After much delay Citi has finally launched a new travel portal powered by booking.com. Yesterday the portal went live and it’s an improvement on the old system (the old system was so terrible it would be difficult not to be an improvement).
The portal is basically just a rebrand of booking.com and can be used to book flights, hotels, cars and attractions. I did find a few instances where the Citi portal was pricing higher than booking.com though. There are a few reasons why you’d want to use this portal (these were all previously available):
- Prestige cardholders get their 4th night free on hotel stays (twice annually)
- Premier cardholders get $100 off $500+ on hotel stays (once annually)
- Prestige & Premier offer 10x points via the portal (Rewards+ & Preferred earn 5x)
If the new Strata cards launch I also expect them to offer some sort of portal benefit as well.
If that means citi is no longer using their prior travel company, then this seems like it could only be a good thing. If cxloyalty is still handling things, I would forget about ever using them.
Citi cxloyalty was a complete disaster with Covid related travel issues, refusing to give up their travel agency link to tickets, requiring multi hour holds and 40-50 phone calls (underestimate if anything) over more than 2 years to get a refund after invalid tickets were booked by cxloyalty and cancelled by the airline the day before our trip. Probably spent close to 200 hours waiting on hold, was insulted multiple times, hung up on at least 20 times. Was promised a call back many times, never happened.
In contrast, amex travel answered quickly, took care of issues on their own, released tickets to make changes easier and so that the airline could directly issue a refund. Total time spent was 1-2 hours.
More like Booking.yeahhhhhh
Used it the first day. Riu Republica $147/nt during Memorial day weekend. With 4th night free, 5% back on Restaurants, 5% back on $500/mth custom card, and $250 travel credit. Damm near free.
Plus another hotel i’m looking in Aug is $50/nt cheaper than the hotel website.
just made a booking and got $100 off (premier), seamless, works nicely enough.
Found Citi portal, usually, is slightly more expensive
Had a hotel booked through the old portal for next month. Repriced it today and it was $21/2100 points cheaper.
Citi really needs to bring back travel protection at least on the cards with annual fees…. At least to me that’s a deal breaker
Citi portal sucks big time. Everything worse / more expensive
I ran some hotel pricing comparisons on the “new” Citi travel portal versus Amex and Chase. As with the “old” Citi travel portal, for the same property/room/dates, Citi’s pricing was either 1) higher, 2) the same but with a cancellation fee, 3) the same but completely nonrefundable, or 4) higher AND nonrefundable. Perhaps others have different experiences but it is an absolute non-starter for me.
The LHC does not seem to be available on the portal yet.
But they are also giving 10x points for booking through the portal, so as long as the increase is < whatever % you're making more through points, you should come out ahead
But you can’t look at the non-refundable rate, which is not a fair comparison. Booking direct will almost always be refundable, and lots cheaper than the refundable rate on citi.
TB, you missed my point. I compared the price of the Chase UR 10X portal versus Citi’s 10X portal. It should be an apple-to-apples comparison. Both are offering 10X. Same points per dollar. Got it? (Amex involved a little bit different math.)
For the specific rooms that I was booking, Chase UR 10X would offer it fully refundable for (say) $X.
For the same exact room, Citi 10X might offer it fully refundable for $X PLUS 15 PERCENT.
Alternatively, Citi 10X might offer it for $X BUT WITH A 25 PERCENT CANCELLATION FEE OR COMPLETELY NON-REFUNDABLE.
No (stinkin’) way.
Good point. Better comp is with C1’s portal, as they both have 10x through the portal.
If you’re a big Choice guy…that’s a pretty good final return to run all Choice bookings through Citi. (10x & 2:1).
It would be really nice to see LHR built into the portal, especially if there’s overlap with the Prestige 4th night free. Searching more than once is just silly in 2023.
CSR is laughable with collections from Visa Infinite, Chase Luxury, Chase regular portal, and no place to see them all (including different rates on the same hotel sometimes).
Perhaps this move will make that $100 off $500 off hotel booking more attractive for the Premier. Let’s hope Citi does not price gouge those rates as to ruin the discount.