Existing Citi Hilton Cardholders Will Be Product-Changed Late This Year

by Gary Leff

Update 9:39am Eastern: No final decision has actually been made.

With American Express becoming the sole issuer of Hilton co-brand credit cards in the U.S. starting January 1, 2018, I was curious what would happen to existing Citibank Hilton cardholders.

  • Was American Express buying Citi’s portfolio of Hilton cardmembers?

  • Or would Citi Hilton cardholders receive a different product to replace their Hilton cards?


Rooftop of the Conrad New York, at the Citi Hilton Reserve Card Launch Party in July, 2012

Citi Hilton cards continue to earn Hilton Honors points for their spend through the end of the year. Anyone wanting a Citi Hilton credit card should sign up sooner than later since we know that applications will go away at some point.

It appears that Citi Hilton credit card customers will be product changed to another Citi card product and which one isn’t yet known (rather than getting Hilton American Express cards automatically).

A Citi spokesperson tells me,

Citi will communicate the new credit card information – including anticipated delivery dates and any other pertinent details – to cardmembers prior to the end of this year. Until a replacement card is provided, cardmembers can continue to make purchases on their current card. Spend will continue to earn Points until the end of this year and Points earned on the program will be credited to the cardmember’s Hilton Honors account.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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  1. That statement doesn’t seem to say that, at least the snippet you posted, Gary. Turn it around and think about American Express hypothetically saying that exact statement about Costco members a couple of years ago. It would have applied whether or not people were converted to another Amex card or sold off to Citi. Either way, the conversion would be automatic.

  4. So if we spent $10000 already to earn the free night on our card anniversary, will we not get it if the anniversary is after January 2018?

  5. Customers really deserve to know sooner than later:

    1. If we spend $40,000 in 2017 will we get Hilton Diamond status for 2018.
    2. If we meet the $10,000 spend in 2017 will be get anniversary free night that ordinarily would be awarded on paying annual fee in 2018?
    3. What about people like me who have anniversaries in say, March? I have already spent $1,800 towards the $10,000 threshold to get the free night. I thought I had twelve months (until March 2018) to do that. Will they pull the plug on this card on December 31, 2017, and if I’m at $9,000 in spend then am I out of luck?

    It’s not reasonable for them to say “We’ll let you know by the end of they year.”

  7. @gavinmac- I’ll start by saying that I don’t know any more than you (and this the first I’ve heard of it), so this is speculation, but…

    since the $40K spend for Diamond is calendar-year-based, and the deal ends at the end of the calendar year, I would be pretty sure that the terms will still apply up to that point, so hitting the spend limit should still get the status. Hard to see it going otherwise.

    As to the things that cross calendar-year-boundary and are based on anniversary….yeah, have no idea how that will go.

    Cheers.

  8. Nice, many thanks. They are helpfully telegraphing that I should cancel my Citi Hilton card before year end and go sign up for an Amex Hilton the next time they throw a nice bonus in my direction.

  9. Very helpful information. I, too, am interested in the annual anniversary free weekend night certificate base on $10K card member year spend. My annual certificate arrives each year in Feb. I certainly don’t want to proceed with meeting the $10K spend if there won’t be a free night certificate. I am using this year’s free weekend night certificate this coming Sunday, and looking forward to it.

  10. Yea, I just got this card and I was planning on spending the extra 7.5k to get a free night. I’m not spending a dime on this card until I know what the deal is and if I am going to lose the shot at the free night then I will expect some form of compensation. I applied for this card for certain benefits and now it looks like I may not even get a full year of benefits for what I paid for.

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