Citi allows you to get the sign up bonus on a credit card more than once, but the requirement is that you cannot get the bonus again if you have or had that card open or closed within the past 18 months. If I do a product change to a different card, does Citi consider the original card closed?
For example, let’s say I product changed the Citi Hilton Reserve to the Citi Hilton Visa Signature in January of 2013. Would I be eligible to get the bonus on that card again? Or do I need to close the Citi Hilton Visa Signature and wait 18 months?
Great question, I always recommend doing a product change to a no annual fee card where possible. The reason I recommend this is when you do a product change on your credit report it’ll show the original opening date and the trade line (credit card) will continue to age. This increases your average age of accounts and helps to improve your FICO score over the long run.
While Citi will continue to report the original opening date to the credit bureaus, for their own internal systems they will consider the original card closed and the card you’re product changing to to be opened. In your case this means that you’ll be eligible for the Citi Hilton Reserve card again, but you won’t be able to get the bonus on the Visa signature card. If you wanted to get the bonus on that card, you’d need to cancel it (or product change it to something else) and wait 18 months.
This means that if you doing product changes with Citi you’ll really want to do them on cards that either: don’t have sign up bonuses or have sign up bonuses you don’t care about. In terms of cards with no sign up bonus, I’d recommend the Citi Double Cash (2% everywhere) and the Citi Dividend (5% rotating categories). Both have no annual fee and no sign up bonus (although it was possible to briefly get a bonus on the double cash).
OFFER AVAILABILITY
American Airlines AAdvantage® bonus miles can be earned by new Citi® / AAdvantage® Platinum Select® card cardmembers approved through this offer. American Airlines AAdvantage® bonus miles are not available if you have received a new account bonus for a Citi® / AAdvantage® Platinum Select® account in the past 48 months.
^based on this language from the Citi AA Platinum personal card, if I opened the original card and got the bonus over 48 months ago but product changed to the no annual fee AA Mileup this March, am I still eligible for the welcome bonus?
Looks like it.
Sorry, I’m still confused.
If I product change my Citi AA World MC (opened 1 year ago) to Citi Double Cash card today, when exactly will I be eligible for the bonus again on AA World MC?
1. 18 months from today (product change date)?
2. 18 months from the original AA World MC opening date?
Thanks!
can you change a citi mc into an amex. it would be useful for syncoffers. I have several aa cards that are coming up on AF
two Qs
1) is there a limit to how many cards you can hold with Citi? like Chase has an informal limit of 4, and I blv AMEX has a hard limit of 4 non-charge cards.
2) the bigger Q this post reminded me of was, is it possible to get any kinda bonus on a PC? say you switched from an Exec to a Dividend – should you ask for a bonus, even token offer when PCing… or wait a cpl months and talk to retention about any offers etc. or if you’re feeling lucky, do both? 🙂
Is it possible to PC from a TY card (such as ThankYou Preferred) to a non-TY card, assuming the account is 12 months old? I PCd my Dividend to Double Cash and now want a Dividend again, and my TYP is in the sock drawer.
Should be possible, never hurts to try. Let us know how you get on!
How does a product change fit with the 8/65 days rule?
Don’t think it effects it at all, I could be wrong though.
I thought the Hilton Reserve is not eligible to be churn!
Are you saying that I can downgrade the Reserve card and then re-apply for a new Reserve card (if 18 month after the original application has passed), and I should be able to get a bonus on the Reserve card for a second time?
You should be able to churn it without issue, just check the fine print as some offers have anti churning language and others do not.
I product changed my Citi AAdvantage Amex to a DoubleCash about 2 months ago. I know I’m within 18months from “closing” the AA Amex, but since it was an AA Amex would I be able to apply for a AA MC/Visa and get the bonus?
You should be able to, sometimes it specifies if it was a Visa/Mastercard/American Express and other times it doesn’t. Just make sure you use a link that specifies it.
Since Citi typically doesn’t allow product changes until you’ve had the card open for 12 months (at least in my experience), you have a decision to make with Citi cards.
Either do a product change to a NAF card to increase AAoA and avoid decreasing available credit. Or, cancel the card immediately after receiving the bonus. If you do the product change you are looking at getting bonuses every 30 months. If you cancel as soon as possible you can bonuses every ~19 months or so.