This offer has now expired, click this link to see the best current bank bonuses.
Contents
- 1 The Offers
- 2 50,000 American Airlines Offer
- 3 50,000 Citi ThankYou Points
- 4 F.A.Q’s
- 4.1 Can The ThankYou Points Be Transferred To Travel Partners?
- 4.2 Do I Have To Pay Taxes On These Bonuses?
- 4.3 What’s The Best Way To Fund With A Credit Card?
- 4.4 Can I Cancel My Citi Gold Account After Receiving the Miles/Points?
- 4.5 Can I Use These The Citi ThankYou Points To Pay For Airfare?
- 4.6 Which Is The Better Offer?
- 5 Our Verdict
The Offers
Citi has released their best offers ever for their checking accounts, you can now get 50,000 American Airline miles (previous best was 30,000 miles) or 50,000 Citi ThankYou points (previous best was 40,000 points). Let’s take a quick look at the information that is the same for both offers, followed by the individual bonuses themselves:
- Hard/soft pull: Soft
- Credit card funding: Yes, $100,000 limit (be wary of cash advance fees, click that link to see what has/hasn’t been a cash advance and set your cash advance limits appropriately).
- Monthly fees: $10-$30, avoidable
- Early account termination fee: $0
- Expiration date: December 31st, 2015
Avoiding Fees
All of the Citibank accounts waive the monthly service fee for the first two months, after that you need to complete set requirements to keep them fee free.
Citigold Account Package $30 Monthly Fee
To avoid the $30 monthly fee you need to complete one of the following:
- $50,000 in combined link deposit or retirement accounts
- $100,000 in all linked deposit, retirement, credit or investment accounts (excluding a first mortgage with citibank)
- $250,000 including linked Citibank mortgages
Citibank account Package $20 Monthly Fee
To avoid the $20 monthly fee you need to have a combined average balance of $15,000 or more
Basic Banking $10 Monthly Fee
Make a direct deposit (the following methods count as direct deposit, click to view) and 1 bill payment each month or keep an average balance of at least $1,500 in the previous calendar month to avoid the monthly fee.
Early Account Termination Fee $0
We couldn’t find any mention of any EATF in the product disclosures and haven’t heard of anybody being hit with a fee. Your account does need to be open for the miles to post though.
50,000 American Airlines Offer
Direct link to offer [requires promotional code 42ERCWNQU6. I’d strongly recommend calling in to apply on 1-800-374-9500 and confirming your eligible for this offer when you do as the fine print states it’s only for those who received the direct communication).
- Receive a sign up bonus of up to 50,000 American Airline miles when you’re a Citi® / AAdvantage® credit cardmember. Bonus is broken down as follows:
50,000 Citi ThankYou Points
Direct link to offer [requires promotional code 42ERCZ42PY. I’d strongly recommend calling in to apply on 1-800-374-9500 and confirming your eligible for this offer when you do as the fine print states it’s only for those who received the direct communication).
- Receive a sign up bonus of 50,000 Citi ThankYou points, when you have an existing Citi ThankYou point account. Bonus broken down as follows:
F.A.Q’s
Can The ThankYou Points Be Transferred To Travel Partners?
No, this is from the fine print:
“Taxable Points” are Points received for a Citibank checking relationship, Points obtained through activity unrelated to purchases made with your eligible Card Account, as well as bonus Points that may be awarded with no spend requirement. Taxable Points and Points made unavailable for redemption due to signs of fraud, abuse or suspicious activity on your ThankYou Account or due to your failure to make the required minimum payment on the Card Account by the payment due date are not eligible for Points Transfer. (HT to Anthony)
Do I Have To Pay Taxes On These Bonuses?
Legally all bank account bonuses are treated as interest and as such you should pay taxes on them. The real question most people want the answer to is, will Citi send out a 1099-INT form for these bonuses. You can read our more in depth answer to this question here.
What’s The Best Way To Fund With A Credit Card?
Funding online doesn’t work, you need to do it via phone or fax. Read our walk through here.
Can I Cancel My Citi Gold Account After Receiving the Miles/Points?
Yes you can, there is no early account termination fee or requirement to keep the account open after you’ve received the bonus.
Can I Use These The Citi ThankYou Points To Pay For Airfare?
