Since I last paid the $495 annual fee for the Citi Prestige card I’ve only used it a few times. I paid for our 4th-night free hotel stay, which hardly saved us any money over booking somewhere else. I was charging my Starbucks reloads to earn 5X points for dining expenses, but moved that expense to other cards to take advantage of several offers throughout the year.
Even with the $250 travel credit, it’s hard to justify paying $245 for a card I don’t use and that no longer fills a niche place in my card portfolio.
The renewal date is approaching so I need to come up with an exit strategy. With Citi, this isn’t an easy task because of their complicated rules regarding existing point expiration and future sign-up bonuses.
I figure I’ll have a few options. I’d prefer to keep the account active in some form so it won’t eliminate my chance of getting a future sign-up bonus for a card in the ThankYou family.
Here’s what I’m thinking.
Retention Offer
In the past, I’ve been able to get a decent retention offer from Citi to keep the Citi Prestige card. I looked at the recent offers and Citi has recently been offering 20K ThankYou points for spending $4,000 per month for 3 months. Putting $12K of spend on the Prestige card to earn 20K points is earning less than 1 extra point per dollar spent.
If that’s the offer I’m given, I’m taking a pass.
Product Change
The next best option is to downgrade the Prestige card to one of the no-annual-fee Citi ThankYou cards. This would allow me to keep the account and the points active. By keeping the card within the ThankYou universe, I’ll keep the same account number. This should not reset the 24-month account opening/closing clock for earning sign-up bonuses.
I have three cards to choose from:
- Citi Rewards+ Card
- Citi Preferred Card
- Citi AT&T Access Card
The only card open to new applicants is the Citi Rewards+ Card. It’s a very good no-annual fee card but the points earned can only be transferred to select partners (JetBlue and Sears) or used for cash back. However, since I will still have a Citi Premier card, the points can be transferred to one of Citi’s hotel and airline partners.
While one of us already has a Citi Rewards+ card, there’s an advantage to both of us having one. That way we’d each be able to transfer points and possibly double up on the 10% rebate on redeemed points (which maxes out at 10K points per year.)
Closing Account
I have no intention of closing our account. If I did, all the points in the account would expire in 60 days. I’d have to redeem them through the Citi Travel Portal or transfer them to one of Citi’s partners.
That’s totally unnecessary since I can park the points in one of Citi’s other cards and still redeem them for full value as long as we keep the Citi Premier card.
Final Thoughts
After working through the options, my choice is pretty clear cut. Unless Citi offers a good retention offer for the Prestige card, we’ll downgrade it to the Rewards+. Linking this to our Citi Premier gives us a 10% rebate on redeemed points.
I can’t think of a better option.
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