The Offer
- Receive up to 60,000 ThankYou points when you sign up for the Citi Prestige card:
- Receive 30,000 ThankYou points after you spend $3,000 within the first three months
- Receive an additional 30,000 ThankYou points after you spend a total of $15,000 within the first 12 months
The Fine Print
- You cannot apply for this offer online, only at a Citibank branch. Click here to view your closest branch.
Other Offers
There are two other offers on this card and they are as follows:
- Public offer: 30,000 ThankYou points after making $2,000 in purchases within three months. Annual fee of $450.
- Semi targeted offer: 50,000 ThankYou points after making $3,000 in purchases within three months. Annual fee of $450. You need to check for a pre approved offer with Citi, it appears for some people and not others. Read more on our post here.
Our Verdict
The in branch offer is supposed to be for Citi Gold checking customers, there are a number of good sign up bonuses for Citi Gold checking at the moment (I’ve put them in order of what I think is strongest to weakest):
Whilst the offer is supposed to be for Citi Gold checking customers, a lot of people have had success getting it without having this account open (for example, Rapid Travel Chai,  GrnLantern & linglingfool [although he has had it in the past]).
I think it’s clear that this offer is superior to the public offer ($100 lower annual fee, but it requires a spend of $3,000 instead of $2,000 plus the potential to get another 30,000 points), but what about the 50,000 semi targeted offer?
Let’s assume you spend the full $15,000 on non category bonus spend, you’d earn a total of 15,000 ThankYou points. If you did the 50,000 offer, you’d spend $3,000 and receive 3,000 ThankYou points. You could then put $12,000 in spend on a 2% cash back card, earning you $240. We need to remember the annual fee difference of $100, so this would leave you with $140 extra cash back. I think an additional 22,000 ThankYou points (10,000 from the sign up bonus and 12,000 from spending) is worth $140 without a shadow of doubt.
If you can afford to put $15,000 in spend in 12 months on a card, then this in branch offer is vastly superior to the semi targeted 50,000 point offer. I’ve been thinking about pulling the trigger on the Prestige card recently and I will almost certainly do so, here is why:
- The $250 annual airline credit is based on a calendar year, meaning I could get two of these and only pay the annual fee once. This should more than pay for the annual fee if I just buy and resell the airline gift cards.
- The Citi Prestige card lets me use my ThankYou points for AA/UA flights and get a value of 1.6 per point.
- Lounge access. Honestly I don’t really care about lounge access, I’m a pretty simple person. I do love free stuff though, so more lounge access is always a good thing I guess.
- 4th night free on hotel stays. Again this is a benefit I probably won’t use that much, but it might come in handy if I can find a good combination of portal discounts & OTA loyalty programs. Frequent Miler has recent experience using this benefit.
If you don’t live near a Citi Branch, you should still be able to get this increased sign up bonus. Kenny at Miles 4 More has recent experience with this, I’d strongly recommend reading his post on the process. If you’re going to go in branch, I’d strongly recommend reading this post by Rapid Travel Chai who gives his experience getting this offer. Â If I have some spare time this weekend, I’ll write a full detailed review of Prestige card and all of the benefits it offers. If you have the card, let me know in the comments which benefits you like and why and anything I should include in my review.
Obviously this deal doesn’t make sense if you can’t meet the $15,000 spend requirement, you’ll be better off with the 50,000 point offer. Also keep in mind if this $15,000 spend requirement will limit you in terms of what other minimum spend requirements you’ll be able to reach. Will this restrict you chasing other bonuses? If so, it’s probably a good idea to give it a miss.
@HOKO, Thanks for the update that the offer is still available.
QUESTION FOR ANYONE– ARE THE ADDITIONAL 30,000 POINTS TO BE AWARDED AFTER SPENDING $15,000.00 ON THE CARD IN A YEAR MEAN THAT ONE MUST SPEND AN ADDITIONAL 15 GRAND OVER AND ABOVE THE INITIAL $3,000.00 FOR THE FIRST TRANCHE OF THE 30,000 TY POINTS, OR DOES IT JUST REQUIRE YOU TO PUT AN ADDITIONAL $12,000 ON THE CARD???
Thanks!
Branch offer for $350 AF and 60k points is still going strong. Applied and was approved last week (and I don’t have citigold)
Sarah,
I went to a branch last week and they still had the 60K / $350 AF offer.
Does anyone know if this offer is still available in the branches?
I went to branch, banker told me, for additional 30k points I have to have citi gold, because these points from citi gold checking. And after one year, the AF will jump up to $450 if I don’t have gold. Is that right?
It’s up to the individual banker, we’re not sure what will happen to the AF after one yet if yo don’t have citi gold checking, but I imagine it would stay at $350.
Woo hoo, i just got approved for the 60k deal+350AF,and im not citi gold customer, i just applied for the card in branch instead of online
Hey DoC,
I’m currently not a Citigold member. I live far from any Citi branches, so I cannot try applying in person for the 60k offer like Rapid Travel Chai did.
So my best option is to apply over the phone like Kenny did. However, it sounds like on the phone they might be pretty strict about needing to have Citigold.
My question is this: could I get a Citigold account, then do the 60k offer over the phone, and then cancel my Citigold account shortly thereafter? That way I’d only be out $30 from one month of fees with Citigold. Do you see any showstoppers or gotchas in this approach?
Thanks very much for your time!
Citi has no early account termination fee, so I don’t see why you wouldn’t be able to do this. That being said, why not just sign up for one of the bonuses Citi is currently offering?
https://www.doctorofcredit.com/citi-gold-400-checking-bonus/
https://www.doctorofcredit.com/targeted-citibank-offering-up-to-30000-american-airlines-aadvantage-miles-to-sign-up-for-their-checking-products-no-direct-deposit/
https://www.doctorofcredit.com/citibank-offering-up-to-40000-thankyou-points-for-opening-a-checking-account/
DoC,
Thanks a lot for the heads up! I didn’t know there were any active offers right now.
You da man.
No worries, always like to hear about helping readers.
This sounds very tempting to me too. I’m unclear on a couple of things though. How do apps for the 3 types of TY cards impact each other? Can you get them all, one after another (within 8/65, of course), and if so, does it make a difference in which order you apply?
What are the rules about the airline gift cards? Do they always qualify for a statement credit, or is that a YMMV situation?
I don’t actually buy airline tickets 🙂 But I do transfer points to FF programs. Where would I go about selling the GCs, and what would the likely discount be to unload them?
I don’t think it matters in which order you apply for them, but I’d always recommend applying in the order you want them the most. It’s YMMV on gift cards, check Flyertalk for the latest details. In terms of reselling them check giftcardgranny.com for the latest rates, I think SWA usually has the best resell rate but United/AA are usually good as well.
William, on your fourth point about pulling the trigger, I think there’s reason to put less stock in this since you need to book directly over the phone with Citi, hence no ability to use portals or OTA programs. It still could be a reasonably valuable benefit under the right circumstances though.
Man, this offer is very tempting. I just got the Citi AA this month. I know if I did apply, they’ll pull Experian again. I believe I have about 7 inquiries on it, 4 of those within the last 6 months. Do you think I’ll have a problem? My CL on the AA was approved for 14k.