Recently Citi announced that there would be a number of changes made to their Citi Premier credit card. One of the changes was that the Citi Premier would earn 3x points on in travel categories, the biggest news was that they were expanding what’s considered travel with a heap more categories coming in: “airlines, hotels, car rental agencies, travel agencies, gas stations, commuter transportation, taxi/limousines, passenger railways, cruise lines, bridge and road tolls, parking lots/garages, campgrounds and trailer parks, time shares, bus lines, motor home/RV Rental and boat rentals”.
The Citi Prestige also offers 3x ThankYou points on all travel purchases. I thought that it would only be natural for the Citi Prestige to also have their travel categories broadened to include the same categories, especially considering the annual fee on the Prestige is $450 and only $125 on the Premier (which might be reduced to only $95 soon).
I contacted Citi’s media department to see if my intuition was correct and looks like I was completely wrong:
The changes are specific to ThankYou Premier and will not be extended to Citi Prestige.
I really don’t understand this move by Citi. The Premier card has a lower annual fee, a higher sign up bonus and earns 3x points in more categories. The Prestige does come with a $250 airline credit, but even if you get full value out of that the annual fee is still $200 compared to $125 with the Premier.
The Prestige card does come with a number of other benefits though:
- Complimentary 4th Night for any hotel stay (you have to book through them, which means you’re missing out on portal bonuses and online travel agency loyalty points which add up to 17% if you book through Hotels.com). Frequent Miler has an interesting post on using this benefit.
- Complimentary access to nearly 40 American Airlines Admirals Club
- $100 Global Entry application fee credit
Personally I don’t really see how those benefits outweigh the annual fee difference or the fact that the Premier card earns at a higher rate. It looks like the Prestige is being marketed at people with more money than sense, although if the card still has a 50,000 point bonus in a few months I’ll probably pick it up (I’ll be able to double dip on the airline credit to get the annual fee basically refunded). For some reason the Citi prestige is also not offering access to a free FICO score either.
