Citi Prestige 50,000 ThankYou Points After $3,000 In Spend

The Offer

Citibank lets you check for pre-qualified credit card offers, after they display your pre-qualified offers they also show you some cards you might be interested in. At the moment some people are seeing a higher Citi Prestige sign up bonus when they check for pre-approvals, here is that offer:

• Receive 50,000 ThankYou points after you spend $3,000 within three months

 

 

The Fine Print

• Annual fee of $450 is not waived on this card
• $250 airline credit every year
• Free access to American Airlines Admirals Club lounges
• Earns at the following rates:
  • 3x points on Air Travel & Hotels
  • 2x points on Dining at restaurants & entertainment
  • 1x points on all other purchases
• Citi Prestige Global Concierge
• Receive a $100 Global Entry application fee credit.

Our Verdict

The airline credit is based on a calendar year, so it would be possible to get two of these airline credit and only pay one annual fee. They fine print does say that you should allow 1-2 statement periods for your credit to post though, so I wouldn’t recommend applying for this card in January if this is your plan. The standard bonus on this card is 30,000 ThankYou points after $2,000 in spend.

ThankYou points are worth 1¢ a piece when you redeem for gift cards or for a checking towards your mortgage payment or student loans. If you redeem for a personal check or statement credit then points are only worth 0.5¢ a piece.

You can also redeem your points for airfare, if you redeem them for U.S Airways or American Airline flights these points are worth 1.6¢ a piece (h/t to Freequent Flyer for making me aware of this bonus). If you redeem them for flights with any other airline then they are worth 1.33¢ a piece. You can also transfer points to their travel partners:

Hotel:

• Hilton: 1:1.5 transfer (e.g 1,000 ThankYou points = 1,500 Hilton points)

Airlines:

All of the airline programs have a 1:1 transfer rate. This means that you’ll receive 1,000 airline miles if you exchange 1,000 Citi ThankYou points.

• AirFrance-KLM Flying Blue
• Asia Miles
• EVA Air Infinity MileageLands
• Etihad Guest
• Garuda Indonesia Frequent Flyer
• Malaysia Airlines Enrich
• Qatar Airways Privilege Club
• Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer
• Thai Airways Royal Orchid Plus

This is a pretty good offer, my plan is to wait a few months and hope that this offer is active if it is then I’ll be able to use two $250 airline credits to try to help offset the high annual fee of $450. I don’t think this card provides great value unless you’re able to double dip on those airline credits.

Remember that you need to check for pre-qualified offers with Citi first to see this offer (this is only a soft pull) and not everybody will be able to see it.

Useful Posts About Citi: 

• Citi offers a lot of retention bonuses. We’d recommend calling them at the 60 day mark, 180 day mark, new calendar year mark and 360 day mark.
• Citi will often match you to a higher sign up bonus if you recently applied for a lower bonus.
• You can usually churn Citi credit cards every 18 months.
• Citi will only expedite credit cards that have been lost or stolen, they will not expedite new cards.
• Citi will sometimes do a hard pull if you request a credit limit increase, they also sometimes do a soft pull. Read more about this here.
• It’s not possible to combine inquiries with Citi.
• If you’re not approved, find out the best number to call Citi on for them to reconsider
• This card has a high annual fee, here are some card options that you can downgrade to.
• Find out how to reallocate your credit limits with Citi.

Hat tip to kevmmcb from Milepoint