Tag Archives for citibank.
Right now one of Citi’s transfer partners – Avianca LifeMiles – is offering a 25% bonus on Citi transfers through August 31. What’s interesting is that this is LifeMiles making the offer – they want to encourage the transfers from Citi, so Citi pays them for the miles – rather than Citi making the offer.
Citibank has a card-linked rebate program that’s like Amex Offers, but to date it’s only been available on a limited number of their cards. That’s changed. All of a sudden you’ll find it, for instance, on American Airlines cards and Citi Premier.
This is especially useful because Citi issues a number of Mastercards, which are eligible to be used with SimplyMiles, the American Airlines-Mastercard card-linked offers that award both AAdvantage miles and credit towards elite status.
Star Alliance member Avianca is useful because it has an award chart similar to (but somewhat better than) United. And transfers from Citibank’s ThankYou Rewards to LifeMiles have a 25% bonus through April 30, 2022.
The Citi Prestige Card is no longer available to new applicants. It was Citi’s entry into the premium travel rewards space. Five years ago it was a great card for benefits. They re-tooled it as a strong earning card after shedding it of its best benefits (like unlimited flexible fourth night free on hotels, Admirals Club access and more). The card earns 5x at restaurants and airlines, and 3x on hotels and cruise lines. There’s still a fourth night free hotel benefit, limited to twice a year and more restrictive in its use. It comes with Priority Pass Select and an annual travel credit of up to $250. The card has a $495 annual fee. Like in 2020 and 2021 Citi is letting cardmembers use their travel credit for supermarket and restaurant purchases between January…
In mid-July Citibank points suddenly became transferable to American Airlines. That was a huge surprise and for many cardmembers with Prestige and Premier products a nice increase in the value of their points. Citi hadn’t had one of the large U.S. airlines as a transfer partner.
In fact, it was odd that American Airlines wasn’t a transfer partner before this. And odder still that the relationship was introduced as temporary, running only though November 13.
Chase credit cards, in card images and other samples, generally have the name “D. Barrett” embossed on them. American Express sample cards bear the name “C F Frost” but many years ago were issued to “John Q Public.” Frost was an Ogilvy & Mather executive who worked on the Amex account in the 1960s.
Today I learned who Citi’s “Linda Walker” is.
It was big news this past week when American Airlines responded forcefully to a complaint about shutting down a member’s account for opening various frequent flyer accounts in different names as part of a technique to generate several Citibank credit card signup offers.
Now the person filing the complaint has done two things in response to American’s filing.
Late last year American Airlines started locking AAdvantage accounts and cancelling pending award travel for people they believe took advantage of a ‘loophole’ to sign up for multiple Citibank credit cards.
Several customers whose accounts were shut down filed complaints with the Department of Transportation. American has now responded to a formal complaint, and reveals a lot about what they know – and how they know it.
Earlier in the day Citibank shared that the companion tickets earned from their American Airlines co-brand business card (after $30,000 spend in purchases each cardmembership year, at card renewal) that expire in 2020 will be extended to June 30, 2021.
Barclays has shared that their American Airlines companion tickets – offered as an initial bonus on new consumer cards, and earned from spend on their Red, Silver, and Business cards – will have their expiration extended as well.
Citi has added Emirates Skywards as a points transfer partner for its Citi Premier and Prestige cards. Emirates is now a partner of Citi, Chase, American Express and Capital One – this strikes me as a problem for Barclays which is rolling out an Emirates credit card in the U.S.
Emirates offers great award availability from a variety of U.S. destinations, however fuel surcharges (which depend on the destination flown) are often very expensive and premium cabin awards are priced at 2x coach for business class and 3x coach for first class.
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 »
