A reader reports receiving a pop-up notification when logging into her Citi account with bad news: Citi Prestige Trip Delay coverage is changing from a 3 hour minimum delay to a 6 hour minimum delay. That changes the benefit from being the best in the industry to just being as good as other premium cards. Additionally, the benefit has changed from covering you and your travel companions to you and your family members. Whereas others traveling with you were previously covered, they will now only be covered if they are family members. We have updated our guide to premium credit card insurance, which you can view here:
Ultra-Premium Credit Card Travel Insurance
Here is the full text on the change – I’ve added bold font for emphasis:
We wanted to let you know about some upcoming changes to some of your Shopping and Travel Benefits. Effective July 29, 2018.
For purchases made on or after July 29, 2018:
Worldwide Car Rental Insurance: You may be reimbursed up to a maximum of $75,000. Program coverage won’t apply to charges or expenses for the loss of use of the rental car, rental agency fees, or taxes.
Trip Cancellation & Interruption Protection: You may be reimbursed up to a maximum of $5,000 per trip. Please note, coverage provided will be limited to you and your family members. For updated coverage terms, see the Covered Reasons section for this benefit in your Guide to Protection Benefits.
Damage & Theft Purchase Protection: You may be covered for up to $10,000 per incident for 90 days from the date of purchase or delivery of the item purchased with your card. Please note, the coverage provided by this benefit will be secondary (meaning if you have another insurance policy, this benefit will cover only the amount your other policies do not). Coverage won’t include lost items, firearms, ammunition, jewelry, watches, tires or items that are under the care and control of a third party including, but not limited to, the U.S. Postal Service, airlines, or delivery services.
Trip Delay Protection and Baggage Delay Protection: Program coverage will be limited to you and your family members. Program coverage will only apply to delays of 6 hours or more.
Lost Baggage Protection and Travel & Emergency Assistance: Program coverage provided will be limited to you and your family members.
Citi Price Rewind: You may be reimbursed up to a maximum of $200 per item and $1,000 per calendar year. Program coverage won’t include consumables, tires, watches, firearms, or ammunition. You won’t be reimbursed if the lower priced item is found at a warehouse club where the merchant requires a customer to pay a membership fee.
90 Day Return Protection: You may be reimbursed up to a maximum of $1,500 per calendar year. Program coverage won’t include firearms, ammunition, tires, jewelry, furniture or appliances.
An updated Guide to Protection Benefits, with complete coverage details, including coverage limits, what’s covered and what’s not covered, is available under “Quick links”. If you have questions regarding coverage call 1-866-506-5222 (TTY: Use Relay Service).
As noted, the changes take effect for purchases made on or after July 29, 2018. Based on that text, I would expect that flights purchased before that date to be covered under the old terms, though in practice you may have difficulty with the claims processor (and may want to save screen shots of your current benefits and terms).
This is certainly a large negative change. While I had a successful claim last year (See: My $500 trip delay claim with Citi Prestige), the claims processor has since been playing games with defining a delay and refusing to cover missed connections like mine (See: The Fine Print: Fighting Citi Prestige’s ‘Trip Delay’ Shenanigans). Still, a 3-hour delay claim window is much more useful to me than a 6-hour window as I will almost surely incur some expense on a 4 or 5 hour delay. I would therefore typically buy airfare with my Prestige card to be covered for delays of 3-6 hours rather than only having 6hr coverage that comes with cards like the Chase Sapphire Reserve and Chase Ritz-Carlton Visa. This devaluation takes away the advantage of using the Prestige card in those cases.
It is unfortunate to see a continuation of the devaluation of the Prestige. With last year’s changes (elimination of Admirals Club access, elimination of the golf benefit, change to calculation of the 4th night free, loss of 1.6cpp towards AA airfare, etc) and the recent reports of delay claim denials, I’m kind of surprised to see further devaluation. Clearly, the trip delay benefit was proving to be too generous and was perhaps used more than Citi expected. It’s a disappointing change that starts to put into question the value of holding a Prestige card unless you either frequently use the 4th night free benefit or have held onto a $350 annual fee from opening the card in-branch or having a Citi Priority account. In those cases, with the annual $250 airfare benefit, I still think it’s a card worth holding — but that value proposition continues to be more questionable.
