Doctor of Credit reported last night that the Citi Prestige card was not showing on the Citi website and that the landing page leads to a generic error. We have now confirmed with a reliable source that Citi is no longer taking applications for the Prestige card. They will continue to service existing cardholders with no expected changes to those accounts, but they are no longer accepting new applicants. Additionally, we believe that it is no longer possible to product change to the Prestige card from other Citi cards. While the Prestige card had had a highly questionable value proposition ever since benefits were reduced and the fee was increased, it is nonetheless disappointing to see the card disappear unexpectedly.
The Prestige card has held an awkward position ever since Citi slashed benefits on the card and increased the fee in 2018. Those changes nerfed the value of the 4th night free benefit by limiting its use to twice per year and forcing cardholders to book via thankyou.com (though in fairness the card was way too generous to last forever in the form in which it was launched). They continued to chip away at the value proposition when they eliminated price protection in summer 2019, but the real nail in the coffin on this card was the announcement in June 2019 that they would eliminate car rental insurance, trip delay / cancellation / interruption protections, baggage delay protection, lost baggage protection, and basically all of the other benefits you would want on your $500 travel rewards card. That made it nearly nonsensical to book flights on a card that tries to incentivize airline spend with a 5x bonus category. I certainly couldn’t justify keeping it long-term, particularly when Citi enhanced benefits on the Premier.
Again, we are told that Citi will ” remain committed to servicing existing Citi Prestige customers”, but it looks like they have no plans to bring the Prestige card back for new applicants.
The timing on this change is interesting in that Citi appears to be ducking out when other issuers are leaning in to do everything they can to acquire cardholders with offers to earn up to 500K points with a single card or 150K airline miles or 5x on groceries for a year. We can all hope that this change is being made so that they can retool an ultra-premium card and launch something competitive, but given that Citi is the only major issuer not to have made any noise with offers since the pandemic began, I’m less optimistic than I’d like to be.
The real bummer here is that this further reduces the path to building up a meaningful balance of Citi Thank You points. While Citi seemed poised to break things open when they made the Double Cash card’s rewards worth 2 Thank You points per dollar spent, they seem to have refocused almost entirely on the low end of the credit card market with the Rewards+ and Custom Cash offerings. Not only do most people consider Citi’s transfer partners inferior to Amex, Chase, and Capital One, they are making it more difficult to get invested in that ecosystem even for those of us who see value in it. That’s too bad. The Citi Prestige card was my favorite of the many cards in my wallet when I was first approved and I was oddly sad to drop it when the time came. I am equally sad to see the card ride off into the sunset now, but hopefully Citi sends in something to take its place.
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I’m also bummed to see where this card has ended up. The year I signed up, it seemed like the ultimate travel card – now it’s been chipped away to where the value just isn’t there. My annual fee just came up – I called in – no retention offers, no attempt to mention the value of the card, just a speedy transition to a doublecash.
Our saviour Pam Habner will give us an Ultima and restore Citi to glory
You should write a post in which you design a new Prestige from scratch.
For me the nail in the Citi coffin came after I had to cancel a trip with points through their travel desk. Online didn’t work. Email didn’t work. Phone calls just refused to be answered. I loved all the 5X and back in the day when winery’s were entertainment 3X I banked a lot of points. But if they pound a screwdriver through your head every time you do a redemption then you develop a twitch and go away! Sure wish they had taken things more seriously!
It was a hassle to call and once they gave me the wrong hotel in the email .Now if I had done that as in SOL they just said OOP’s .
The Prestige will go down in history as the best business travel card of all time. This card was an absolute gravy train a few years back when I was getting one $200/nt back per week while traveling for work with the 4th night free benefit. Probably pocketed at least $2000, plus all the points. Using the concierge meant it was part of the loyalty program. Lots of if’s and but’s tho: your company had to reimburse you directly for travel. Your company needed to not direct bill hotels and flights. Your company needed to not have a corporate card. Living in that sweet spot for six months was wonderful though! I still have it mainly for lounge access for AU’s and the 5X flights and dining.
Damn the ultrapremium cards are starting to become a poor value. I used to have one of each (CSR/Prestige/Plat) for various reasons that would net me “$0” or profit in fees.
I suspect next year I may not have any.
You mentioned when they limited the 4th night free to twice per year, but you forgot to mention the double kick in the **** when they took away the ability to book that 4th night reservation via the Concierge, thereby forcing you to use thankyou.com which is almost always so overpriced that your 4th night “free” became more like a slight to maybe modest discount.
