Citibank quick cash with $100 gift card

[PLANT]

No e-gift card still
Rang again this morning and told me to enter code and email and this failed.
Said would ring back... didn't.
Rang again 2hrs later. This guy investigating (85063 Steven) seriously not happy!

 

[Legoman]

Is the sting in the tail with this offer that they change the order payments to your credit card account are allocated? ie. when you make a payment to your account, the FIRST thing they pay off is the FPO. This is in contravention of the law which states the highest interest earning debt must be paid off first and Citibank acknowledge this, by saying you can request the order be changed, but if you do they will cancel your FPO and hence no gift card.

I can't think how you can pay your card off without them paying off the FPO first and thus negating the gift card. The only way I can see of not paying off the FPO under these terms is to only pay the minimum amount due each month and carry a balance, which of course will attract massive credit card interest charges that will make the $100 gift card completely pointless.

 

[asterix]

Is the sting in the tail with this offer that they change the order payments to your credit card account are allocated? ie. when you make a payment to your account, the FIRST thing they pay off is the FPO. This is in contravention of the law which states the highest interest earning debt must be paid off first and Citibank acknowledge this, by saying you can request the order be changed, but if you do they will cancel your FPO and hence no gift card.

I can't think how you can pay your card off without them paying off the FPO first and thus negating the gift card. The only way I can see of not paying off the FPO under these terms is to only pay the minimum amount due each month and carry a balance, which of course will attract massive credit card interest charges that will make the $100 gift card completely pointless.

I confirmed with them via live chat and over the phone, payments are used on the charges with the highest interest rate first, so overdue charges, then purchases and if there is anything leftover it will go towards FPO.

I took out an FPO under this offer last month and my first instalment is due on January 17th. My account is setup to direct debit the full statement balance on the due date, however during the month I used Citi PayAll to get $15,000 paid to bank accounts and then paid this money back before my statement ticked over. On the due date my closing statement balance was debited from my bank account and today I received my next statement which shows that my entire FPO is intact and nothing has been repaid towards it, which is exactly what I want and what I expect as per what Citi advised over the phone and live chat.

 

[Legoman]

For those who have successfully got the gift cards from this offer, how did you avoid cancelling the FPO before conclusion and thus disqualifying yourself from getting the gift card when you paid off the credit card each month in order to NOT incur carried balance credit card interest? Given this T&C:

Warning - having an FPO means us applying payments in a different order
• You request, by applying for an FPO, that payments made to your account in a cycle will be first applied to FPOs up to the amount of any initial interest charge or instalment or FPO fee or related interest due or overdue in that period. Any additional payments will be applied to the balance of Your account in accordance with your credit card or unsecured credit terms and conditions.
• This may mean you are liable to pay a higher amount or rate of interest than you would otherwise be under the National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009.
• You may cancel or change your request in relation to the application of payments to your FPO at a later time. However, if you do so, we will cancel your FPO.

 

[awesomedude]

I am not sure I understand. The T&C’s clearly call out that payments are applied to instalment and/or interest charges first and then to card spending. So if the payment is only applied to the instalment due, why do you think that the entire FPO is discharged?

FYI I have done multiple FPO’s and never had the issue.

 

[Legoman]

I confirmed with them via live chat and over the phone, payments are used on the charges with the highest interest rate first, so overdue charges, then purchases and if there is anything leftover it will go towards FPO.

I took out an FPO under this offer last month and my first instalment is due on January 17th. My account is setup to direct debit the full statement balance on the due date, however during the month I used Citi PayAll to get $15,000 paid to bank accounts and then paid this money back before my statement ticked over. On the due date my closing statement balance was debited from my bank account and today I received my next statement which shows that my entire FPO is intact and nothing has been repaid towards it, which is exactly what I want and what I expect as per what Citi advised over the phone and live chat.

Hmm, I'm not so sure. Firstly, with Citibank I absolutely wouldn't take the word of their Manila chat-bots or the 132484 CSR's over what their actual published T&C's say. The T&C's clearly say they are going to allocate payments to the outstanding FPO first, before other debt types subject to higher interest. They even highlight this fact with a "WARNING" sub-heading and they acknowledge this is against the law AND they offer a way for the customer to change this (that will cancel the FPO and disqualify you from getting the gift card which is the whole point).

I think I've been successfully tricked by Ciitbank here and will never see my two gift cards. I think they've cleverly taken me for $45 I never needed to spend by dangling gift cards I was never gonna get. I am gaming the PayAll caper to the max 35K each month but on a card with a credit limit < $35K. This means that at some point in each statement period I have to put the account into credit in order for the PayAll payments to not bounce. I suspect that when I do this Ciitbank are using those funds to pay off the FPO for the gift cards thus disqualifying me from ever seeing the cards.

This is clever and I've got to give Citibank some credit for arranging it this way. They made it so I can never successfully claim the free gift cards while at the same time making it very hard to work this out for 16 weeks before you find you're not getting the gift cards. In that 16 weeks I will have paid 4 lots of setup fees for FPO's that were never going to nett me any gift cards. Clever Citibank.

 

[asterix]

Hmm, I'm not so sure. Firstly, with Citibank I absolutely wouldn't take the word of their Manila chat-bots or the 132484 CSR's over what their actual published T&C's say. The T&C's clearly say they are going to allocate payments to the outstanding FPO first, before other debt types subject to higher interest. They even highlight this fact with a "WARNING" sub-heading and they acknowledge this is against the law AND they offer a way for the customer to change this (that will cancel the FPO and disqualify you from getting the gift card which is the whole point).

