List of Positive Changes to Citicards Protections & Benefits

Citibank credit cards offer numerous protections for accidents, price changes, and much more. These benefits are run through a third-party partner, and that partner is changing for all Citi cards starting May 15. As part of the change, there are numerous benefits enhancements – let’s list them one-by-one.

Sample link to new terms on a Citi card (this link is to the Prestige terms)

Sample link to old terms on a Citi card (this link is to the Prestige terms)

Travel Protection – Partial Payment

The Citi Prestige card has a number of expanded travel protections including Trip Delay Protection, Baggage Delay Protection, Lost Baggage Protection, and Medical Evacuation.

Under the old terms, only trips paid for fully with the Citi card or ThankYou points are eligible for these protections. Under the new terms starting May 15, even partial payment will make you eligible, e.g. when booking an award ticket and paying a small amount of fees with the Citi card or when paying part/most of the ticket with a gift card.

New terms:

To be eligible for coverage under this benefit, your Citi card and/or ThankYou® Points must be used to purchase at least a portion of the Trip.

The change makes the Prestige card on par with Chase’s Sapphire Preferred card which also only needs the final fees paid with the card to make you eligible for its travel benefits.

Note that the Car Rental Insurance benefit still needs the entire rental to be paid with the Citi card and will not cover when doing only partial payment (see Car Rental – Coupons below).

Also note that most Citi cards (not only Prestige) have Trip Cancellation & Interruption Protection which reimburses the traveler for the cost of the tickets in the event of sickness, injury or death. This benefit also works with partial payment under the new terms, but only up to the amount paid with the Citi card.

Travel Protection – Who is Covered?

Most Citi cards have the Trip Cancellation & Interruption Protection. And the Citi Prestige card has an expanded number of travel protections, as noted above. Who is included in these benefits?

The old terms limited coverage of all benefits to the primary cardholder and authorized users; spouse/partner; dependent children under age 19 (24 for students).

The new terms include many more people for some of the coverages: all children, fiancee, children of Domestic Partner, adopted children, siblings and siblings-in-law, parents and parents-in-law, grandparents, grandchildren, aunts/uncles/nephews/nieces, and even a Travel Companion.

Covered Travelers which means, you, your Family Members, and Traveling Companion(s) traveling on the Trip. Family Members means your children, spouse, fiancée, Domestic Partner and their children, including adopted children or step-children; legal guardians or wards; siblings or siblings-in-law; son-in-law or daughter-in-law; parents or parents-in-law; grandparents or grandchildren; aunts or uncles; nieces or nephews. Traveling Companion means any individual(s) for whom you have paid to travel on your or your Family Member’s Trip. Domestic Partner means a committed relationship between two unmarried adults, in which the partners, (1) are each other’s sole Domestic Partner, (2) maintain a common residence, (3) share financial obligations if both are employed, (4) are not married or joined in a civil union to anyone else or are not the Domestic Partner of anyone else, and (5) are not blood related.

The expanded eligibility is only for the following benefits: Trip Cancellation and Interruption Protection, Travel/Emergency Assistance, Trip Delay, Baggage Delay, Lost Baggage Protection.

The following two benefits still have more limited protections (only for partner and dependents): Travel Accident Insurance and Medical Evacuation.

Travel Protection for Long Trips

All travel protections (trip delay, baggage delay, etc.) now apply for trips longer than 60 days as well. The only exception is Medical Evacuation which is limited to trips less than 60 consecutive days long.

Travel Protection – Car Rental Coupons

There’s a small change – perhaps ‘clarification’ is a better word – for the rental car insurance benefit which covers the rental car in the case of an accident. If you use a promotion/discount, you are still eligible for rental car insurance benefit so long as the remainder is charged to the Citi card or using ThankYou points.

To be eligible for coverage under this benefit, your Citi card and/or ThankYou® Points must be used to pay for the rental car. If a rental car company promotion/discount of any kind is initially applied toward payment of the rental, any remaining portion of the rental must be paid for with your Citi card and/or ThankYou® Points.

Purchase Protection – 24 Month Warranty

The Extended Warranty benefit is now for 24 months after the end of the manufacturer’s warranty, up from the previous limit of 12 months. For example, if you have a one-year manufacturer warranty, Citi will cover year #2 and #3.

This is a major change in my view, and Citi is now more competitive than Amex who only offers 12 months.

Purchase Protection – $500 Price Rewind

Citi offers a Price Rewind benefit which will reimburse you if the price lowers within 60 days of purchase. The new dollar max is $500 per item and $2500 per year, up from $300 per item and $120 per year.

Purchase Protection – 90 Days Returns

Citi now gives us 90 days to use the Return Protection benefit versus the previous limit of 60 days.

The new 90-day limit is now on par with Amex’s return protection benefit.

Purchase Protection – Theft & Damage

If an item is stolen or damaged within 120 days of purchase (90 for NY residents), Citi will reimburse you for the loss. This insurance benefit is now primary for everyone besides New York residents where it’s secondary. Under the old terms, it’s only secondary.

Final Thoughts

All these changes are positive and Citi will now be very competitive in the benefits arena. Specifically, these changes are notable:

• Award tickets will get Prestige benefits when paying the fees with the card and it will cover all family members
• 2 year extended warranty
• 90 day return protection

For travelers, the award tickets part is a big change and that coverage will work for all family members. For gadget-lovers, the 24-month extended warranty is impressive; I’m not sure anymore if I should use Amex for their ease-of-use or use Citi for the extra year.

You can find links to the new and old terms for many cards in this Flyertalk wiki.

Please let us know in the comments if we missed anything.

Hat tip to friend Toneiglavinic for lots of good info; also to friend K., Flyertalk, OMAAT, and Saverocity