Over the past 12 months, Citi has made several major changes to their credit card portfolio. The surprising thing is the inconsistent nature of these changes. While some of them add significant value to the cards, others cut the legs off the cards in regards to their usefulness in any serious traveler’s wallet.
Looking at the timeline of the changes will possibly give you a case of whiplash. Here’s a summary of the changes announced by Citi:
Every once in a while, I like to go over which cards Sharon and I are carrying in our wallets. Doing so gives you a look behind the scenes of how to put a plan of earning points and miles in practice. We each have a different approach to earning miles and points. I try to earn the maximum points for each transaction without too much effort, and her desire to exert the least amount of thought into the process (Note from Sharon: Hell yeah! LOLOL!), the cards we carry are different.
There’s a method to my madness, as I manage to balance the two approaches and come to a plan where we maximize earning while minimizing effort (and still keep our marriage together). (Note from Sharon: Again. Hell yeah!)
Writing this post also forces me to evaluate if I’m actually doing what I say I’m going to do or seeing that I’ve gotten a little lazy (which I had). After some shuffling, here are the cards that now reside in our wallets.
Continue reading “What Credit Cards Are In Our Wallets (September 2019)”
Happy Sunday to all of our travel friends, both near and far! Here are some articles we’ve read from other bloggers (and other sources) that we think you may like, as well, so we’re passing them along.
On September 1, 2019, Citi is going to change the fourth-night free benefit on the Citi Prestige to make reservations only bookable through the ThankYou portal or by calling a Thank You representative. Then on September 22, 2019, Citi will remove most of their travel insurance and shopping protections from almost all of their card portfolio.
These changes made me rethink our Citi card portfolio and one of the possibilities was canceling our Citi Prestige card. With Citi’s rules, if I cancel a card the points associated with that card expire in 60 days, even if you’ve transferred those points to another Citi ThankYou card which you are keeping open.
If I’m going to need to cash these points out, I better explore my options.
Continue reading “What Should I Do With My Citi ThankYou Points?”
Citi apparently feels that for their credit card portfolio, less is more. And when I say less, I mean cutting most insurance coverages for all their cards as well as less frequent sign-up bonuses for the American Airlines co-brand cards (now increased from 24 months to 48 months). Citi apparently wasn’t done, as it looks like they’ve now reduced the sign-up bonus on their Citi Rewards+ card.
What happened? Continue reading “Citi Cuts Sign Up Bonus on Rewards+ Card By 25%”
