Citibank Price Match Guarantee

[wafliron]

Tested out the Citibank QFF points match today. I wanted a flight MEL-CBR for Sunday 13 May in the afternoon but being a Sunday afternoon flight so close to the date, all the cheap flights were sold out. So I checked out if there were any JASAs.

...

So there you have it. A JASA for a premium of $42.90 using Citibank points match when there’s no U availability.

That's excellent - thanks for sharing anchew. Great to hear from someone who has gone all the way through to making a booking.

 

[cove]

Ditto.
i was thinking it was a gimmick!

 

[wafliron]

Would also be interesting to see if Citi Travel would price match a confirmed QF award booking based on sending them the booking confirmation. My thinking here is that, for QF WPs, this would let you turn an award booking where the Premium Desk specially released seats for you into an xASA equivalent (with the additional cost of the award flight cancellation fee), which you definitely can't do now.

Sooo... now that I have enough CitiRewards points I sent through a price match request for my already-ticketed J Classic Award MEL-xSYD-LAX;DFW-xBNE-MEL.

Just received a call from a lovely lady on the Citi Travel team (actually the same person I've spoken with from there before) and she confirmed they can price match what I sent them. Confirmed I'd be on exactly the same QF flights, gave me a quote for the all-up cost, etc.

I want to do it, but one thing is stopping me: they said I need to cancel the J Classic Award before Citi can book the price-matched flight (they reckon QF will cancel both tickets if I end up with two tickets in my name on the same flights). Despite their assurances about being able to price-match this flight, this makes me a little nervous given I'm stepping into unknown territory here... I'd much rather have the Citi Travel price-matched ticket in my "hands" before I cancel the Classic Award.

What does everyone think? Should I do it?

 

[cove]

Adoption time for you I see if it falls over with you ending up with both. Good luck!

 

[ronicat]

I booked Monday and flew on a price match J flight on Tuesday/Wednesday Per to Mildura Vic Return unexpected urgent flight. Award available Sunday when looked and took screenshot, didn't expect much asking for match on Monday to fly out Monday night particularly as paid flights were limited. Price matched to 182000 points plus $128 for 2 in J out of pocket after refunds. This 182000 points resulted from $91000 spending on Citi Select (thx Cove) plus the $128 with SC's and FF's rather than $182000 it would have cost on a 1:1 QFF card and no SC or FF. Best economy flights on day came to $2400.
Award flight also available with Virgin for 135200 points plus $196 which equates to $179806 spending on Citi Select (very similar to the Qantas award dollars and almost double the spending required for price match) and no SC's or FF points.
Very happy and looking forward to organising a couple of international J flights soon.

 

[cove]

Ronicat that is great news from you today.
Just so you know it is quite hard to go back from an international J run to Y so it is better to keep those Citi points growing.

 

[wafliron]

Sooo... now that I have enough CitiRewards points I sent through a price match request for my already-ticketed J Classic Award MEL-xSYD-LAX;DFW-xBNE-MEL.

Just received a call from a lovely lady on the Citi Travel team (actually the same person I've spoken with from there before) and she confirmed they can price match what I sent them. Confirmed I'd be on exactly the same QF flights, gave me a quote for the all-up cost, etc.

I want to do it, but one thing is stopping me: they said I need to cancel the J Classic Award before Citi can book the price-matched flight (they reckon QF will cancel both tickets if I end up with two tickets in my name on the same flights). Despite their assurances about being able to price-match this flight, this makes me a little nervous given I'm stepping into unknown territory here... I'd much rather have the Citi Travel price-matched ticket in my "hands" before I cancel the Classic Award.

What does everyone think? Should I do it?

OK, so I sucked it up and pulled the trigger on this today - and everything appears to have worked as planned

Here's what I achieved:

Original Booking (now cancelled):
- MEL-xSYD-LAX;DFW-xBNE-MEL in J on QF metal
- Booked into U class - Classic Award, only possible due to QF Premium Desk releasing a J seat for me on both SYD-LAX (QF11) and DFW-BNE (QF8).
- Total cost of 208,000 QFF points and $687.83 in taxes & surcharges

Citi Travel Price-Matched Booking:
- Exactly the same flights
- Booked into C class, which from what the Citi Travel TA told me sounds like it's fully flexible (each price-matched booking will be different though - they book cheapest available class in the same cabin).
- Total cost of 208,000 CitiRewards points and $1,034.11 in taxes and surcharges ($883.05 tax + $90 booking fee + $2,080 for points at 1c/pt + $61.06 CC surcharge = $3,114.11, minus $2,080 cashback in 2 weeks).
- You could technically say this also cost me 5,000 QFF points due to the cancellation fee on the Classic Award.


