Earn points on Bank Transfers

[troels]

Ah right, my bad.
I guess this thread Diners Club foreign exchange rates. is where this question is being discussed.

Thanks

 

[ecst]

I had an existing transfer (set up before 1st Nov) over 20K processed this week, and received the full serve off points from the looks of it. Will confirm for sure once the statement for the month is finalised

I’ve also asked Citi if the 20K limit applies per card or as an overall total, they said they’d look into it and let me know… … …

 

[Chicken]

I had an existing transfer (set up before 1st Nov) over 20K processed this week, and received the full serve off points from the looks of it.

Awesome!

I’ve also asked Citi if the 20K limit applies per card or as an overall total, they said they’d look into it and let me know… … …

Well, now that you have asked them to check, they are going to close the business gap even if it was a gap before.

Never poke the bear with questions like this. These types of questions do not lead to anywhere but the one same outcome: the party being closed down.

 

[ChrisMars]

I have 35k recuring payall against a card with credit lmite 35k. I would like to lower the credit limit to 20k. Will that afect my payall setup? Of course I would need to transfer 15k before the payall kicks in, I am concerned about the rule that the max payall is the max of credit limit,20k (under the new rule). Wondering if that would affect existing payall

 

[Happy Dude]

@ChrisMars AFAIK the total of your payalls for the month cannot exceed the credit card limit. Is your existing payment just one transaction? Logic suggests that trying to make a single $35k payment to a $20k card won't go through. However, if your $35k comprises several transactions then it might work as it's existing. I'd say you'd need to transfer back to keep the balance below the card limit. Don't know for sure though.

 

[Legoman]

I have 35k recuring payall against a card with credit lmite 35k. I would like to lower the credit limit to 20k. Will that afect my payall setup? Of course I would need to transfer 15k before the payall kicks in, I am concerned about the rule that the max payall is the max of credit limit,20k (under the new rule). Wondering if that would affect existing payall

I really dunno, think you'll be the pioneer on doing this to find out what Citibank do. Personally I wouldn't try it in the same way as I wouldn't sneak up behind a sleeping mother bear and poke it with a stick.

I really can't think of what would be so important that you could benefit by lowering a credit limit from 35K to 20K. Just don't.

 

[ChrisMars]

@ChrisMars AFAIK the total of your payalls for the month cannot exceed the credit card limit. Is your existing payment just one transaction? Logic suggests that trying to make a single $35k payment to a $20k card won't go through. However, if your $35k comprises several transactions then it might work as it's existing. I'd say you'd need to transfer back to keep the balance below the card limit. Don't know for sure though.

Yea it s an existing monthly recuring payall made of 3 separate transactions.

I am pretty sure I wouldnt be able to re-create those payall, but hopping that a limit decrease won't alter the existing one.

Post automatically merged: Nov 15, 2022

I really dunno, think you'll be the pioneer on doing this to find out what Citibank do. Personally I wouldn't try it in the same way as I wouldn't sneak up behind a sleeping mother bear and poke it with a stick.

I really can't think of what would be so important that you could benefit by lowering a credit limit from 35K to 20K. Just don't.

Yea, I won't unless someone done that. I wanted to lower the limit to make it easier to apply to another cc. Will probably be fine, but at the limit.

 

[Legoman]

You DEFINITELY won't be able to recreate them again in excess of 20K. Personally I'm not doing anything even remotely dodgy or risky with my credit card. Just leaving it as is. No limit change requests, no use overseas, no online use. Leaving it well alone. Don't wanna draw any attention to it at all.

 

[Legoman]

Yea, I won't unless someone done that. I wanted to lower the limit to make it easier to apply to another cc. Will probably be fine, but at the limit.

Sacrificing one credit card to get another? No.

 

[Happy Dude]

Yeah it's 15k free points per month so I wouldn't tamper either. Hopefully the $35k limit, relative to $20k, won't dent chances of credit elsewhere.

 

[Legoman]

Your credit limits actually have very little impact on your credit score. I know from having 97K unsecured credit spread across 7 credit cards. What does impact your credit score very badly and very quickly is missed payments and credit applications (which INCLUDES limit change requests). I haven't made any new applications, formal limit change requests or missed any payments in longer than 5 years and my credit rating is 89.1%. Most people gasp in shock at 97K across 7 cards and assume my credit rating must be in the gutter. As long as you don't miss payments and don't look like you're desperate for credit, it's doesn't matter what your limits are. I only ever make informal, verbal limit change requests only. Sometimes this works, most often these days it doesn't, but sometimes it works with more customer focused brands like American Express. I wouldn't even try it with a bank issued card though. They have too many rule books and boxes to tick.

 

[Happy Dude]

Maybe not the credit score so much, but it definitely influences the considerations regarding repayments and serviceability and therefore the amount you can borrow. It made a decent difference to me (ie the amount I could borrow) when applying for my first mortgage and ANZ once told me to reduce credit card limits when I applied for one of their cards a few years ago. Serviceability is the key. If you have big income and low debts, accumulating credit is easy.

 

[yojohnny]

I have a new Citibank card with a $20k limit. What is the best way to time the PayAll payments every calendar month? My understanding is that you can't do a single $20k transfer so it would need to be divided into two transfers each month. I'm thinking of sheduling these 2 x transfers totalling ~$20k on the first day of each month, into a HISA and then transferring back again a few days before the end of the month.