Again, see our Ultra-Premium Credit Card Travel Insurance guide for comparisons with other premium cards.
H/T: TravelNSO
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Hey friends, I wonder if we can stay in a hotel if we are delayed in home airport with citi trip delay? I know Chase put specifically in the term that you have to be away from home 100 miles to be able to claim. But there is nothing like that in Citi’s term.
[…] Citi Changes the Prestige Travel Delay Benefit […]
[…] collector and blogger, one topic of discussion has been which annual fees are worth paying. With recent devaluations to the Citi Prestige card, we’ve certainly considered cancelling. That’s a bit easier said than done for me as I […]
I am confused…can someone please clarify: Is the 4th night free being discontinued?
No !!!!
No.
Citi is no longer interested in the “premium-level” customers.
That’s why I got it ..
CHEERs
[…] light of the news that Citi has reduced many of the Prestige card’s travel & purchase protections, I expect that readers are wondering whether to dump their Prestige card when the next annual fee […]
Crooks ! just like all bankers are an Evil lot they are . Sorry not all I must learn to B more PC 99.999% .. I’ll get another cc just to Rip them off oop’s got one a week ago..
CHEERs
As long as they keep the 4th night benefit, this card is a no-brainer for me. I save thousands each year on this card. By far the most valuable card I own, even though I have the CSR etc.
Correct 4 u I use the Lower end like $300per or Less hopefully and Hotel.com gives 10% off NO HASSLE BOOKING unlike P-Card it TAKES TO LONG TO BOOK. ..When them there BOZO’s change that I’m Gone ..
CHEERs
I have the $350 AF, rarely (not this year) use the 4th night free and don’t see the value in the card anymore. It’s not good for spending on, benefits are mediocre and I can get PP access hopping between one of the many other premium cards out there. Unless I get an amazing retention offer I’m downgrading this.
A more important question is whether they are still playing games with the definition of delayed trip. For me, I probably wouldn’t have expenses unless the trip gets delayed overnight. If that is the case, 3 hours or 6 hours doesn’t matter. If they are still playing games and are saying a 2 hour delay causing a missed connection which leads to an overnight and eventual 12 hour delay is not a real delay, I won’t even bother.
I believe they are still doing exactly that. If none of your individual flights are delayed by more than 3 hours, your “trip” isn’t delayed by more than 3 hours. Seems like a ridiculous definition to me, but that’s what they are apparently working with.
Yeah, so the 3 hours vs 6 hour debate is meaningless. The delay insurance is worthless. I would be fine if they put in some caveat such as “connecting flights must have a connection time 1h greater than the MCT”, but missed connections are basically 90% of why delay insurance is valuable.
Having said that, they’ve given me pretty generous retention offers the last few years and this card pencils out to less than $0 cost for me. I’ll keep it either way.
They’re making the decision to keep or cancel easier by the day
I have saved 1700 using my prestige card this year , 1100 in the form of 4th night hotel reimbursement
I’ve done well too . Everyone should get it for the first 12 months to get the points and $500 travel credit .Been 2 like 5 P lounges yes they are a walk BUT u only use them on a 3 hr lay over or u get to the airport early like I do .
This card & INK I’m set for World travel . I do want to use the PL in SYD to get the $28 credit like was posted here.
Has anyone gotten a so called Free one nite stay by posting a review on hotel.com they sent me a code to use I will call them too.
CHEERs
Just waiting for my 2 years to go by. For my advanced age, that time is being painfully slow.
Here are some more:
Damage & Theft Purchase Protection: Coverage was previously 120-days and primary (except for New York). Now it is 90-days and secondary, and with all new exclusions.
Price Rewind: As reported previously — Coverage was up to $500 per incident and $2,500 per year. Now $200 per incident and $1,000 per year, and with all new exclusions.
90-Day Return Protection: Coverage was previously $500/item and $2,500/year. Now capped at $1,500 per year, and with all new exclusions including appliances.
Current worldwide rental car coverage is a maximum of $100k and has no exclusions for loss of use (which can be extremely expensive), fees and taxes so that is another devaluation.
Would need to go line by line, but I am sure the rest of the list are all devaluations as well.
I wonder why they felt the need to do that one. I can’t imagine they get many claims for between $75k-100k and this is somehow going to cut those. It seems like someone just decided to cut a little bit of everything.