Citi Prestige Changes Concierge Provider To Aspire From Ten – List Of New Benefits & Issues

Citi have recently changed their concierge operator, previously they were using TEN Lifestyle Management Limited (still listed in their benefits guide) and they have now moved to Aspire Lifestyles (Americas), Inc. There are a number of differences between the two providers, so I thought it would be useful to highlight them below.

Travel Bookings

Aspire has their own in house travel agency, this is a positive because TEN outsourced this to Carlson Wagonlit Travel. This change should be a positive because it means you no longer need to be transferred when making a booking for the Citi Prestige 4th night free benefit (previously you called Citi Concierge, they would then transfer you to Carlson Wagonlit to make the booking).

Another benefit of this change is that you can now get Aspire to keep your hotel loyalty information on file, whereas previously you needed to give this information to Carlson Wagonlit every time. You’re also still able to book special rates (e.g AAA, military etc). As long as Aspire can book your travel using their travel agency number, then they can book the room for you (even if it’s not in their database).

Another benefit to the Aspire switch is that it seems reimbursements are now coming through quicker (around 10 days).

Tips

• Research before you call, find the rates and dates you want online and write down the price (including room type and any special rates you’re eligible for)
• The 4th night free benefit only covers room rate + taxes, it does not cover resort and other fees
• You earn loyalty points and elite stay credits for these bookings (including the 4th night), that means if you are only staying 3 nights it’s worth booking four nights anyway
• There are some datapoints of people no longer being able to combine this benefit with other free night benefits (e.g if the hotel is offering 3rd night or 5th night free)

Dedicated Concierge

This is an invite only program at the moment, not sure how Citi decides who gets invited but I assume it’s based on spending patterns on both the card itself and spending based on Concierge calls as well. Basically the dedicated concierge service gives you a dedicated representative that that will handle all of your queries. I’m not sure if you get a dedicated phone number for that person, or just an e-mail address.

Online Concierge

As far as I know, this didn’t use to be a feature that TEN offered. But you can now use the following website: https://concierge.citi.com/ to make a request. It also looks like you can use this e-mail address directly: [email protected]. Unfortunately it doesn’t look like you can actually book hotel rooms via either of these two options, but you can confirm that certain hotels can be booked. The really good thing about this online portal is the fact you can see what restaurants have dining benefits in different cities.

Hat tip to JAGMAP on Flyertalk

Dining Benefits

If you make a restaurant reservation with Citi at one of restaurants participating in Aspire’s Preferred Restaurant Program then you might be able to receive a ‘special benefit’ (a freebie). The freebie varies from restaurant to restaurant to view whats available:

• Log into https://concierge.citi.com/
• Click ‘dining’
• Select your city and it’ll show available restaurants and benefits

I found the selection of restaurants to be rather lackluster, I’d only really book at one of the participating restaurants if I had plans to go there anyway. Some of the freebies look decent (e.g free champagne), so I’ll probably keep checking to see if any of the restaurants I plan to eat at have anything of interest.

I’m not sure if you have to use the Citi Prestige to pay the bill or not, the card does earn 2x Citi ThankYou points on restaurant purchases so not a huge issue either way but most of the time I’d prefer 3% cash back.

[Read: Best credit cards for restaurant purchases]

Wait Times & Other Issues

Probably the biggest issue with the new concierge provider is the wait times, all of my calls have had a 30+ minute wait just to speak to somebody. Even when I finally get on the phone to somebody, it seems like they take longer to make a booking than Carlson Wagonlit did. I assume that Aspire will hire more concierges to deal with the increased call volume that the new Citi partnership is causing, although this will probably lead to longer times on the phone while these new representatives get trained up.

According to a contact Citi/Aspire are currently trying to address their ASA (average speed of answer) and FCR (first call resolution) rates.

Our Verdict

Personally I don’t really care who the Concierge provider is, that said a wait time of over one hour is completely unacceptable. If I’m using a concierge service, it’s either because I want to save time by getting somebody to do something for me or because I want to save money (using the 4th free night benefit or dining benefits for freebie). As they say, time is money. I don’t have one hour to waste on hold times. Hopefully Aspire are able to reduce wait times and offer a more robust online solution.