Citibank upgrading fee free Gold to fee free Platinum

[Deleted member 6404]

A comment on Citi and the US Fed bailout that I saw the other day:

Firstly, two definitions:

Citi: The 'smart' gals & guys who are in debt to the tune of hundreds of billions

US Govt: The 'smarter' gals & guys who are in debt to the tune of trillions.

..and now the question:

Who is better equipped to assess who? The people with the hundreds of billions in debt, or the people with trillions in debt.

Thats easily answered The ones that print the money and have control of all the nuke bombs :mrgreen:

 

[Starship]

Thats easily answered The ones that print the money and have control of all the nuke bombs :mrgreen:

Interestingly, they are not necessarily one and the same! In fact the US Fed Reserve is owned privately by 11 families, albeit the US govt have the majority of Board members and appoint the Chairman.

The current circumstances now highlight what was the background to some seriously questionable transactions last year as things seemed to be propped up even then to support the US war effort. In hindsight, good deals if you could have done them and taken the profit without holding on to them for long.

 

[jingles]

I didn't get to UPG my card to PLT because 1) I left it to the last minute and 2) co-incidentally lost my Gold card a day before the UPG promo period expired.

I rang up CB and told them of my missing Gold card and then at the same time requested to activate the PLT card. CB said it was a 'no can do upgrade' if I do not have an active GC.

So they said they would have to reissue the GC and activate that, then activate the PLT card.

Anyway, left it at that, and stuck with the newly chipped GC.

I would have forgot about deactivating the gold card, and activated the plat card.

Then called back later to deactivate the gold card.

 

[Starship]

I would have forgot about deactivating the gold card, and activated the plat card.

Then called back later to deactivate the gold card.

All a function of risk Jingles! I presume Alan (with legal background) understandably did not want a 'live' gold card floating outside his control.
Also, as part of the upg process, whilst SAI1A has advised they do not 'cancel' the old card, my experience was that they do transfer the gc account to the pc.

 

[Deleted member 6404]

Just wondering , has anyone here who has upgraded to the PC taken up the citibank offer of having credit shield on the credit card, at the time of the upgrade I was given the spill of all the benefits and that if i pay all my balance at the end of the month the 49cents per hundred on my card would be refunded. i just got my statment and they have already billed me $50 for the ready sheild insurance will this $50 be refunded after I pay or is that just a load of cough I have 21 days to go to cancel it.
Any thoughts.
Cheers

 

[Starship]

Johnny. I do not think it gets refunded. Effectively this is 6% per annum cost of protection insurance (if it can be claimed). ie 0.5% of your balance every month. The issue is then a personal one. How secure is your income and do you think you will be termninated / out of work - and wanting them to take over the debt.

The next question is - do they take over the debt, or does the insurer make the monthly payments on your behalf, so you have to start repaying when you can?

 

[Chicken]

at the end of the month the 49cents per hundred on my card would be refunded.

That's insurance premium.

If you don't smash your car for a year, would you get your car insurance premium back?

Of course not.

Did you read the PDS (product disclosure statement)?

 

[jingles]

All a function of risk Jingles! I presume Alan (with legal background) understandably did not want a 'live' gold card floating outside his control.
Also, as part of the upg process, whilst SAI1A has advised they do not 'cancel' the old card, my experience was that they do transfer the gc account to the pc.

Of course, neither would I.

However once the plat card was activated he could call straight back to cancel the gold card.
This way even if they needed to cancel the plat card it would be reissued again instead of a gold card.

 

[beardoc]

I'm assuming no-one on a Silver or Gold Card has received a recent free upgrade to Platinum and therefore this promotion is over? I was disappointed to not have received an upgrade myself. I have called Citibank a couple of times (most recently tonight) and they won't do it at all.

Ah, well, at least I have the Gold Fee-Free-for-Life. Platinum Fee-Free-for-Life would be nice, though.

 

[Chicken]

no-one on a Silver or Gold Card has received a recent free upgrade to Platinum

Nope, got nothing. Kinda looking forward to the higher point cap with platinum, but oh well.

