Earn points on Bank Transfers

[yojohnny]

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.

Thanks for the detailed reply.

To make things easier to understand / remember, would a statement date late in the month (say 28th) work, as it would result in the first payment happening at the very start of the next month and then the money would sit in a HISA for longer, before being moved back later that month.

What is the logic of the issue with the statement date being >20th?

 

[Legoman]

Thanks for the detailed reply.

To make things easier to understand / remember, would a statement date late in the month (say 28th) work, as it would result in the first payment happening at the very start of the next month and then the money would sit in a HISA for longer, before being moved back later that month.

What is the logic of the issue with the statement date being >20th?

For the sake of simplicity and not confusing the issue of which month, you do not want PayAll payments that straddle the change of month. You also do not want PayAll payments that straddle statement periods. Keeping in mind that Citibank work around an extremely rubbery 3 day period, that sometimes can be 1 day and other times can be 5 days. It's 3 days ± 2 days effectively.

You do not want a statement date of 28th because to maximise the time you have the free money to earn interest with before you have to pay it back, you need to allow yourself a minimum of 5 days after the statement date for Citibank to make the payment to be guaranteed in all instances it will occur AFTER the statement for the previous period has been generated. This means for most months a scheduled PayAll payment date of 2nd of the month. A 2nd PayAll date will sometimes be executed by Citibank on the 4th of the month and sometimes on the 31st of the previous month depending on where the weekends and public holidays fall. If Citibank choose to execute it on 31st of the previous month, then it will fail and be rejected because you'll have already maxed out the previous month with the PayAll payments scheduled for that month proper. When a payment fails, that's it. There's no second chance. You're done until next month.

The worst case month is February in a non-leap year. You have to set-up assuming 28 days per month to cater for February. If your statement date is 20, then the first PayAll scheduled date is 25 and the second is 28, which for this purpose is the last day of the month. Do not go beyond this.

The end of the month is meaningless for maximising time on deposit before payback. The only thing that matters is when your statement date is. You want to get payments as close as possible to, but always AFTER your statement date. 5 days delay will always guarantee that no matter where the weekends and public holidays fall. Any less and you'll have a failed payment at around Good Friday for Easter and at the end of February. These are the worst case times of year you have to account for.

But having said all that, I may not know anything and you could have a better plan. I've only banked ~1.2mil points and earn $233/month in free interest each month doing this so far, so what do I know?

 

[Flashback]

For the sake of simplicity and not confusing the issue of which month, you do not want PayAll payments that straddle the change of month. You also do not want PayAll payments that straddle statement periods. Keeping in mind that Citibank work around an extremely rubbery 3 day period, that sometimes can be 1 day and other times can be 5 days. It's 3 days ± 2 days effectively.

You do not want a statement date of 28th because to maximise the time you have the free money to earn interest with before you have to pay it back, you need to allow yourself a minimum of 5 days after the statement date for Citibank to make the payment to be guaranteed in all instances it will occur AFTER the statement for the previous period has been generated. This means for most months a scheduled PayAll payment date of 2nd of the month. A 2nd PayAll date will sometimes be executed by Citibank on the 4th of the month and sometimes on the 31st of the previous month depending on where the weekends and public holidays fall. If Citibank choose to execute it on 31st of the previous month, then it will fail and be rejected because you'll have already maxed out the previous month with the PayAll payments scheduled for that month proper. When a payment fails, that's it. There's no second chance. You're done until next month.

The worst case month is February in a non-leap year. You have to set-up assuming 28 days per month to cater for February. If your statement date is 20, then the first PayAll scheduled date is 25 and the second is 28, which for this purpose is the last day of the month. Do not go beyond this.

The end of the month is meaningless for maximising time on deposit before payback. The only thing that matters is when your statement date is. You want to get payments as close as possible to, but always AFTER your statement date. 5 days delay will always guarantee that no matter where the weekends and public holidays fall. Any less and you'll have a failed payment at around Good Friday for Easter and at the end of February. These are the worst case times of year you have to account for.

But having said all that, I may not know anything and you could have a better plan. I've only banked ~1.2mil points and earn $233/month in free interest each month doing this so far, so what do I know?

It's a COVID miracle! (throwback to when this was announced)

 

[yojohnny]

For the sake of simplicity and not confusing the issue of which month, you do not want PayAll payments that straddle the change of month. You also do not want PayAll payments that straddle statement periods. Keeping in mind that Citibank work around an extremely rubbery 3 day period, that sometimes can be 1 day and other times can be 5 days. It's 3 days ± 2 days effectively.

You do not want a statement date of 28th because to maximise the time you have the free money to earn interest with before you have to pay it back, you need to allow yourself a minimum of 5 days after the statement date for Citibank to make the payment to be guaranteed in all instances it will occur AFTER the statement for the previous period has been generated. This means for most months a scheduled PayAll payment date of 2nd of the month. A 2nd PayAll date will sometimes be executed by Citibank on the 4th of the month and sometimes on the 31st of the previous month depending on where the weekends and public holidays fall. If Citibank choose to execute it on 31st of the previous month, then it will fail and be rejected because you'll have already maxed out the previous month with the PayAll payments scheduled for that month proper. When a payment fails, that's it. There's no second chance. You're done until next month.

