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Citi announced this morning that they are pushing up the date for Citi Premier changes and adding a temporary 5x bonus category on the Prestige in addition to their previously-announced change to make the Prestige’s travel credit easy to use this year. This slightly heats up the race for your grocery store spend, though not necessarily much if you haven’t maxed out the Chase bonuses.
New Prestige 5x bonus
Citi Prestige cardholders can now earn 5x on online purchases up to 7500 points (i.e. up to $1500 in purchases) for “online purchases” through August 31, 2020. Examples Citi provides of qualifying online purchases include:
- Retailer website orders
- Online grocery orders
- Online drugstore orders
My guess here is that the Prestige will mimic the AT&T Access More card in that some online retailers will code for the online purchase bonus (at 5x on the Prestige) and others won’t code as online purchases with no clear rhyme or reason. If you’re looking to make a big single purchase of $1500, I highly recommend checking Doctor of Credit’s payments workshop for data points as to what codes at 3x for the AT&T Access More first to be sure that the retailer from which you’re buying is likely to bonus that store. I remember a reader story a few years back about buying a very expensive professional camera from a major online electronics/camera store expecting the online purchase bonus of the AT&T Access More card only to get 1x — the Payments Workshop had a data point on the specific retailer in question that could have saved him some time on the phone arguing with Citi.
Note also that Citi had previously announced that the $250 annual travel credit on the Prestige card can be used on purchases at supermarkets and restaurants from May 1, 2020 to December 31, 2020.
Citi Premier grocery bonus already enacted
Citi had previously announced new bonus categories on the Citi Premier card set to take effect on August 23, 2020. However, they have pushed that change up on the calendar to two days ago, beginning the following bonus categories on June 2, 2020:
- 3x ThankYou Points per $1 spent on supermarket purchases (instead of 1 point per $1 spent)
- 3x ThankYou Points per $1 spent on restaurant purchases, including takeout and curbside pickup (instead of 2 points per $1 spent)
That’s a smart move given the way that other retailers have beaten Citi to the punch on supermarket bonuses. That said, if you have a Chase Sapphire Reserve, you can earn 5x on up to $1500 in purchases this month. There are many other cards offering grocery bonuses right now. See this post for a full list: COVID-19 credit card enhancements Ultimate Guide. I definitely wouldn’t choose 3x Citi over 5x Chase today — given the ability to use those Chase points at a value of 1.5c each toward grocery purchases, using the Premier would come at a cost of 2.5c per point (since 5x Chase is worth 7.5 cents in groceries right now). That’s the price at which Citi sells points. I wouldn’t be a buyer at that rate.
However, if you have maxed out the Chase 5x bonus, then it comes down to which other cards you have in your wallet. Personally, I think I’ll probably work on upping my Marriott balance as long as I have bandwidth for that, but long term I’m excited about 3x at the grocery store with the Premier. I’ll further be inclined to mix it up between the Premier and Amex Gold at restaurants.
Bottom line
It makes sense that Citi needed to move up the grocery bonus in order to compete. The 5x online purchases bonus on the Prestige card is a surprise. It has a low cap, but if you value Citi points, that’s a nice little bone Citi is throwing your way along with the easy-to-use travel credit to entice you to keep the card. It’s not terrible generous, but it’s not bad either.
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So, as a data point on the Premier grocery store bonus, purchases at my local Walmart coded as “Merchandise – Grocery Store, Supermarket” but only earned 1x points on my statement that closed today. A different grocery store coded the same way and earned 3x points, but two separate Walmart purchases only earned 1x.
Trying not to blow anything up and limited case scenario, but Prestige seems to be double bonusing when merchandise is food related. 1x standard + 4x food + 4x merchandise = 9x total
for ‘Retailer website orders’
My Citi Premier has not earned 3X points on groceries for any purchase since this was announced. I’ve noticed other bloggers are reporting the same.
I saw that Shawn wrote about that at Miles to Memories yesterday (and I saw that you commented there). I don’t know why Ian isn’t getting 3x or why you haven’t. I’ve gotten 3x on all of my grocery purchases. I know others have as well. I know your comment at M2M mentioned you haven’t gotten 3x at Walmart Neighborhood Market. While I know that Neighborhood Markets usually code as grocery, I don’t know that for sure with Citi (Citi didn’t have a grocery bonus category to my knowledge before this). Have you tried any traditional grocery stores?
