in spend is real, but you may find that the tickets (I haven't read for all airlines, and haven't tested it out myself yet) are the type that have no SC or miles accumulation.

I'll be making a booking for October anyway so will see how that goes.

 

[apophis21]

Received the offer today as well. Doesn't seem like much value in the product.

Also curious to know what Airport Meet & Assist is too...

Hi all,

The Meet & Assist service doesn't operate in Australia, but overseas it is basically someone meeting you airside, getting you through the priority Immigration lines if available (Same as airline speedpass) and helps with the luggage. Its not free have a look at groundasia.com/SPEEDPASS/index for pricing. (Sorry not enough posts for the link)

The concierge service is Sydney based, it also looks after some of their platinum cards, but we dont have access to any account information or the rewards side of things so it can be a little frustrating when we have to transfer you to the Philippines
(I work there in case you hadn't guessed).

 

[trippin_the_rift]

Hi all,

The Meet & Assist service doesn't operate in Australia, but overseas it is basically someone meeting you airside, getting you through the priority Immigration lines if available (Same as airline speedpass) and helps with the luggage. Its not free have a look at groundasia.com/SPEEDPASS/index for pricing. (Sorry not enough posts for the link)

The concierge service is Sydney based, it also looks after some of their platinum cards, but we dont have access to any account information or the rewards side of things so it can be a little frustrating when we have to transfer you to the Philippines
(I work there in case you hadn't guessed).

Welcome to AFF apophis21!

Glad to have someone with your expertise on here

If the meet and greet it's not free - why is it a benefit? *confused*

 

[apophis21]

Thanks for the welcome, I have been here since March 2009 but more a lurker than a poster (This is a good site for information to pass on to people calling in with concierge enquiries).

From my understanding of things at our end Signature (& Platinum) get a 10% discount. I am not a fan of it, I personally think the advertising is a bit confusing (It also advises you can get cashless airport transfers - not free you have to use your credit card). For those that are flying in the pointy end or often enough, most airlines can provide you with priority through immigration.

 

[cove]

Early this month we put a largish cheque thru Australia Post to have sufficient funds to pay some taxes. It took 8 days for cheque to become available in the account to use on this Citi Select card.
I have been so used to cashing a cheque at a Westpac counter and then paying taxes over the phone 10 minutes later but I wanted cheap QF points this month.
Next month I will try air bagging the cheque to Citi in Sydney to see if the money clears faster.
The $30000 limit is not helpful but this card creates points at 65 cents each so it saves $1800 per million points earned compared with Amex Ultimate when paying taxes.

 

[Chicken]

I have been so used to cashing a cheque at a Westpac counter and then paying taxes over the phone 10 minutes later

Deposit check into Westpac, then B Pay from Westpac to Citibank, so it will clear overnight.

 

[SIA1A]

Early this month we put a largish cheque thru Australia Post to have sufficient funds to pay some taxes. It took 8 days for cheque to become available in the account to use on this Citi Select card.

Deposit the cheque straight into your Citi account at any NAB branch. It will process overnight, often even faster. NAB has been operating a direct deposit facility for Citi over many years, it works fast and reliably - which is much more than I can say for most of Citi's back office processing, which appears to get bogged down with translations from US legacy systems to the Australian environment, coupled with penny-pinching underinvestment in 21st century tech.

Never forget that Citi would probably be broke if the US govt had not bailed it out during the GFC. Staff seem to have the kind of motivation you would expect from lacklustre government employees.

 

[cove]

Our B Pay is $5k per day from home.
I will try NAB as AUST POST was too slow this month but I got the payments to ATO done by 21st so it was a trial that sort of worked if you dont count the value of the money held in limbo for so long!

 

[Foreigner]

Deposit the cheque straight into your Citi account at any NAB branch. It will process overnight, often even faster. NAB has been operating a direct deposit facility for Citi over many years, it works fast and reliably - which is much more than I can say for most of Citi's back office processing, which appears to get bogged down with translations from US legacy systems to the Australian environment, coupled with penny-pinching underinvestment in 21st century tech.

This is true. Some months back, I wanted to deposit a cheque into my Citi account and, hoping for a quick clearance, took it to their premises at Park Street in Sydney. It was a big inconvenience and the supervisor advised me the cheque would clear much faster if I were to deposit it with the NAB.

 

[cove]

Thanks for the heads up on NAB for this card payment.
8 days for that cheque to clear to the card cost about $300 in foregone interest so I do want to get a better way of paying Citi Select.
We did score enough points for 4 return J flights.
The whole idea is to do across Australia and return J travel on QF at $468 plus any fees. That is 72000 points at 65 cents a point.
It is a bit more for JASA to keep status intact and that is necessary to keep seat selection from Silver status and beyond.
Banks are a favourite of mine as far as trying to extract the best results from using them.

 

[cove]

Any way this month I used about half Select and half Amex Ultimate. With Amex Ultimate you can reload it over the phone every 3 days but you cannot put the card into credit balance. You can then pay more bills immediately.
Credit limits become important if you don't have spare funds to put your Select card into credit. I think the standard issued Select card for first time Citi Select users may be about $30,000 but I would think Citi customers upgrading their card would get a better offer.
I really know very little about Citi so please correct me as my 10 weeks of knowledge is no match for long time customers/users.