The worst case month is February in a non-leap year. You have to set-up assuming 28 days per month to cater for February. If your statement date is 20, then the first PayAll scheduled date is 25 and the second is 28, which for this purpose is the last day of the month. Do not go beyond this.

The end of the month is meaningless for maximising time on deposit before payback. The only thing that matters is when your statement date is. You want to get payments as close as possible to, but always AFTER your statement date. 5 days delay will always guarantee that no matter where the weekends and public holidays fall. Any less and you'll have a failed payment at around Good Friday for Easter and at the end of February. These are the worst case times of year you have to account for.

But having said all that, I may not know anything and you could have a better plan. I've only banked ~1.2mil points and earn $233/month in free interest each month doing this so far, so what do I know?

Thanks again.

 

[Chicken]

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

I guess you can put it this way.

I don't care, nor try to max the rules to the limit. My number 1 principal is to stay under the radar whenever I take advantage of promotions (so not just Citi), which means how to make my account look like everyone else, how it is intended to be. Being a data analyst myself, I ask how to make myself not stick out if someone were to try to pull a report / do a data dump. If I max the rules or promotion to the max, someone will pick it up and investigate, and close the party down.

It's like, just because the noise control for house party is 80 db until 1 AM on Sunday morning, doesn't mean it's wise to party at 78 db until 00:55 every Sunday morning. You may not be breaking the rule exactly, but you are just inviting the cops to look for a reason to shut your party down. The end result is the cops closing your party down, and just loop around the streets and close down every single party.

You do not want a statement date of 28th because to maximise the time you have the free money to earn interest with before you have to pay it back

If you max out your credit limit doing pay all, and try not to pay it back immediately, how do you go to the shops and make a few transactions?

 

[Legoman]

With one of my five other credit cards

 

[Chicken]

With one of my five other credit cards

I always put a few, or more than a few transactions on my Citi card, just to make it look normal, and not have the profitability of my account at the bottom among all the accounts in Citi when someone dump it out and open it in Excel / PowerBI / Tableau, and have my account checked then end up ......

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.

 

[jc14]

Do Payall transactions count as an “eligible retail purchase” for the purpose of meeting the minimum spend required for sign up bonus points?

 

[yojohnny]

Do Payall transactions count as an “eligible retail purchase” for the purpose of meeting the minimum spend required for sign up bonus points?

I just got the points and I had only half of the required amount in proper transactions with the rest PayAll. So yes.

 

[nat000]

I paid mt ATO bill via clicking on payments/ bills/ all billing organisations/ entered ato biller code/ entered my tax reference number and amount, and completed the transaction successfully. I can see it in the 'all transactions' list along with a handful of other normal credit card purchases and 4 payall transactions. However my rewards points balance totals up to the sum of all transactions excluding the ATO amount. Should the ATO payment via bpay in citi app earn points? I'm only half way through my first billing month.

 

[aikman]

I paid mt ATO bill via clicking on payments/ bills/ all billing organisations/ entered ato biller code/ entered my tax reference number and amount, and completed the transaction successfully. I can see it in the 'all transactions' list along with a handful of other normal credit card purchases and 4 payall transactions. However my rewards points balance totals up to the sum of all transactions excluding the ATO amount. Should the ATO payment via bpay in citi app earn points? I'm only half way through my first billing month.

Bpay payments don't earn any points. That's generally the case with most credit cards.

 

[Jacques Vert]

I paid mt ATO bill via clicking on payments/ bills/ all billing organisations/ entered ato biller code/ entered my tax reference number and amount, and completed the transaction successfully. I can see it in the 'all transactions' list along with a handful of other normal credit card purchases and 4 payall transactions. However my rewards points balance totals up to the sum of all transactions excluding the ATO amount. Should the ATO payment via bpay in citi app earn points? I'm only half way through my first billing month.

Pay using a payment service like YakPay next time.

 

[Legoman]

Eligible Transaction means
• any purchase excluding (but not limited to)… Government related transactions
include transactions with government or semigovernment
entities, or relating to services
provided by or in connection with government
(for example but not limited to or transactions
made at Australia Post, payments to the
Australian Taxation Office

 

[nat000]

No worries. Thank you for your replies.

 

[MELso]

Just been offered a $100 cashback on my FFFL Citi Premier card if I spend $1000 on PayAll before 14 February as I haven't used it before.

Only thing I'm not sure about is interest - do PayAll transactions attract interest from day 1 like a cash advance or is there a 55 day interest free period like other retail transactions?

 

[SydneySwan]

Only thing I'm not sure about is interest - do PayAll transactions attract interest from day 1 like a cash advance or is there a 55 day interest free period like other retail transactions?

They are treated like a regular transaction.

 

[MELso]

Neat! I'll use it to pay off this month's Ready Credit minimum payment (another Citibank lurk from a few months ago allowing me to fix $60k of my mortgage at 2.9% for three years with 100k Flybuys points thrown in)...

 

[Legoman]

Obviously a very targeted incentive offer, but it does show that Citibank are still pushing the take up of PayAll which is good to see.

 

[nat000]

Can I please check the following.
- The max. payall of $20k is per calendar month ?
- The max. 20k points earned is per statement period ?
I hope what I've asked makes sense

 

[nat000]

Another question. I've just set a payall (on fri 23rd dec). It says the date is 5th Jan. Is there any possibility that will be done on Dec 31st ? I hope not, as that will go over my $20k for the month of December. Again I hope this question makes sense.