Citibank upgrading fee free Gold to fee free Platinum

[hedge]

Just spoke with Citi customer service. They said the upgrades were based on your credit rating and whether you retained the card for more than 9 months. Credit rating would have made me ineligible since im still a student.

 

[jingles]

Just spoke with Citi customer service. They said the upgrades were based on your credit rating and whether you retained the card for more than 9 months. Credit rating would have made me ineligible since im still a student.

That doesnt sound right.

People who i referred to the free for life gold at the same time i applied and received my card have not been upgraded.
Their credit rating is also clean, no missed payments or bad debts.

One of them decided to hassle them about it a few weeks ago and was told that the free for life plat upgrade was (and i quote) "organized through a different company". And told this on more than one occasion.

I have no idea who the company was and the call center people did not tell him.

 

[hedge]

Strange, I neither have any bad debts/missed payments nor have I ever paid any interest. I spoke with Christian if that helps.

 

[LovemyCC]

From my understanding, a good credit rating includes no bad debts, no defaults AND has a history of borrowing plenty of money (eg home loan, business loans, many credit cards, mobile phones etc) and of course ability to service more debt.

But I stand to be corrected by someone thats works in the industry.

 

[SIA1A]

From my understanding, a good credit rating includes no bad debts, no defaults AND has a history of borrowing plenty of money (eg home loan, business loans, many credit cards, mobile phones etc) and of course ability to service more debt.

But I stand to be corrected by someone thats works in the industry.

Sounds good in theory... and all possible IF you live in the USA. In Australia we don't get assigned a credit 'score' (as the Americans call it now) because insufficient information is available in Australia due to privacy laws. In essence, there is very little positive info that is publicly available about credit applicants (unlike in the USA), although it is easy for a credit issuer to get hold of negative info.

The main source of info is Veda Advantage but the Veda database is thin, especially if you are a good risk.

Veda's file:

a) Keeps records of the names of organisations to which you have applied for credit (eg banks, credit card issuers, mobile phone companies, Foxtel etc)

b) Does NOT hold details of the applications (eg whether credit was granted, amount of credit etc)

c) Keeps records of your defaults (but only if the defaults are serious - in essence, if you pay up after a second reminder letter, you are not considered to have defaulted)

d) Automatically deletes all records that are more than 5 years old

e) Is purely commercial (so it does not contain criminal records etc)

A bank's main information source when it issues a credit card is the info you supply on the card application form. Of course, if you are already a customer of the bank, info about your housing loan etc will be available to the bank internally.

Banks don't generally swap info about non-housing consumer loans with one another - it gets very messy with respect to privacy laws etc.

Real estate loans (eg home loans), however, are public information that is registered on the property title when the home loan is issued. However, it is not all that likely that a bank will search this information (available from lands titles records, held by State governments) in order to verify a credit card application - too much hassle and cost, especially if you don't tell the bank about all of your real estate holdings/loans in the first place.

The banks are far more interested in whether you have a default record and default records are easy to get hold of.

So the whole system in Australia works on a combination of 'negative' reports, if any. If your record is clean at Veda and your card application looks normal, chances are your application will succeed.

Employer checks are also becoming difficult - many employers will not discuss staff matters with the credit departments of banks, especially if all the bank does is call the employer by phone. The employer can be in strife, privacy wise, if the employer so much as reveals the name of a current employee without the employee's permission, let alone the employee's salary etc. In practice, the bank caller cannot prove over the phone to an employer that the employee has granted permission for his confidential info to be discussed.

By the way, the reason credit card applications ask for your driving licence number is that Veda uses this as a primary means of indexing your record.

 

[hedge]

Thanks SIA1A, never knew the drivers licence bit ! Learn something new each day.

 

[akumaslair]

we keep on getting plat cards sent our regularly as well,

but one thing we haven;t bothered to find out, and I think a few people have missed the point of is "is it fee free for life or just a once off?"

the terminology in the promotion does say the annual fee is $0 or similar but if its not for life, you'll be paying $200+ per year from them on, and I doubt they will let you go back to gold fee free for life after that.

has anybody found it yet??

 

[bazzam]

we keep on getting plat cards sent our regularly as well,

but one thing we haven;t bothered to find out, and I think a few people have missed the point of is "is it fee free for life or just a once off?"

the terminology in the promotion does say the annual fee is $0 or similar but if its not for life, you'll be paying $200+ per year from them on, and I doubt they will let you go back to gold fee free for life after that.

has anybody found it yet??