I had one year then dropped it when they changed the hotel deal .I stopped @ counting after I made a $4,000 profit in one year . First and only $450 card but was a Wow card.
Yes the post says exactly that.
“Those changes nerfed the value of the 4th night free benefit by limiting its use to twice per year and forcing cardholders to book via thankyou.com”
The Big Boys ran with that not me so Gone . Four nites is fine for me the 5 for 4 nites deals others had was fine but this was better for me . I did a couple of 4+1(me) then 4 nites.
Perfect Card it was .
It was the best card ever the first year it came out. That golf benefit was truly insane. Sugarloaf, Sawgrass, and The Blue Monster. Of course that benefit only lasted one year but wow. Good memories. Then it just went to hell every year after
I ditched the Prestige a couple of years ago after the benefits were gutted. I got it in the beginning when the benefits were amazing. I thought even at that time there is no way they can continue with this. The one thing I regret is never taking advantage of the golf benefit. I’m not much of a golfer and didn’t play at all back then but I live down the street from Aviara and a few free rounds would have been nice.
I also used the 4th night to great advantage back when they had a concierge. I would attend 4 night trade shows and have the concierge book it at the conference rate and get the 4th night free. Or plan a stay when the paid nights were at the cheaper rate and the 4th night was at a whopper rate.
I also took advantage of the AA lounge in San Diego even when I wasn’t flying AA.
Yes, this card was much better in the past but I’m still getting a lot out of it. I don’t use the 4th night benefit for cheap hotels so even if I get to use that once per year I’m getting a good deal. The 5x dining and air are excellent too.
Same. Twice a year at an expensive hotel, 5x dining, and $250 travel credit still makes it worthwhile. For various reasons I purchase a yearly trip insurance plan so the removal of the insurance, although not ideal, is not bothersome.
As a Citigold customer, the Prestige is effectively a $100 AF card for me ($495 -$145 cg rebate – $250 travel rebate). The 5x dining alone makes it incredibly valuable as that’s one of my top spending categories. So while I hated losing a lot of the other benefits, it’s still top of wallet for me and I’ll likely hold on to it as long as they keep the dining multiplier. And as others have noted, it’s also the card I use for Priority Pass.
Same here. I am a Citigold customer and I’ll be keeping this $100 AF card.
The Prestige has been the primary dining/airline card for a couple years for me because I have had the 25% bonus on all spend points since early 2020, extending through the end of this year. So the 5x on dining and 5x on air turns into 6.25x. Tell me what competes with that. We’ll see what 2022 holds.
Call me crazy but the 5x on dining and 5x on travel including any booking through OTA’s made this a keeper for the many years I’ve had it. Was considering downgrade to Premeire, but the introduction of the custom cash makes possible three different 5X categories. No other card offers even one 5x category.
I don’t know. I have heard that “most people consider Citi’s transfer partners inferior to Amex, Chase, and Capital One” and I am invested in all four eco-systems, but I kind of wonder a bit about that statement, especially since I don’t qualify for business credit cards. I would like to try Singapore in the front of the plane, and it seems like the fastest way to do that with everyday spend is Premier plus Double Cash plus Rewards + (will probably redeem 100K TY points in December and 150K TY points in January to get * Alliance Gold plus 20K TY points back). Would like to try Emirates as well since they reduced their “fuel surcharges” and the fastest way to accumulate Skywards points with everyday spend seems to be the Citi ecosystem. JetBlue is basically revenue based but they have (at least pre-pandemic) some interesting Caribbean routes and I can accumulate TrueBlue points twice as fast through Citi than through the JetBlue credit card. Yes, I know about the “sweet spots” in the other eco-systems, but am I missing anything with this analysis? Genuinely curious.
I agree that Citi’s transfer partners are just fine. In addition to the partners you mentioned, Citi also transfers to Turkish Miles and Smiles. Turkish is like the world’s best nut: a tough outer shell (the ticketing process), with a tender morsel inside (some of the best redemption rates).
The card was probably a money loser, especially with 5x on dining. Citi Premier is actually a great card when combined with Custom Cash and Double Cash – Citi Prestige was kind of redundant with those cards available especially with reduced benefits and protections
Add in the Rewards+, and the earning rates bump up an extra 11%. I also have the ATTA, which on the surface doesn’t add much, but gets great retention bonuses year after year (honestly this is where most of my TYP come from). But yeah, Prestige has become less and less necessary.
They will probably reintroduce the Prestige later. No reason for them to give up on the card after rewarding people last year for comments/discussion on the card.
I hope you’re right, but I didn’t get the impression that this was a refresh but rather an end.