In today’s episode, Greg shares the story of how Citi shut down his accounts and what’s next for him. (What will he do without his beloved Prestige card?) Read more about Greg’s situation with Cit here.
Life after Citi
Watch here:
Or listen here (or click “Follow” on the player below to select your preferred podcast app instead):
Giant Mailbag
(01:06) – Russel discusses how Barclays American Airlines card is not a way back to Citi
(02:57) – Flyguy talks about also being shutdown by Citi for paying the bill from multiple checking accounts in a single cycle
Bonvoyed
(04:53) – American Airlines blocking close-in domestic award availability to partners here
(07:58) – Alaska Airlines: Increased partner award fees & no points or status points on saver fares here
(13:36) – What are Hilton points worth? Find out here
(21:00) – Hyatt reasonable redemption value preview
Awards, Points, and More
(23:26) – Vacations by Marriott here
(28:42) – World of Hyatt to launch early access bookings for elites and cardholders June 30th.
(30:01) – Credit card referral offers
(32:53) – Learning to love Instacart credits here
Main Event: Life after Citi
(37:25) – Greg’s shutdown story
Read more about Greg’s situation with Cit here
(52:12) – There was a brief window to transfer points
(58:40) – Globe Card (from Aviator Silver) opened shortly after shutdown
(1:03:41) – What’s lost and what to do about it
(1:07:51) – Citi’s unique transfer partners
(1:11:42) – AA status: Will pursue AK status instead
(1:14:38) – Priority Pass restaurants: US Bank Altitude Connect
(1:16:58) – Grocery
(1:23:44) – Dining
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Music Credit – “Ocean Deep” by Annie Yoder
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Well I just thought of something: one of the pluses of the Prestige was getting at least 3x on restaurants inside of hotels. Would the Autograph Journey (or Premier Autograph) or Strata Premier be good then? Are these more likely to code as hotel or dining? Seems more likely hotel since you can almost always charge to your room.
Any opinion on which card best bonuses dining-adjacent purchases such as breweries and pubs, bakeries, food trucks, food “marketplaces”? Is it sometimes not necessarily on merchant code, but how the card issuer wants to limit bonus categories for breakage? My very first purchase with Custom Cash was to buy a danish at a cafe which coded as groceries not restaurants.
I’m going to recommend Amex Biz Gold for the dining. Greg almost certainly has opportunities to get a NLL offer for Biz Gold, if he doesn’t currently have one, and Biz Gold earns 4X on dining up to $150k/year. Even though I currently have a Biz Gold, I currently have an offer in my Amex Account to add another Biz Gold and earn 175k Amex points. Given how easy it is to get the value out of a single Amex Biz Gold ($20/month at Staples plus free Peacock via Walmart+) a single Biz Gold is easy enough to justify.
For groceries, I suggest the alternative of a Hilton Surpass with a NLL offer (there are some out there right now according to DoC). For the first $15k of spend, the Surpass is better than 3X Bilt points points (I would consider the Surpass’s 6X Hilton earning rate for groceries to be roughly 1.5 Bilt points without the FNC, but with the FNC, the Surpass is worth roughly 13 CPP for the first $15k since Greg can almost certainly redeem the FNC for a $2k stay). Greg probably doesn’t want any more Hilton FNCs, but its a good option for someone else not in Greg’s likely Hilton rice shoes.
FYI, you mentioned earning 3.3x on dining with the Summit card because of your relationship with BofA but that is incorrect. The earning rate is only 3.1x. This has been confirmed in multiple reddit posts with data points from many users.
Adding for further clarification. Calculation nuance: According to data points on the Reddit AlaskaAirlines community, the 10% bonus applies only to the base 3x earn (adding 0.1 point), rather than the total accumulated points, yielding 3.1x total.
That’s strange. When looking at my account activity, I’ve been earning 3.3X.
Are you sure you weren’t looking at rent payments? Because Greg earns 3.3x on dining and foreign transactions, and so do I.
FYI. ur timestamp labels are sloppy. either AI slop not verified or intern needs help.
nobody calls alaska – AK airlines. and why only 1 word “grocery” + “dining”. u should put actual descriptions for SEO.
Does Greg has Citi checking or investment accounts? Do you think it would make a difference if he was Citi Gold or Private client?
Greg is Citigold
You guys know why this happened, are stirring the pot for clicks, and putting other points and miles enthusiasts at risk.
If you think FM ‘stirs the pot for clicks,’ you’ll wanna check out VFTW… 99% stirring the pot.
Just finished the “LIfe after Citi” podcast. For dining, have you considered a hotel card that you might already have? I assume that you pay taxes or Kiva loans to get the FNC and/or elite nights with those cards but if they bonus dining than could that be better than spending $145/yr on an Obsidian + AU that has no welcome bonus.