I think I've been successfully tricked by Ciitbank here and will never see my two gift cards. I think they've cleverly taken me for $45 I never needed to spend by dangling gift cards I was never gonna get. I am gaming the PayAll caper to the max 35K each month but on a card with a credit limit < $35K. This means that at some point in each statement period I have to put the account into credit in order for the PayAll payments to not bounce. I suspect that when I do this Ciitbank are using those funds to pay off the FPO for the gift cards thus disqualifying me from ever seeing the cards.

This is clever and I've got to give Citibank some credit for arranging it this way. They made it so I can never successfully claim the free gift cards while at the same time making it very hard to work this out for 16 weeks before you find you're not getting the gift cards. In that 16 weeks I will have paid 4 lots of setup fees for FPO's that were never going to nett me any gift cards. Clever Citibank.

As I said above, I paid money off before my statement balance was paid off and my next statement clearly shows that I haven't paid anything off my FPO yet. So, for me everything is going smooth and I expect to see my gift card sent as I won't be paying it out early.

 

[Legoman]

I am not sure I understand. The T&C’s clearly call out that payments are applied to instalment and/or interest charges first and then to card spending. So if the payment is only applied to the instalment due, why do you think that the entire FPO is discharged?

Extra payments
• If you make a payment which exceeds the minimum payment due plus any overdue amount:
• the excess amount will be applied first to pay the balance of your account excluding any main FPO balance;
• any further excess will be applied to pay the main FPO balance(s) (which results in an extra payment)

I believe this means that if you have to overpay your credit card account into positive territory temporarily to cover charges in excess of your available credit (quasi-credit limit increase), then this will be considered paying off your FPO by Citibank and disqualify you from getting the gift card

 

[Happy Dude]

I put my account into credit when I first activated an FPO. I got messages to inform the FPO had been closed. When I realised that the eGC would not be forthcoming, I called up and they gave me the eGC as a goodwill gesture. They said that as my account was in credit I didn't need the FPO.

 

[asterix]

Extra payments
• If you make a payment which exceeds the minimum payment due plus any overdue amount:
• the excess amount will be applied first to pay the balance of your account excluding any main FPO balance;
• any further excess will be applied to pay the main FPO balance(s) (which results in an extra payment)

I believe this means that if you have to overpay your credit card account into positive territory temporarily to cover charges in excess of your available credit (quasi-credit limit increase), then this will be considered paying off your FPO by Citibank and disqualify you from getting the gift card

Yes, doing it that way you are likely to get caught out and miss out on the gift cards. I am not putting my card into credit at any point, so I am safe, but you are likely not.

 

[Legoman]

I put my account into credit when I first activated an FPO. I got messages to inform the FPO had been closed. When I realised that the eGC would not be forthcoming, I called up and they gave me the eGC as a goodwill gesture. They said that as my account was in credit I didn't need the FPO.

Thank you for confirming that. This is what I suspected was going to happen. Unfortunately I've wasted two lots of $22.50 fees before figuring this out, so I've well and truly shot myself in the foot here trying to game too many Ciitbank offers simultaneously. My fault. Being too greedy. Lesson learnt.

 

[Legoman]

Yes, doing it that way you are likely to get caught out and miss out on the gift cards. I am not putting my card into credit at any point, so I am safe, but you are likely not.

Yep, that's the rule of thumb that needs to be highlighted in neon and limelights with fireworks all around to draw the attention. You must not put your account into credit at any point otherwise you will cancel the FPO and disqualify yourself from getting the gift card.

Of the four I've done so far, I think I've killed one and wasted the $22.50 fee by putting an account into credit. That's annoying, but not the end of the world. The other three if I can keep them going will still nett enough gain to still be well in front even with unintentionally & pointlessly burning $22.50.

 

[Legoman]

It looks to me like they've removed the free $100 Coles/JB/Myer gift cards with FPO offer for the new year. It's completely vanished from my phone app as of today. One of the T&C's was that they could always withdraw the offer at any time without any notice, so this was always on the cards of happening.

 

[PLANT]

Bugger was looking at using it too....grrr

 

[MELso]

I got an email this morning offering a $100 GC if I took out a $2.5K+ FPO at a 0.90% fee (so $22.50 fee) over 6 months, or 1.90% over 12 months.

So I took up a $2.5K FPO and plonked the proceeds straight into my mortgage.

It's the third time I've done this. No issues getting my gift cards either (although it takes a few months). My FFFL Premier card keeps on giving...

 

[DeKa]

I got an offer this morning too.
2.99% pa interest on 6mth - 5 years.

I won’t take it up.

 

[PLANT]

So you have to have for 6 months?
Or can pay off before 6 months?
Email/ txt or on Citi login?

Edit: I just login to account and says 100 gift card under $5k
$200 gift over 5k @ 2.99% up to 60 months
Not sure if min 4 month to get gift card?

 

[MELso]

I got an offer this morning too.
2.99% pa interest on 6mth - 5 years.

I won’t take it up.

Yeah - I got the 2.99% offer too in November after I did my first couple of FPOs (in July and September). But they've came back with the next 0.90% FPO offer, so it seems that patience is a virtue...

 

[DeKa]

So you have to have for 6 months?
Or can pay off before 6 months?
Email/ txt or on Citi login?

Edit: I just login to account and says 100 gift card under $5k
$200 gift over 5k @ 2.99% up to 60 months
Not sure if min 4 month to get gift card?

You cannot pay off these offers early if you want to be 100% sure you will receive the gift card.

 

[theblank]

Still not received mine over 12 weeks now

I am fairly sure I would have been due one about mid-late Dec and havent got it yet. I will wait another month and see.