Maintaining fee free for life when changing card details

[planky]

Hi everyone,

I have a Citi Signature card that I picked up during the fee free for life promo a couple of years ago. Given the changes to rewards and my changing travelling/spending patterns I am looking at changing the points earn from Citi Rewards to QFF, however I am worried that this might change the card conditions and therefore restart the annual fee. I am also looking at adding a secondary card to the account and have the same concern with this.

Has anyone tried either of these before without losing their fee free for life status?

Many thanks
Pete

 

[DeKa]

I've added a couple of supplementary cards with no change to my $0 annual fee, and no fee for those supplementary cards.
Not tried changing programs.

 

[Cynicor]

Both are fine.

 

[uiopui]

I called and they said i would still retain $0 for life, only need to pay the annual Qantas fee of $49.

 

[mokuni]

Can confirm first hand that you will still keep $0 for life. I moved from Citi Rewards a year ago, to Qantas, and now back to Citirewards (yeah I shouldnt have left the first time, KFF is back in my strategy).

ps created a forum account just to reply this . Long time lurker, but never created a login, till now.

 

[Dawg]

Welcome Mokuni. Thankyou for your insights, hopefully there will be more where they came from!

 

[alex101]

Hi all,

I received a letter from Citibank stating that they are cancelling the Citibank Signature Fee Free for Life as they are upgrading their products in line with current range.
I called up Customer Service and was told that up to 4000 customers have been notified of this upcoming change, the only options I had available were to switch to Citi Simplicity (fee free for life) or pay the $395 annual fee annually for maintaining the Citi Signature.
Just wondering if anyone else has received this notification as well?


Thanks

 

[asterix]

Hi all,

I received a letter from Citibank stating that they are cancelling the Citibank Signature Fee Free for Life as they are upgrading their products in line with current range.
I called up Customer Service and was told that up to 4000 customers have been notified of this upcoming change, the only options I had available were to switch to Citi Simplicity (fee free for life) or pay the $395 annual fee annually for maintaining the Citi Signature.
Just wondering if anyone else has received this notification as well?

I haven't received anything yet. I'd have to check what the Citi Simplicity card offers, otherwise I'll cancel it. I recently got the linked Diners Club card but since it can't be used with PayPal it isn't much use to me.

Thanks

 

[oz_mark]

I could understand if they were getting rid of the Signature card altogether. But just removing the fee free bit seems odd.

 

[mokuni]

Hi all,

I received a letter from Citibank stating that they are cancelling the Citibank Signature Fee Free for Life as they are upgrading their products in line with current range.
I called up Customer Service and was told that up to 4000 customers have been notified of this upcoming change, the only options I had available were to switch to Citi Simplicity (fee free for life) or pay the $395 annual fee annually for maintaining the Citi Signature.
Just wondering if anyone else has received this notification as well?


Thanks

Haven't got any email/letter as yet. 4000 is bit of a small number. How often do you use the CIti Signature card?

 

[aerotravel]

If I ever get that letter, I ain't keeping that card. $0 p.a. with 2 lounge access on Priority Pass is the reason I still keep it and use the card to only pay for items that will earn me 2 Citibank Rewards points.

Any points less than that goes to my Coles Rewards Mastercard to earn 2 FlyBuys points per dollar or purchases in foreign currency where the merchant does not accept the free linked Diners Club.

 

[theblank]

I received a letter from Citibank stating that they are cancelling the Citibank Signature Fee Free for Life as they are upgrading their products in line with current range.

if this is true keyboard warriors will be burning citibank effigies all over social media . However, I can't believe it until I see the letter myself. I think its so unlikely that just one person has received the letter so far and commented on it.

How did you get the letter - post, email, or attached to statement?
what was the date?
what is the exact wording?
whats you average turnover?

Nothing special mentioned here in the original offer page (from the Wayback machine):
Citibank Australia

This should be in its own thread- IMO.

 

[alex101]

if this is true keyboard warriors will be burning citibank effigies all over social media . However, I can't believe it until I see the letter myself. I think its so unlikely that just one person has received the letter so far and commented on it.