Citibank phone consultants have told many of us that the free for life will be applied to platinum cards. I think some people got than in writing (emails) after contacting the bank.

 

[MDC]

Citibank phone consultants have told many of us that the free for life will be applied to platinum cards. I think some people got than in writing (emails) after contacting the bank.

This is an extract from an email Citi sent me:

Thank you for your email.
Please be advised that no extra fees will be charged when you accept the
Citibank Platinum card upgrade offer. As such, you will remain on the
annual fee structure that you are currently on.

 

[Starship]

This is an extract from an email Citi sent me:

Thank you for your email.
Please be advised that no extra fees will be charged when you accept the
Citibank Platinum card upgrade offer. As such, you will remain on the
annual fee structure that you are currently on.

I had that same notification in the letter that came with my new Platinum card.

 

[spa]

email i got sent said
".....you will remain on the annual fee structure that you are currently on. If you do not pay an annual fee on your Citibank Gold Visa, you will not pay an annual fee on the Citibank Platinum card as well."

 

[Chicken]

Where is my platinum card?

Is it because I hit my free for life Gold card point cap after 4 months then stopped using it? So I am considered a customer not worth having???

 

[beardoc]

Where is my platinum card?

Is it because I hit my free for life Gold card point cap after 4 months then stopped using it? So I am considered a customer not worth having???

It seems that there are a number of very high value customers that are not getting this upgrade, whilst some incidental users are gettings it. If they do have criteria for this (mentioned above) they are being applied in a very erratic fashion.

 

[Nutcase]

Just a quick thought on this. Have you thought that maybe Citibank is doing this as a "staged" rollout?

There is no way that they can upgrade their entire customer base at one time. It maybe something as simple as they are doing it in Alphabetical or numerical order rather that customer value order or length of time as a customer.

Don't worry, you will all get your turn.

 

[beardoc]

Just a quick thought on this. Have you thought that maybe Citibank is doing this as a "staged" rollout?

There is no way that they can upgrade their entire customer base at one time. It maybe something as simple as they are doing it in Alphabetical or numerical order rather that customer value order or length of time as a customer.

Don't worry, you will all get your turn.

They were doing it in a staged rollout - but I was told by a CSR that the upgrade rollout would be completed by the end of October.

 

[asterix]

They were doing it in a staged rollout - but I was told by a CSR that the upgrade rollout would be completed by the end of October.

The CSRs obviously aren't aware of what is going on. I received my free upgrade to a chip Platinum card today in the mail, as did my wife. I've currently got a fee free silver card. I'm not sure whether or not I should take up the offer, I don't want the credit limit increase they've offered and I don't want to risk being charged extra for transactions in the future because I'm using a premium card instead of my old standard silver card.

 

[cardiology]

Just recieved my upgrade Platinum card from the mail.
I applied for the fee free gold in Feb 08. Transaction is around $200-300 per month. Always pay in full before due date. No loan with Citi.
My new card is with a chip and a photo card.
So confirmed that they are still rolling out their upgrade, may be those with a photo card need to wait for just a little bit longer.

 

[Deleted member 6404]

Citibank upgrade Gold visa to Platinum Fee Free

Hi all, Just got my new, NOT asked for Platinum visa card in the mail, and apparently Fee Free as well, same as my old GVisa.
Question is why? and if I took up the offer whats the catch? all that I can see that is better than the Gvisa, is higher limits on the free international travel insurance. and since I'm on the subject of Free travel insurance, has anyone every tried to make a claim, and what was the out come, or is the free travel insurance offered not worth the risk, Is it Better paying for it separately.

Cheers
Johnny :-|

 

[Dave Noble]

Re: Citibank upgrade Gold visa to Platinum Fee Free

Is it fee free permanantly or just fee free for a year?

If the latter then it really benefits the bank since the annual fee is much higher

Dave

 

[serfty]

I have merged this thread with the main thread.

This has been happening for a a few months. I received a replacement card for my 'fee free for life" Silver card.

I was initially sceptical about retaining this facits, but further posts here tend to indicate the "Fee Free For Life" aspect WILL indeed remain, so I have upgraded. (It also help that I now go from 2:1 QFF redemption to 1:1 - should I so desire.)

As a gold holder, it's really up to you.