A lot of people have been signing up for Citi Gold checking account’s recently, there is currently a 30,000 American Airlines or 40,000 Citi ThankYou points sign up bonus for this account and you can fund the account with a credit card (up to $100,000 or more) – if you’re going to do this then make sure you read our complete walk through first. Another benefit is that by having a Citi Gold Checking Account the annual fee on the Citi Prestige card is reduced by $100 (from $450 to $350), this is done on a prorated basis even if you had the Citi Prestige card first.
A lot of readers have let me know that they’ve actually received an annual fee refund of far more than $100. Blogger friend from Joe (of As The Joe Flies and Observation Deck fame) first let me know about it. I originally speculated that he might be receiving the refund as part of the $700 million in refunds that Citi was ordered to pay to customers by the CFPB.
Turns out I was completely wrong (this happens a lot more than you might think) what actually is happening is that Citi is refunding the full annual fee, minus the prorated discount ($100 or less) and then recharging the annual fee at a later date. I have no idea why they are doing this rather than just refunding the discount, but they are – so don’t get too excited about your massive annual fee refund.
I guess you could cancel your card before the annual fee is recharged and but this will surely sour your relationship with Citi and given the massive improvements they’ve made to their credit card offerings this would be a mistake (and somewhat dishonest and unethical).