It seems you need some occasional real spending so I'll make a few purchases every other month and need to factor that in (pay off enough of the card mid-month to allow these payments). Does this strategy seem fair or am I missing something?

 

[Chicken]

My understanding is that you can't do a single $20k transfer

Why not? What is the logic? Where did you read this from?
I only one 'recurring payment', plus I create extras when I need to pay strata.

It seems you need some occasional real spending so I'll make a few purchases every other month and need to factor that in (pay off enough of the card mid-month to allow these payments). Does this strategy seem fair or am I missing something?

It is not a 'need' as such, but you want, and should, make your account look like a regular account behaving just like John Citizen, to stay under the radar. Don't make it so obvious that your account sticks out when some data analyst in Citi pull a report. If your account looks so odd and it looks different from every other Citi customer, the person would pulls the report would have to investigate for data discrepancies, and that's when a party gets shut down.

 

[yojohnny]

Why not? What is the logic? Where did you read this from?
I only one 'recurring payment', plus I create extras when I need to pay strata.

It is not a 'need' as such, but you want, and should, make your account look like a regular account behaving just like John Citizen, to stay under the radar. Don't make it so obvious that your account sticks out when some data analyst in Citi pull a report. If your account looks so odd and it looks different from every other Citi customer, the person would pulls the report would have to investigate for data discrepancies, and that's when a party gets shut down.

I've seen several comments either on AFF or OzB that single payments that hit the limit aren't accepted in the app. But it sounds like you haven't had an issue.. hmmm.. perhaps this is a new issue or an issue that's been fixed.

There's been several people who have received letters from Citibank suggesting they're not spending any money on the card besides PayAll and that they need to do so. Therefore it does appear to be a requirement.

 

[Chicken]

I've seen several comments either on AFF or OzB that single payments that hit the limit aren't accepted in the app. But it sounds like you haven't had an issue.. hmmm.. perhaps this is a new issue or an issue that's been fixed.

Yes, this is true, but there is no need to split. Say if you have $20000 limit, you can set 1 payment of $20000 or 1 payment of $19999 if you want.

There's been several people who have received letters from Citibank suggesting they're not spending any money on the card besides PayAll and that they need to do so. Therefore it does appear to be a requirement.

So you can see how this is not a "requirement" as such, as in black and white in some terms and conditions, but if your account sticks out in a report and someone starts investigating (the job of a data analyst or someone in commercial team), then they could choose to close down the party. These letters are basically warning those people that they are about to have their parties closed down.

Which is also why you should not have a PayAll of $20000 if you have a limit of $20000, and I don't think you should even set something like $10000 + $10000 or $5000 + $15000, because they will all hit the $20000 credit limit. They look obvious in an Excel when someone pulls a report. Make it a random number like $18452 or something like that, and if you want to make it 2, make it $8456.56 + $5698.95 . Make the numbers random.

If you make it $18652 per month, that's only $1348 you have not utilized per month, which translates to 53 SQ miles per month (AUD 1 = 0.4 SQ mile). One full year is 600 miles. That's nothing in the overall scheme of thing. Better to stay below the radar.

 

[SydneySwan]

Better to stay below the radar.

This is very good advice. Just make your account look as normal as possible. One 20k per month PayAll transfer and no other activity is asking for trouble.

 

[Legoman]

What is the best way to time the PayAll payments every calendar month?

Step 1. Find out when your billing period ends/statement date is
If your statement date is a number > 20, then contact Citibank and get it moved. Yes, you can do this, they will do this if you ask. Get a statement date ≤ 20
Step 2. Schedule your first PayAll payment date to be an amount ≤ 95% of your credit limit ($19,000 in your case) on your statement date + 5 days
Step 3. Schedule your second PayAll payment to be for an amount of 20K - PayAll 1 payment amount and schedule it for your statement date + 8 days.

In essence, make all in/out PayAll payments 3 days apart minimum. Citibank processes payments in a very rubbery 3 day window around when you specify them to occur. The 3 day window is to allow for things like weekends, public holidays etc. which in Citibank accounting world simply don't exist. Citibank works very strictly only on banking work days. Weekends/holidays do not count. When Citibank says they will process payment 3 days before the schedule, they mean three days out of Mon/Tue/Wed/Thu/Fri only and only when all of those are NOT a gazetted public holiday. Be very aware of this. Don't try to argue it, this is how Citibank works. You have to organise your life around Citibank, they will not bend for you.

 

[Legoman]

Why not? What is the logic? Where did you read this from?

There is or was an unpublished hidden limit of 95% of the maximum permissible total for the month for any single PayAll payment. Thus if you are limited by your card credit limit you cannot make a single payment of more than 95% of your credit limit. If you are instead limited by the 20K hard ceiling, then no single payment can be greater than 19K. You will not read this anywhere. It is unpublished by Citibank.

 

[yojohnny]

So you can see how this is not a "requirement" as such, as in black and white in some terms and conditions,

Who said anything about T&Cs. If you want it to keep working, it's clearly a requirement.

Duty Calls

xkcd.com