To break that down, for an additional cost of $346.28 I'm gaining:

- a small benefit on the raw points cost, as I'd value 208,000 Select CitiRewards points at a bit less than 208,000 QFF points
- 42,904 QFF points earned on the flights
- 460 SC, which will actually be doubled to 920 SC as I got the double SC offer and this new fare is both booked and flown during the offer period. The SCs will also mean I don't need to do a previously planned one-day SC run to retain WP, so that saves me another 48,000 points and roughly $300.

So, all up, I'm "gaining" around 100,000 QFF points and 920 SC for less than $100 (after taking into account points and money saved on SC run)

----

I think between my experience above and the recent experiences posted by others we can now say that Citi Travel Price Match:

1) Makes the Select and Signature cards effectively 2 / 1.5 QFF point per dollar cards
2) Allows the WPs amongst us to turn a premium-desk-released award seat into the equivalent of a cheap ASA

Pretty brilliant I reckon! The process of booking the price-matched fare was super-simple too - all done in 5 minutes over the phone (with PNR provided immediately - took comfort from that!) and the e-Ticket arriving via e-mail within 15 minutes.


Finally, a few other tidbits of info that some may find useful / interesting:

- Once I spoke to Qantas it turned out that you won't actually need to cancel the award booking before making the Citi Travel booking - there is duplicate-booking checking in their system and having a duplicate booking can result in both being cancelled, but the checking is only run once a day (overnight). So, as long as you cancel the Classic Award on the same day that you make the Citi Travel booking you will be fine, even if you make the Citi Travel booking before cancelling the Classic Award.

- You can use CitiRewards points at 1pt = 1 cent to cover the $90 booking fee via Citi Travel if you wish - but you can't use CitiRewards points to cover the taxes & surcharges, nor the CC surcharge.

- One of the e-mails Citi Travel send you after booking shows the actual cost of the fare booked, with Citibank picking up the difference between this amount and what you're actually charged (plus they deduct points, of course). In the case of my fare above the actual cost was an eye-watering $17,038.11, meaning Citibank are picking up a $16,004.00 tab for 208,000 CitiRewards points - or ~7.7c/pt. No idea how this is commercially viable for them... but good for us!

 

[Spizz]

Totally awesome and very well done. If Citi keep the PM promotion running for the long run, and don't water it down it will bring over a lot of people to Citi. The biggest thing I guess is the fear that the PM offer could be yanked.

I'm only on a lowly Platinum Card here and wish I had gotten the Citi Platinum Card long ago because a) I would of had a head start on my point earnings and b) missed out on the free upgrade to the Citi Signature card with a higher point earn rate. Oh well Im here now

 

[LuisT]

OK, so I sucked it up and pulled the trigger on this today - and everything appears to have worked as planned

That's great news...

Especially with the ability to have the seats released as a WP, this could be very worthwhile.

As you mention though, not sure how they'll be able to keep this up!

 

[wafliron]

That's great news...

Especially with the ability to have the seats released as a WP, this could be very worthwhile.

Yes, 100% - this is probably the biggest benefit I think. The next thing I want to try is whether they'll match based on a reserved - but not ticketed - Classic Award itinerary which involves WP-special-release-seats. Not a big deal as if they won't as you can just ticket it, do the match, then cancel the Classic Award (like I did for my Oz-USA and vv itinerary), but it's even better if they don't require it to be ticketed as it saves the 5,000 point cancellation fee.

As you mention though, not sure how they'll be able to keep this up!

Yeah - but who knows, maybe they make it work for them somehow. At worst, even if they cancel it, all those CitiRewards can be redeemed to KrisFlyer for almost the same amount of "value" (albeit without earning QFF SCs, of course).

 

[PaulZ]

Can you do a price match on a round the world ticket (where a couple flights are on BA/CX)?

I can't see it prohibited in the T&Cs

 

[wafliron]

Can you do a price match on a round the world ticket (where a couple flights are on BA/CX)?

I can't see it prohibited in the T&Cs

I asked Citi Travel a bunch of extra questions about the price match service a couple of days ago, and one of their answers covers this scenario I believe - was going to wait until they dug up an answer to one last question before I posted here, but seeing as you've asked I mind as well post the info now:

Q: When Citi Travel provide a price match for a "Qantas business class" flight that is actually a StarClass booking on a Jetstar service, will the price-matched flight be booked under the QF or JQ flight number version of the flight?
A: It will be booked under the JQ code.

Q: When booking a JQ StarClass fare as part of a price match, will the flight be booked into the "Business" or "Business Max" version of StarClass?
A: TBA.

Q: Are Citi Travel able to price-match flights that are marketed but not operated by QF and/or flights that are neither marketed nor operated by QF but are available to book with Qantas frequent flyer points? The Price Match Guarantee website is ambiguous about this - the main page at Citibank Australia says "...operated by Qantas...", but the Terms & Conditions at Citibank Australia simply say "...Qantas Frequent Flyer award flight offer available to you in the Qantas Frequent Flyer Program..." in point 1.
A: The Terms & Conditions are correct - Citi will price match any flight you can book via the QFF program, no matter who markets or operates it.


