FINALLY! - Citi launching Citi Prestige with Visa Infinite

quokka77 said:
Does anyone here rely on Citi Prestige as their primary travel insurance? I just purchased cover from a separate provider, but having had a better read of the PDS of the paid cover vs the free Citi prestige cover, I don't think there's much difference. Anyone care to share their experience or thoughts?
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Never with Citi Prestige, but I've recently begun relying on Amex Plat Charge insurance. The PDS reads well and a few AFFers have claimed under it (including for medical in USA). Things I like: If the merchant doesn't accept Amex and you put flights etc on Visa, insurance still covers you if you can prove the merchant doesn't take Amex. You can reside in any country (not limited to Australian residents), and there is online claiming.
 
I used to rely on the Charge insurance too, when I had that card. I binned it when the fee went to $1200. C1ti prestige was the obvious best card at that time. I guess I'll have to reassess now. Anyway the travel insurance doesn't look terrible with Prestige at first read. I'll get back to you if/when I get some (free) professional advice.
 
The Amex Plat Charge card insurance was great when you were covered without having to put the trip expenses on the card. Since binning that card I've always bought an annual policy or trip-specific policies even with the Prestige, since most trips are on points with expenses split across multiple cards.

I'm currently living in Canada for a year and have both a TD Trust Travel Visa Infinite (free card) and an Amex Gold Rewards charge card (free for first year), and both of these have travel insurance policies that cover us regardless of whether we pay with the card. Interesting that I can get travel insurance with two free Canadian CCs just by being a card holder, but in Australia I'd have to hold a Centurion for that benefit!
 
Anyone know how strict Citi are with the $150k income requirement?

Thinking of moving to this card from the Signature (given the current devaluation), but don't have that income at the moment...
 
LuisT said:
Anyone know how strict Citi are with the $150k income requirement?

Thinking of moving to this card from the Signature (given the current devaluation), but don't have that income at the moment...
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Your income won't be part of the equation if you're moving from Signature up to Prestige. So long as you meet the minimum credit limit (I believe it's $30K?) you will be able to change card products over a 60 second phone call. No credit checks, no income verification, no hassles!
 
Just received an email from Citi re changes to Prestige. They have taken on board the feedback over providing notice for changes and have enshrined them in the T&Cs.

Outside of reduction in conversion to SQ & VA to point per dollar spend which we all knew about and higher currency conversion fee which will also apply to AUD amounts with foreign merchants - not sure whether we'll get our 5 citi points per dollar on these.

I understand needed to make these changes with the drop in interchange and am expecting others to follow suit. Given no mention of changes to ratios for other programs e.g. Asia Miles, etc, I'm hopeful that's it for this round. In which case, earn rate is pretty much the same as AMEX except for bonus categories (e.g. Supermarkets, Petrol, Dining depending on your AMEX card). Will be interesting to see what will happen elsewhere - particularly Membership Rewards.

My 2 cents worth - don't blame Citi for what they've done and if anything they're ahead of the curve - nice to get notice now. They'll probably be in the sin bin for a while with me and I'll use AMEX where possible first. Otherwise, Prestige remains market leading offer at this point (particularly once everyone inevitably "enhances" their offering). The difference with Signature is now more pronounced - positioning Prestige as the premium product in Citi's offering whereas before they were too close in terms of point earn in particular - especially for a largely "free" card.

Citi Link here https://citibank.com.au/global_docs/pdf/Citi-Prestige-Signature.pdf
 
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I sent Mrscove a message saying thank goodness we have two Citibank US cards for totally fair foreign exchange so you can be anywhere and these cards work great.
We won't be dumping Prestige either.
 
The transfer point reduction I can live with, especially with notice, it's the lack of points from Bpay that i'm spewing about...

Ohh and Citi blocked my Prestige card couple of days ago, said they texted me no text... the reason? My paypal donation to wikipedia came from my citi Prestige card... wtf?
 
Citibank has been my primary use card since 2004 and continue to surprise.
Got caught out this week having to make December payments over two days. Whilst the monthly payments were more than average, have had considerably heavier, however usually able to spread payments over a week.
On the first day, had the card loaded by $10K with Citi allowing payments to put the account more than $15K over the credit limit no problem. Finished the day loading the card back up so that for the next day, the card was considerably in credit having ensured previously to never put the card more than $20K in credit.
Not long into the next days processing, payments were denied without notice from Citi. On being advised of the repeated failures, phoned Citi with their rep well aware of the multiple payments that had been denied payment.
The Citi rep asked if the payments were of a business or personal nature and on being advised they were of a personal nature, he advised the account would be reactivated which occurred shortly after. No further questions were asked with all further payments processed smoothly.
 
That's interesting DaveB. How were you paying? BPay? I didn't expect that a payment could be denied. Did the funds just come back to your account?
 
DeKa said:
That's interesting DaveB. How were you paying? BPay? I didn't expect that a payment could be denied. Did the funds just come back to your account?
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Two were via company web sites and another giving card details over the phone. Understand none were BPay.
 
DaveB said:
Two were via company web sites and another giving card details over the phone. Understand none were BPay.
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I misunderstood you then. You had mentioned pre-loading the card, and I thought you meant those payments were being rejected, not the credit card purchase transactions you were making.
 
Hi all. Merry Christmas!

I just noticed something new with Prestige card that I wasn't aware of before.
http://citibank.com.au/citiprestige/benefits-air-travel.html

"Arrive in style and on time with two complimentary airport limousine transfers and two airport Fast Track passes each year. Every time you request this service, a dedicated meet and greet airport agent will escort you through arrivals, departures or connections, making your trip as seamless as it is memorable."

Is Fast Track pass for the use of the express lane for outbound passport/baggage security screening?
I wonder if it's valid for my family of 4 or if it's only for myself only? :)
 
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trippin_the_rift said:
Never with Citi Prestige, but I've recently begun relying on Amex Plat Charge insurance. The PDS reads well and a few AFFers have claimed under it (including for medical in USA). Things I like: If the merchant doesn't accept Amex and you put flights etc on Visa, insurance still covers you if you can prove the merchant doesn't take Amex. You can reside in any country (not limited to Australian residents), and there is online claiming.
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Be careful of AmEx Plat insurance; last year I had a make a small claim for my last FASA paid fully on the AmEx (MEL-LHR). I had also a few European flights, full paid on AmEx. The incident happened at my final destination, and I provided proof that all the flights there and back had been paid for on the card. The claim was rejected because flights out of Australia had to have been fully paid on the card, and in the case of FASA it meant all the QFF points must had also come from the AmEx card. And because I could not prove the points came from that card the claim was rejected.

Of course I used to put around $200k through the AmEx card up until then, but not much since then. I now have separate cover through TID, but have not made a claim yet.
 
ferni said:
The transfer point reduction I can live with, especially with notice, it's the lack of points from Bpay that i'm spewing about...

Ohh and Citi blocked my Prestige card couple of days ago, said they texted me no text... the reason? My paypal donation to wikipedia came from my citi Prestige card... wtf?
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I also made a donation to Wikipedia and I did receive a text from Citi telling me they had blocked the card. The text asked if it was legit and asked me to reply yes or no. A few seconds later and the block was lifted and the donation went through.
 
Wow hossein, that's a real concern re: the plat charge insurance. It is much easier to trigger the cover on the Citi prestige card (for award ticket cover, I think you have to have transferred 15k points in the past 6 months to the program used to book the tickets). I was thinking of getting the Plat charge again through a professional organisation discount, but if the insurance is that difficult to trigger, I will have to factor that into calculations.
 

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