On Wednesday, April 22, I popped into a local grocery store to pick up a few items. As usual, I attempted to pay with a Citi Custom Cash card to earn 5X on grocery purchases, up to $500 per billing cycle. DECLINED. I tried a second Custom Cash card. DECLINED. WTF?
I paid with a different card and then opened the Citi app on my phone. After clicking past an offer for a higher credit limit, I found that all my Citi credit cards had been closed. Yikes! Later, I learned that my wife’s only Citi card had also been shut down.
Not a mystery
This is my second time getting shut down by a credit card issuer. The first was in 2021 when Capital One shut down my Venture account. That shutdown was a mystery. I had used the card only for legitimate purchases with nothing remotely fishy going on. I’m now confident that the Capital One shutdown was caused by a misunderstanding that led to the closure of my Capital One 360 banking account in 2015. Capital One seems to have a long memory for this stuff.
This Citi shutdown was different. This time, I knew that the things I did risked a shutdown. There was absolutely nothing illegal about what I did, but I knew that Citi wouldn’t like it. In confidence, an acquaintance had previously told me about a spending technique that worked particularly well with Citi. I dabbled in it a little, but I didn’t hit it hard until it appeared that a key part of that opportunity would end by January 30. I dramatically increased spending on my AAdvantage Business card. I stupidly cycled the card’s credit limit several times to earn AA Platinum Pro status while I could. Since that card had a separate login from my consumer Citi cards, I hoped that any negative consequences would be limited to that card. This was dumb. If I had researched the topic, I’m sure I would have learned that these actions endangered my entire Citi portfolio.
It’s important to understand that I knew better. Had I stepped back to think about whether the rewards were worth the risk, I wouldn’t have done it. I got caught up in the excitement and urgency of the deal, and that undermined my common sense. C’est la vie. The ball bounces and the cookie crumbles.
Fortunate timing
Bizarrely, the timing of this shutdown couldn’t have been better. If it had to happen, it happened at an ideal time. On April 19th, Citi halved the transfer ratio of ThankYou points to I Prefer. In preparation for this, on April 16th, six days before our Citi accounts were shut down, I moved 100K of my wife’s 110K Citi ThankYou points to my ThankYou account and then transferred 261,000 ThankYou points to my I Prefer account. Combined with my existing I Prefer points, this gave me a total of 1,050,000 I Prefer points (see this post for more details on this plan). It was great that I had made such good use of so many Citi points before the shutdown!
The next piece of potentially fortunate timing was with the transition of my Barclays Aviator Silver card to a Citi AAdvantage Globe card. That transition happened April 24th — two days after my Citi cards were shut down. When I returned home from vacation a few days ago, I activated my new Globe card and successfully made a few in-person purchases with it.
I’m still nervous, though. A longtime reader who had been shut down by Citi several years ago emailed to say he hoped the transition from Barclays would help him rejoin Citi’s ecosystem. He reports that he activated his new Citi card and immediately received an email saying that his account had been closed. So far, that hasn’t happened to me. Fingers have been crossed. Wood has been knocked.
Scrambling to redeem points
When I discovered that my accounts had been shut down, my first thought was to redeem my remaining Citi points as quickly as possible. I still had 392,000 ThankYou Rewards points in my account, and my wife had 10,000. I had no idea how long Citi would let me keep the points before forfeiting them.
I tried logging into the ThankYou Rewards portal to redeem my points, but the system kept redirecting me back to my Citi account. Finally, I found a back door. From my Citi account, I clicked through to Citi Travel, clicked “More… Visit ThankYou,” and boom — I was in. And, fortunately, the option to transfer points was still enabled at that time. Even today, 6 weeks later, I can get to my ThankYou account this way, but I’m now locked out of transferring points to partners.
Now that I could access my points, I had to decide how to redeem them. My first thought was to transfer to Leading Hotels of the World (LHW). Citi was running a 25% transfer bonus at that time (details here), which made points worth about 2 cents each towards LHW bookings. That would have been a great choice, but then I realized something… I might never have the opportunity to earn AA miles through credit cards again. Now that Citi is the sole issuer of AA cards and Citi’s ThankYou program is the only transferable points program that transfers 1-to-1 to AA, it looked like I might be forever locked out of AAdvantage miles via credit cards. At the time, I had no idea whether my Barclays Aviator Silver conversion to a Citi AA Globe card would succeed. Given all of that, I decided to transfer all of our points to our AA accounts.
I transferred all 392,000 of my Citi points to my AA account, and all 10,000 of my wife’s Citi points to her AA account. We received acknowledgment emails right away, but the points didn’t appear in our accounts until the next morning. Whew.