The final Q/A should cover your question Paul - if you can find a suitable RTW fare via QFF then Citi can price match it, no matter which carrier(s) are involved.

Also, FYI, during my latest conversations with Citi Travel I was told that "the program is still very new and some of the rules aren't clear", and that "Citibank are currently working on a full website for the Price Match Guarantee including clearer Terms & Conditions". So, it doesn't sound like it's going away anytime soon, but I'd say there's a good chance it will be "enhanced" in the future.

 

[oz_mark]

Q: When Citi Travel provide a price match for a "Qantas business class" flight that is actually a StarClass booking on a Jetstar service, will the price-matched flight be booked under the QF or JQ flight number version of the flight?
A: It will be booked under the JQ code.

This has to be the case. QF do not codeshare in the Jetstar business class cabin, only the economy cabin.

 

[wafliron]

This has to be the case. QF do not codeshare in the Jetstar business class cabin, only the economy cabin.

Righto - I wasn't aware of that. Thanks for the info.

 

[Spizz]

It looks like they will Price Match the Qantas Any Seat Awards as well (Points + Pay I hope it means). Excellent-

5. An award flight offer in the Qantas Frequent Flyer Program is any domestic or international, Flight Booking, Classic or Any Seat award in Economy, Premium Economy, or Business class that is available on the Qantas Australia website. First class is not included. The award flight offer may be one-way, return, open-jaw or multi-stop but must originate in Australia and it must be available to you in the ordinary use of the program.

and

8. The only way to take up our offer of a comparable flight award is to redeem Reward points that you hold with us in the Citibank Rewards Program or, to the extent that this option is available in relation to the Qantas award flight that you show is available to you, a combination of Reward points and dollar payment on your Citibank Credit Card in the same ratio as is offered by Qantas.

 

[oz_mark]

It looks like they will Price Match the Qantas Any Seat Awards as well (Points + Pay I hope it means). Excellent-

That they will, but from what I have seen of Any Seat Award pricing, Citibank is likely to be in front to begin with.

 

[Spizz]

That they will, but from what I have seen of Any Seat Award pricing, Citibank is likely to be in front to begin with.

Have to disagree Mark. Assuming I have only 192000 Citi-Points.

- Price Matching with a Qantas ASA for a return Qantas J Class from ADL-LAX return is roughly 192000 CitiPoints + $1100 Cash.

- Using the Citibank own Points and Pay Service they want 900,000 points (or $9880) for the same trip. Assuming I use the same 1920000 Citi-Points I have this will bring the cash part down to around $5000-$6000 (Im assuming here as I dont have 192000 Citi points but calculated what I did have currently and saw what it reduced the price buy).

So with my hypothetical 192000 Citipoints I would be $4000-$5000 ahead going the Price Match with the Qantas ASA rather than Citibanks own Points & Pay option.

 

[oz_mark]

Have to disagree Mark. Assuming I have only 192000 Citi-Points.

But this is just matching the classic award price. Any Seat Awards when there is classic availability price generally close to the classic price. So if you are going down this path, why not just match to the Classic Award?

To clarify what I said -

Where there is classic award availability, the price match will come into play, whether you go the ASA or classic award route

If the is no classic award availability, the Citibank pricing will likely be better.

 

[wafliron]

Have to disagree Mark. Assuming I have only 192000 Citi-Points.

- Price Matching with a Qantas ASA for a return Qantas J Class from ADL-LAX return is roughly 192000 CitiPoints + $1100 Cash.

- Using the Citibank own Points and Pay Service they want 900,000 points (or $9880) for the same trip. Assuming I use the same 1920000 Citi-Points I have this will bring the cash part down to around $5000-$6000 (Im assuming here as I dont have 192000 Citi points but calculated what I did have currently and saw what it reduced the price buy).

So with my hypothetical 192000 Citipoints I would be $4000-$5000 ahead going the Price Match with the Qantas ASA rather than Citibanks own Points & Pay option.

For the JASA to be 192k points means it's one of the "cheap JASAs" - i.e. same points cost as a J Classic Award, which also means the J Classic Award will also be available. So you don't need them to match the JASA (even though they will) - just get them to match the J Classic Award.

 

[Spizz]

But this is just matching the classic award price. Any Seat Awards when there is classic availability price generally close to the classic price. So if you are going down this path, why not just match to the Classic Award?

I understand Mark what you mean but not always from my experience. If I need a specific flight and they are out on the Classic, but it still only 280,000 for the flight via tha ASA or (192,000points + $1100 cash) then it works out much better than the Citi points and pay option (which even as far ahead as you can book is still 800000 points).