 

[serfty]

I received a silver -> plat upgrade offer on my "Fee free" for life card. I was not going to do so until anecdotal posts convinced me. In fact I left it really late and I received a reminder/prompt in the mail the day after I did so.

 

[beardoc]

I received a silver -> plat upgrade offer on my "Fee free" for life card. I was not going to do so until anecdotal posts convinced me. In fact I left it really late and I received a reminder/prompt in the mail the day after I did so.

Well done! How late did you leave it - and what did they say? They just say to me every time that the offer is not available to me, even when I ask about it.

 

[alemdohorizonte]

Well done! How late did you leave it - and what did they say? They just say to me every time that the offer is not available to me, even when I ask about it.

i find it strange that you were not sent the upgrade.
i had the citi gold free-for-life card and very rarely used it (10 or so times during the 18 months i had it before the new platinum card mysteriously arrived in the mail at the end of august). the few times i had used the card, all of my charges were small (less than $250) and the gold card had a relatively small limit ($18,000). not certain if it made any difference or not but i had the gold card set up on auto-debit (from my nab checking acct) for the full balance every month.

i can find little logic as to why i was sent the upgrade. i virtually never used the card and this was (and is still) the only citibank account i have.

 

[beardoc]

i find it strange that you were not sent the upgrade.
i had the citi gold free-for-life card and very rarely used it (10 or so times during the 18 months i had it before the new platinum card mysteriously arrived in the mail at the end of august). the few times i had used the card, all of my charges were small (less than $250) and the gold card had a relatively small limit ($18,000). not certain if it made any difference or not but i had the gold card set up on auto-debit (from my nab checking acct) for the full balance every month.

i can find little logic as to why i was sent the upgrade. i virtually never used the card and this was (and is still) the only citibank account i have.

Yes, whereas I throw about $2000-3000 a month through it - and always paid off by auto-debit. I think I might write them another mail - one last try.

 

[jingles]

Just wondering if there is anyone who did not automatically receive the upgrade and has managed to have citibank upgrade them to the Plat card for free.

I have a friend who spends a heap on his free gold and did not receive the upgrade much to his disappointment, now with the Qantas transfers only being open to Plat cardholders he is more annoyed.

(If anyone has any contacts in citibank could you maybe send me a PM?)

 

[sparoy]

I’m beginning to regret my decision to accept the upgrade from gold to platinum.
My specialist surgeon has started charging a 3% surcharge for using a visa/mastercard platinum and no surcharge on gold or lower.
He told me that the bank is charging him more for accepting platinum cards and he doesn’t even accept Amex.:evil:

 

[Chicken]

He told me that the bank is charging him more for accepting platinum cards and he doesn’t even accept Amex.:evil:

Have a look at Tyro which gives you some idea of how much extra banks charge for accepting premium cards.

It depends on the bank of course. The EFTPOS at my work still charge the same rate (under 1%) for all cards, regardless of premium of not, domestic or international. I know NAB and CBA are alreadying charging extra for premium and international.

Tyro - Secure IP EFTPOS Payment Systems

 

[pauly7]

I’m beginning to regret my decision to accept the upgrade from gold to platinum.
My specialist surgeon has started charging a 3% surcharge for using a visa/mastercard platinum and no surcharge on gold or lower.
He told me that the bank is charging him more for accepting platinum cards and he doesn’t even accept Amex.:evil:

Does it charge him at the terminal? Or could you just cover up the word 'Platinum' with a sticker so they think its Silver??

 

[hedge]

I’m beginning to regret my decision to accept the upgrade from gold to platinum.
My specialist surgeon has started charging a 3% surcharge for using a visa/mastercard platinum and no surcharge on gold or lower.
He told me that the bank is charging him more for accepting platinum cards and he doesn’t even accept Amex.:evil:

Why doesn't he accept AMEX? Medical Doctors get a pretty good merchant rate for taking AMEX (approx 1.5% I think).

 

[sparoy]

Does it charge him at the terminal? Or could you just cover up the word 'Platinum' with a sticker so they think its Silver??

He got charged in his statements and somehow he found out it's due to platinum cards, so the surcharge is added manually every time a platinum card is presented, and yes I should try that 'sticker' trick next time