My Citi Accounts
For the record, here’s a tally of my accounts that were closed and the ones still open…
Closed Accounts
- ThankYou Rewards Cards
- Custom Cash x 2
- Double Cash
- Prestige
- Strata
- Strata Elite (mine)
- Strata Elite (wife’s)
- American Airlines Cards
- AAdvantage MileUp
- AAdvantage Business
Live Accounts
- AAdvantage Globe Mastercard (for now, but maybe not for long)
Goodbye Prestige
The hardest part of this shutdown was losing my longtime friend, the Citi Prestige card, which has not been available to new applicants for years. My dear Prestige card has been with me since 2014. And, since it gained the ability to earn 5X at restaurants in 2019, it’s been my front-of-wallet dining companion. My wife and I eat out a lot, and so I’ve earned many, many points this way.
Besides losing 5x for dining, I’ll also miss the Prestige card’s Priority Pass, which includes restaurants. That said, I have the no-annual-fee U.S. Bank Altitude® Connect card, which offers 4 Priority Pass visits per year (including restaurant visits). Going forward, I’ll use my Ritz card’s Priority Pass for lounge access and my Altitude Connect passes for restaurants.
What’s next for dining and grocery stores?
It feels so weird to eat out now without my Prestige card! What card should I use to pay? Except when using Amex Platinum or Sapphire Reserve dining credits, I haven’t had to think about that in years.
The obvious replacement card is the American Express® Gold Card, which earns 4X at US Supermarkets (up to $25K in purchases, then 1X) and at restaurants worldwide (up to $50K in purchases, then 1X). I don’t currently have the Gold card, but I may consider getting one. Until then, here’s what I’m doing now about restaurant and grocery purchases:
Dining
Among the cards I already have, the best restaurant earners are:
- Chase Sapphire Reserve® Card: 3X dining
- Wells Fargo Autograph℠ Card: 3X dining
- Atmos™ Rewards Summit Visa Infinite® Card: 3X dining
- Bilt Palladium Card: 2X for almost all spend + 4% Bilt Cash (which can be used to increase the overall earning rate to 3X or more)
At first, I put the Sapphire Reserve card in my wallet for dining, but later I realized I was close to earning the Atmos Summit card’s 100K companion award certificate, so I now use that instead. This was particularly handy on a recent international trip, since it also earns 3X on all foreign purchases. While in Europe, I made it my default Apple Wallet card and used it everywhere. Now that I’m back in the U.S., my Bilt Palladium card is my default card, but I still turn to the Atmos Summit for dining.
Grocery
I don’t spend nearly as much at grocery stores as I do at restaurants, so I haven’t spent much time thinking about what to do here. Unless/until I get the Amex Gold card, I’ll use whichever card is my current “everywhere else” card. For now, that’s my Bilt Palladium card.
Parting thoughts
If this had happened a few months ago, I would have been heartbroken. I was really into Citi ThankYou points since they gained the ability to transfer to AA, and to I Prefer at a 1:4 ratio. Now, though, the transfer ratio to I Prefer has dropped to 1:2, and Citi has abolished the ability to move points to other people’s accounts. Citi’s program is still valuable, but less so. My favorite points to collect now are Bilt points and Rove miles. So while I hate to give up my Prestige card, I’m not yet feeling much pain about losing Citi… as long as my AA miles hold out.
Amex Membership Rewards points have also seemingly declined in value lately due to fewer transfer bonuses and a few instances of reduced transfer ratios to airline miles. So, while the Amex Gold card is a natural pick since it earns 4x at U.S. grocery stores and at restaurants worldwide, I don’t find that option particularly exciting.
A more exciting option would be to pick up the Bilt Obsidian Card and to choose 3X for dining rather than 3X for groceries. Since there are ways to use Bilt Cash to increase that earning rate, I’d probably really get 4X or more for dining. Unfortunately, it’s only possible to have one Bilt card at a time right now. And I’m very happy with my Bilt Palladium Card. The solution may be for my wife to apply for the Obsidian Card, add me as an authorized user, and select that the points earned on that card go to my account. The biggest downside is that it would add $145 in fees to my portfolio ($95 for my wife’s card and $50 for the authorized user card). I’ll keep noodling that one.
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Hardbody has been on FinCEN/Fed radar.