Yes you can and if you have the Citi Prestige you’ll get 1.6¢ in value per point for American Airlines/US Airways flights. If you redeemed all 40,000 points for this you’d receive $640 in value which would put you over the $600 limit causing Citi to issue a 1099-MISC. This screenshot again supplied by Kenny from Miles4more shows he is able to use points earned from this bonus for that purpose.
Which Is The Better Offer?
What’s worth more to you, 50k non transferable ThankYou points or 50k American Airline miles? Everybody will have a different answer and I cannot supply one for you.
Our Verdict
These are two amazing deals, especially when you also consider that having a Citi Gold checking account will lower the annual fee on the Citi Prestige by $100 (if you already have the card it will be prorated based on how long you’ve had the card for) and the fact you can fund a massive amount with a credit card. If you subscribe to our newsletter, you’ll also know that there is an additional reason to open this account (hint, it’s to do with credit card funding – please don’t spoil it in the comments).
These bonuses will be added to our best bank bonus list and also our complete listing of all bank account bonuses.
Hat tip to Frequent Miler & reddit.com/r/churning
I called to try to open over the phone using the promo code for the Thank You points offer. After providing name and zip code, the rep. told me that I was not eligible for this offer. (Note: I have both the Citi Premier and Citi Prestige, TY earning cards.) I was following the advice given to call first to make sure of eligibility. Based on my results, I would further encourage calling first. I suspect that if I had applied on line, I may have been approved but might not have received the bonus points.
Just for background, I previously did the Citigold banking offer for the AA miles and succeeded in getting the bonus. That account has been closed for about six months.
Hi, opening an account over the phone and was told that we can’t fund it with Citibank card.
Anyone tried it to fund it with prestige? Thanks
Two points to consider. Do not apply for new accounts if you expect to move within the next 30 days. This has been a major source of hassle, as I was told that I had to close out my new account and re-apply with the new address. Then there were issues with online access and proper forms to verify my new address.
The second hassle has been getting my W9 processed. I was trying to manually sign up for the ThankYou account (which apparently isn’t automatic), and was told only when I spoke with customer service about an error that was generated, that my W9 was rejected. They claimed that I did not sign it, which is complete BS. They said they might have rejected it because it wasn’t close enough to my signature card’s signature. Will try calling again early this week to see if they’ll accept it this time…
For the $1000 spend requirement, has anyone fulfilled this through money orders or loading bluebird at WM?
i have a copy of the credit card funding form but where is it that they know if it is linked to my credit card?
Just a data point for others. Funding over the phone was a very simple process that took about 5 minutes. I called the number listed above and asked to fund my newly applied for CITI Gold account. Without even asking to use a credit card the rep asked me if I would be using my credit card for funding. They must be getting a lot of requests for credit card funding and now expect it.
I plan to fund $5000 with a Citi Hilton Visa to this account. The cash advance limit for this card is $2600. Should I still set the cash advance limit to $0??
I think you are safe since you’re funding higher than your cash advance limit.
For some reason the consensus is to set the limit at $0 instead of funding over the limit. Perhaps there is fear that the cash advance limit would be extended past the limit unless it is at $0. I am too new to this to predict what might happen.
Your linked post about 1099s doesn’t address whether they issue 1099s for miles. It only talks about TYPs. Does anyone have any data about 1099s for AA miles?
What is the” $50,000 in combined link deposit or retirement accounts
$100,000 in all linked deposit, retirement, credit or investment accounts (excluding a first mortgage with citibank?”
I have several citi credit cards but not checking, saving, or other products with Citi.
I am bit confused about the req of the Citi Gold checking.
Thanks
You’ll pay the $30 fee (starting a few months after account opening) if you don’t deposit $50,000 into your Citi checking account.
I have had the AA Citi Mastercard for a few months but so far received no targeted offers for this promo. So I attempted to apply online with the promo code but after entering in the state of IL I could not get any further. Six attempts later I finally got through to the application and filled it out completely. There was no field to enter my AAdvantage # so I’m not sure where the points will go. I was given the opportunity to fund the account and after clicking the debit card option, I received the message: This service is temporarily unavailable. Please try back later. I looked for a confirmation email so I could find out how to log in to my account but there was no email from Citi. I then called the assistance line from the application and was told that it would take 3-5 business days to find out if the application was approved. Today is day 5 and still have not received any email or snail mail.