Frequent Miler's latest team challenge, Million Mile Madness, is almost done! The last two weeks Greg, Nick, and Stephen competed to earn 1 Million SAS miles by flying 15 airlines. But who completed the challenge with the most Speed, Affordability, and Style?
Via Twitter, PatMike reports that two different Citibank employees told her that the Citi Prestige card will offer American Airlines’ Admirals Club access. There is no word yet on when this will happen, and I’m still waiting for confirmation from other sources. The Prestige card is the expensive ($450 per year) Citi ThankYou card that competes with the American Express Platinum card. The Prestige card, which earns ThankYou points, is not to be confused with the similarly named ThankYou Premier card ($125 per year) or the ThankYou Preferred card (no annual fee). Thank you Citibank for making your card names so confusingly similar.
Now that the Amex Platinum cards are losing access to AA and US Airways clubs, the Prestige card may have a chance to compete by adding benefits such as AA club access. The Prestige card already has better point earning potential than the Amex Platinum card thanks to its “flight points” program (which essentially makes it possible to earn double points on all transactions), 2X for dining, and relationship bonus points. Unfortunately, unlike the Platinum card, you cannot transfer Citi ThankYou points to any airline programs… Yet. The optimist in me is hoping that the addition of AA club access indicates a tighter partnership with AA and will eventually lead to point transferability. That would be awesome. In the meantime, ownership of the Prestige card gives you the ability to redeem ThankYou points for 1.33 cents per point towards airfare. And, it will pay for up to 3 rounds of golf per year. Like the Platinum card, the Prestige card gives you $200 per year in airline fee credits, Global Entry fee credit, and more.
I’m still waiting for more information from Citibank about this possible new benefit. Hopefully, there will be more than just additional lounge access in the mix. We’ll see. I’m going to hold off on getting one of these cards, but if they add point transfers to airlines, I’ll be extremely tempted. If you decide to go for it, PatMike says that by signing up in-branch you can get 60K bonus points. That’s worth almost $800 in airfare, so its not bad! Once I get more info from Citi or other sources, I’ll publish a new update. And, if its good news, I’ll do a full analysis of the Prestige card.
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[…] seen a report that along with AA club access, Citi branches have a better sign-up bonus in branch vs. online (60k TYP vs. 30k TYP, lower annual fee). Before I head over to the branch, anyone have any data […]
This card is even better now. When buying airfare on AA or US Air via thankyou portal, each point is 1.6 cents.
I have combined this card with the old 5x GGD Preferred card, and it has been quite useful. Airport Angel lounge coverage sucks in the US, but overseas some of the lounges they offer are really quite nice. Also, as stated earlier, the companion pass is for coach, unlike Amex with is Business or First, so you can get value there as well. Another hidden benefit is 15% off the rate of a flight, which really adds up. All in all, I’ve easily quadrupled the cost of the annual fee in value out of it.
fm,
in your previous blog of “playing 5x everywhere”,
the old blue cash link is not working. can you fix it?
thx
Reply
In-branch card fee is only $350…at least that was the case last week.
If the airline reimbursement works the same way as the Amex Plat, then net cost of the card for first 12 months is $50, which is easily offset by using TY points for a $200 ticket since that will cost 150,000 TY points instead of 200,000 if you only have the Preferred card. Is this correct?
SJCRussell, can you elaborate a bit. Thanks.
Eddy, a $200 ticket would cost 15,000 TY points instead of 20,000. But, yes, the $50 offset is correct.
Thanks. You know how bad I am at math and now everyone else does too!
I have the Prestige and there are a couple of other generous benefits. 1 is annual companion pass on any coach ticket anywhere.
The other is the 60k bonus is split 30k on $3k spend the rest at $15k spend, meaning for the first $15k you are essentially ‘5x for everything’.
[…] that the Citi Prestige card may get American Admirals Club access. It has a $450 fee, but offers a $200 airline credit (similar to American Express Platinum). If it […]
When the announcement from AA/Citi re the Executive Card being the exclusive credit card partner last month, I noticed that the language read that it “will be the only U.S. credit card offering full membership benefits”.
The “full membership” language was interesting b/c even the Amex Plat does not currently offer full membership, but merely access in combination with a same day flight on AA or an AA-coded codeshare flight. I was wondering whether this wording would leave the door open for another card product to offer access, but not membership.
If you are CitiGold, the card has value and is profitable. It is one of the 25 in my portfolio. Airport Angel lounge access is pretty good overseas. Admiral lounge access would be great stateside.
The Prestige must be a real dog of a card – even pimps don’t bother hyping it.
Three rounds of golf? What a bizarre benefit… I hope it’s transferrable. (i.e. liftable to someone who actually likes to golf – unlike myself) 🙂
If I remember correctly, I think that the cardholder has to be one of the golfers 🙂
P.S. As an aside, it’s worth noting that the annual fee listed on the Prestige webpage recently went up…
I heard this rumor from a Citi rep as well.
If there’s a way for authorized users to take advantage of that, I think the Prestige could become a lot more popular.
@Gary – The Executive Card comes with an actual membership now. Did you mean the other way around? Perhaps the Prestige will only let you in when flying AA, like the Amex used to.
Citi TY to AA would be OK with me. As it stands, TYs are a bit of a joke. I just cash em out at 1cpp and don’t bother to redeem for travel. The Prestige must be a real dog of a card – even pimps don’t bother hyping it.
Fascinating. There are signs outside of Admirals Clubs now saying that beginning in March the Citi Executive card will be the ‘only’ credit card allowing access to American lounges. I suspect that will be true, that Citi Prestige may come with an actual club membership (whereas the Executive card itself is used for lounge access). If that happens, this becomes a reasonable way to get lounge access at a discount and certainly a cheaper way than buying the Citi Executive card (because of the $200 fee credit). The only reason to get the Executive card would then be if you really need the elite qualifying miles from spend (10k eqms after $40k).