Fluzzers
Citi shut me and two a/u accounts down in March of 2020. Never found out why though I asked and received a letter with a general reason nothing specific. It was horrible bc one a/u had over $100,000 in a high status Citi Account and had a stressful time getting money out, but did eventually. It was at the height of the pandemic and you could not go into a bank without an appointment, or even reach bank personnel in a timely manner. I personally had well over $100,000 of credit extended to me if I chose to use it on my cards. It was a terrible experience. But I have moved on and recently received the Citi AA card – which surprised me – but it got shut down within maybe two weeks of receiving it – which didn’t surprise me. I have moved on and if someday it changes, okay, if not, again I have moved on. But I will say along with my Citi cards getting shut down in 2020, so did two other cards I had Home Depot and Macy’s which I had for more than 40 years.
LOL…high status Citi Account
Citi sucks anyway. No great loss.
skill issue.
Not trying at all issue.
My SO and I have had about 100 Citi cards over the last 20 years, so I know what I am talking about. No lack of skill here.
oh yea? then wat were u doing for 100+ CCs over 20 years at citi? that doesnt count as trying? u were on AA train? then im assuming u got shutdown from all your fake accounts and mailer abuse. which tells me u put in a lot of work. the total opposite of “no great loss”.
Never shut down. We just got an early start, before churning was churning, like before OMAAT and FM even existed. Back in the day, there were no spending requirements (just annual fees), and you could get a new Citi AA card eveey 60 days for 30,000 miles. We have had enough sense over the years to know when to stop. I guess we have been lucky.
If there’s one thing worse than a shutdown – it’s a shutdown for dabbling level MS or hitting hard at a dying method. Ugh. That must really sting. High risk and low reward.
When evaluating a play I see only two options – go hard and earn my shutdown with a big profit or stay away entirely. No low level MS that just risks getting caught in a net made for whales.
fluz-cycling too much fuel huh
Citi shutdown is a hard pill to swallow. I hope you treat yourself to a Zingerman’s sandwich today.
Sorry to hear that Greg. I think your new cards are unlikely to stick around :O https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/citi-thankyou-rewards/2218788-citi-shutdowns-converted-aa-cards-barclays.html
exactly. pretty much 100% his globe will get cut. greg should just close the card now. theres no point. but i guess u could leave open, use it and plan bakup for any risk of sudden shutdown and sudden loss in benefits.
Greg, thank you for sharing. As part of your plan for looking forward and what to use in future for dining, don’t forget about the Amex business gold. Same 4x as personal gold with slightly higher AF, but I find the $20 monthly office supply store credits much easier to use than the numerous personal gold card coupons for helping to recoup some of the AF. I know it won’t help on the grocery side, but you have said grocery isn’t a big spend category for you personally. Alternatively, use a BofA bank account and get 3.3X from Atmos, since you can also use that spend for status since it will be a lot harder to achieve status through AA directly in future.
Greg you are my north star. You always always take things in stride. We need more people like you that roll with the punches.
So sorry to hear this. I also dine out frequently and the Prestige is just an essential part of my life.
cmon bro. geez. ur so OG. how come? why? argh. sad to see my guy.
but i get it. rearview 20/20. next time, get some advice from a MSer or game abuser to get perspective.
now im really curious exactly wat u did cuz its an important lesson. my guess is 90% cycling issue + volume vs MS method. can u share ur CL on AA biz? cuz if it was $25k CL and u cycled for 125k LP, then ur totally in MPD territory regardless of MS method.
if above is true, then im even more surprised u did that. argh. bro. cmon.
cap1 + TYP were critical hits + family splash damage.
u cant lose anymore but ur still in the game.
bofa chase amex barc WF BILT. these are still huge players. i would look at their cards again and deep dive into benefits. i hate BILT but its def a play u should go deep.
Would you do a coffee break on this? I think it would be a good video and learning lesson for everyone. Turning lemons into lemonade.
Its unfortunate when this happens but time to time we all get carried away into accumulating points and forget about the common sense approach. Unfortunately, i made silly mistake with chase and they did exactly what happened to Greg and once you are on naughty list with banks – Its game over for life. They are not interested in serving these type of customers as banks Fraud antenna is up and they dont want to deal with govt. and regulatory agencies.
I hate how these banks will permanently cancel you without justification. Why not point to where exactly in the T&C a violation occurred? It would cause far less confusion and result in less envelope pushing by regular people.
Also, it’s ridiculous that their go-to solution is a perma ban. Is the go-to jailtime for petty theft life in prison? Why not put the customer in “jail” for a certain period of time for the first violation? It’s either extreme punishment or none at all for grey-area actions, and that seems like a poor way to run a business to me.
I agree with you, and I’ve had this argument with my wife who used to work in an AML department. I would say “They should just tell you what they don’t want you to do, and then you won’t do it, and everyone is happy.” She responds with “They’re not going to tell you how to avoid being detected doing what they don’t want you to do.”
Your wife is right. If it were a real criminal, why would they tell them how to avoid being detected?