There are a number of reasons as to why you might want a Citi Gold Checking account, one of the most obvious reasons is that Citi often offer higher bonuses on their credit cards to Citi Gold checking customers. For example you can get 60,000 ThankYou points on the Citi Prestige card and get a reduced fee of $350 per year (normally $450) if you have a Citi Gold Checking account (although a lot of clerks aren’t actually checking this).
The problem with the Citi Gold checking account is that it has a monthly fee of $30 and the requirements to keep this account fee free are quite high:
- $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
Citi has another product called “CitiBusiness® Preferred Banking“. One of the benefits of this account is that you get the monthly fee on your personal Citi gold account waived. The downside is that this account has an even higher monthly fee of $40, but the requirements to keep it fee free are lower:
- Average monthly balance of $15,000 or more
If you have a business, you might as well get this Preferred Banking account as you’ll need to keep less in it to keep your Citi Gold checking account fee free. Presumably you’d also be able to open the Citi Gold checking account when it was offering a bonus (current ones are listed below) and then use this account to keep it fee free.
Also keep in mind Citi will waive the first two months of fees for new accounts. Thanks to loudnotes from Flyertalk for making me aware of this account.
