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Citi Priority
Citibank introduces a new banking package called Citi Priority. The package will have a $30 monthly fee, waived with a combined average monthly balance of $50,000 or more in eligible deposits, retirement balances, and investment balances.
Citi Priority members will have the ability to earn ThankYou points on their checking account, same as Citigold members.
Citi Prestige Discount
This new Citi Priority banking package will be eligible for the $100 discount on the Citi Prestige annual fee. Both Gold and Priority members will get the reduced annual fee of $350.
Here’s from the FAQ:
Q: Will I lose the discount on the annual fee for the Citi Prestige card? No. You will continue to have that same discount available for Citi Prestige.
Gold Transitions to Priority
In November, Citi will be limiting the Citigold account package to those with $200,000+ in deposits, retirement accounts, and investment balances. At that time, Citigold members will be transitioned to the new Citi Priority account package.
Here’s a letter received by Citigold member @Roar_Singh:
Account Options
To recap, here the various banking packages which will be offered by Citi, as they’ll be from November 7 and on:
- Citigold Account – no monthly fees, requires $200k in assets with Citi to qualify *Benefits: Prestige discount, relationship bonus, earns ThankYou points
- Citi Priority Account – $30 monthly fee, waived with $50k in assets with Citi *Benefits: Prestige discount, earns ThankYou points
- Citibank Account – $25 monthly fee, waived with $25k in assets with Citi
- Basic Banking – $12 monthly fee, waived with $1500 balance or with direct deposit and bill pay
- Access Account (checkless banking) – $10 monthly fee, waived with $1500 balance or one direct deposit or one bill pay
Find more information on the current details of Citi account packages here.
Final Thoughts
Citi is instituting a minimum $200,000 combined-balance requirement for their Citigold account package starting November. Apparently, they didn’t want to push all Citigold members to basic levels. Instead, they’re merely creating a new package called Priory which will be similar to what’s currently the Citigold package. And the new Citigold package will become the fee-free version of the Priority for clients with $200k+ in assets with Citi.
There are likely other benefits that will be exclusive to Citigold. For example, the Citigold Client Center in Manhattan might not be for Priority members. Also, the 15% Citigold relationship bonus for Prestige cardholders might not apply to Priority members. We’ll have to wait to find out more on this point.
If it were possible to put $50,000 in an unmanaged index fund, more people might be interested in this new Citi Priority. It sounds like they do offer such an option, but I don’t know what fees they charge and whether it makes sense to pursue.
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