How did you get the letter - post, email, or attached to statement?
what was the date?
what is the exact wording?
whats you average turnover?

Nothing special mentioned here in the original offer page (from the Wayback machine):
Citibank Australia

This should be in its own thread- IMO.

Thanks all.

Sorry, I realised that I should have clarified it better, initially, I signed up for the Citibank Fee Free for Life as per the original offer, and got the Citi Platinum card then, which was subsequently upgraded to Signature.

However, as a consequence of being a 'Citigold' member, Citibank must have added me onto their database for '$0' fees. However, as I'm no longer keeping 'Citigold' status with them, they are revoking it and not honoring the original offer.

Letter is attached.

Average turnover on the card about $35k - 50k

The relationship manager, Fred, was quite rude and adamant that I should leave. He told me that about 4000 others had received the letter.
As mentioned, both him and the Customer Service person - Sen, told me that my only option was to use the Citi Simplicity, or pay the $395 annual fee to maintain the card.
In fact, at one stage, when I said I was going to convert my points to FF points, he told me that its not possible as Citi Rewards points couldn't be converted to FF points (which I highly doubt it).

I guess I'm one of the 'lucky' ones in this situation.

Thanks.

 

[aerotravel]

Ya, they seem to have lost your original application to trace back of your entitlement. It's a shame that the relationship manager does not know their own product better or memorise them since they look at them day in day out in terms of the Citi Rewards conversion to FF programs.

I'm staying away from moving to Citigold whatsoever if this is the outcome one is getting.

Honestly, though, is there much fuss about moving from pleb customer to Citigold / Citi Priority? Are the benefits something to scream about?

 

[oz_mark]

Certainly that makes more sense, as does rhe statement it afferts 4,000 cardholders.

Better look for some paperwork!

 

[theblank]

However, as a consequence of being a 'Citigold' member, Citibank must have added me onto their database for '$0' fees. However, as I'm no longer keeping 'Citigold' status with them, they are revoking it and not honoring the original offer./QUOTE]

So in other words, Citi is not cancelling the Fee free for life on the Signature Visa

 

[wxxnxs]

Citi is not cancelling its Signature card, it asks you to pay for the full amount of annual fee because you are no longer meeting Citigold criteria. It has nothing to do with losing fee free for life status. However, I'm quite shocked with the response from your relationship manager regarding the card features, that's one of the most unprofessional advice I have ever seen.

 

[Legoman]

This is exactly why when I applied for my FFFL Signature in Sep 2013, I made sure to screen capture every page of the website/offer and application process as I went through before screen caps were even a 'thing'. I fully anticipated that Citibank would at some point in the future try to weasel out of the arrangement when it no longer suited their accountants to continue honouring it. Unfortunately in Australia, our banks are so untrustworthy, you have to capture and store every single piece of evidence you can, while you can, for the inevitable sh!tfight down the line when the bank decides to try and reneg on the contract. It's sad, but unfortunately necessary. Just a reflection of the sorry state of Australian corporations.

It's the one and only good thing about Windows 10 is having the conversion to PDF built into the browser as well as an easy 'Fisher-Price' method of capturing screen shots that is helping to educate the masses about the importance of capturing what's on your screen right now, because it can very easily be gone again in 5 minutes' time.

In response and to presumably keep control of their constantly changing T&C's, I've noticed that website authors are now using very odd layouts and non-standard fonts to make their webpages print to PDF completely corrupted and unreadable, requiring a double step through XPS format to get a readable & editable PDF of evidence.

 

[theblank]

I fully anticipated that Citibank would at some point in the future try to weasel out of the arrangement

well the thing is, Citibank hasnt.

 

[Legoman]

I've been waiting for the day ever since Citibank launched it when they tell everyone the "life" bit refers to the life of the card, not the life of the cardholder and Citibank are within their rights to terminate the life of the card at any time they like. I do note that nowhere in the original publicity for the offer does it ever mention just who's or what's life the offer is valid for. Everyone naturally assumes it's their own life, but I'll bet it's not.