I made purchases at traditional grocery stores over the weekend, but they are still in “Pending” status. I’ll update when they post.
My purchases at “traditional” grocery stores finally posted and they do indeed show 3X TY points, just not WMT grocery stores (Neighborhood Markets). This is consistent with the Citi MileUp card which is supposed to earn 2X AAdvantage miles at grocery stores but do not (for me) at WMT Neighborhood Markets. These same stores earned 5X UR points during Chase’s recent bonus promo on my CSR, even though I’ve never received 5X UR points at them for the Freedom card’s grocery category.
That makes some sense then. The MCC codes for Neighborhood Market likely code differently for Visa vs Mastercard. If you didn’t get 2x on the MileUp, I’m not surprised that you didn’t get 3x on the Premier.
I’m not sure what’s up with the Walmart thing with Chase. I’ve gotten 5x UR points from my nearest regular Walmart (not a neighborhood market, a full Walmart) despite the fact that I don’t think Freedom cards have earned 5x at full Walmarts for grocery, either.
At any rate, I’m glad to hear that you are indeed getting 3x grocery on the Premier. Sorry it’s not at Neighborhood Market!
[…] Miler: Citi joins the party: 5x Prestige online, 3x groceries on Premier starts now (June 4, […]
Those Citi online promotions are completely unrelated to AT&T card. I received a few online promos on different Citi cards, and they were giving extra points for online, where AT&T card was not.
I tested it on Prestige and both Paypal and Plastiq posted as 5x. The same was happening on my Preferred card some time ago.
I’m sure that you are reporting what Citi passed on to you.
But it is a major Citi PR fail that Citi is still reporting the start date for the Premier 3points for groceries and restaurants as August 23.
Called Citi today (6/9); their information still shows that 3x TPs on restaurants does not begin until August 23.
Phone reps are frequently wrong unfortunately. Citi rolled this out early. I’m not at all surprised that they didn’t roll the info out to their phone reps properly.
[…] Update 6/4/20: Although the 3x earnings weren’t due to go live until August 23, 2020, Citi apparently activated 3x earnings at grocery stores and restaurants on June 2. h/t Frequent Miler […]
Does Amazon count as a retailer for the 5x?
Sorry, didn’t look at the link first. It seems like it wont
Not sure why you thought it won’t — the data points on DoC’s payments workshop all indicate that the AT&T Access More card earns 3x at Amazon (and I can confirm this). I’d expect to get 5x on the Prestige.
that will be fantastic on the heels of 7x for Blue Plus
I would be very interested if you can confirm Amazon. !
Citi is a little late to the party on this one. As more and more of us are NO longer sheltering in place, this is less useful as it could have been in April or May.
You’re right that they are late, but I know I’ll spend at least $1500 online between now and the end of August. I no longer have the Prestige card, but I’d max that out if I did.
The restaurant / grocery bonus is late and behind other options at the moment, that’s for sure.
Maybe being late to the party was intentional? With so many cards jumping on the grocery bandwagon, the Premier would have probably got lost in the shuffle. With the Chase grocery bonuses ending soon, we now have another option.
Citi has been doing a lot of targeted offers during the pandemic. I had the online 10x miles promo on one card in July and a 5x one for dept stores, electronics, etc. for May to July on another. Also got a couple retention offers. I have actually been using my Citi cards more recently.
Tip for the Prestige online benefit–buying Costco gift cards on Costco.com has counted as online purchases for me with AT&T Access and the above mentioned 10x promo. Best earnings for me at Costco.
I wonder if Chase will extend the extra grocery points offer. Don’t know how much $ they want to throw at keeping people happy, but I don’t see many people starting to travel in July.
Do you think Simon Mall website 1k VGC will work for Prestige?
No.
Okay, thanks.
It might, I can’t tell for sure, but there are DPs that Sears card was working for GCM, gc.com, and will probably work for Simon. I recently tested AT&T card with Simon and it didn’t work. I’m waiting for results from Sears card, which I used on GCM,
Thanks for your advice. I guess it’s no harm to try. Even 1x can cover 1k VGC fee. I might go for it.
Wow, there’s suddenly a plethora of options. I almost don’t know what to do.
bury your head in the sand, and don’t do anything!
We’ll call that Plan B.
I would not like to think that a person would tell someone he has a plethora, and then find out that that person has *no idea* what it means to have a plethora.
While I’m not certain, particularly given quasimodo’s response, I’d guess he knows that a plethora is a veritable cornucopia – a lot.