Update 11/22/20: Citi has now readded these VANs for American Airlines cards. Hat tip to reader Jenny.
Original post: Since at least 2015 Citi has offered the ability to generate virtual account numbers for Citi credit cards. These are useful for a variety of reasons such as:
- Making a payment with a merchant where you’re unsure of their payment security
- Purchasing a trial but are worried it will be difficult to cancel
Unfortunately Citi is no longer allowing any American Airlines cardholders to create these VAN’s. It’s unclear why this change was made. You can view a list of banks that allow you to create these virtual account numbers by clicking here.
Hat tip to Dans Deals
Did Citi drop the VAN from the Aadvantage cards again? I don’t see mention of it anywhere on their website.
My son discovered that if a merchant authorizes your card for some amount, but later charges more than the limit you set up on the VAN, the charge would still go through! I didn’t actually check what he used my card for, but I hope it won’t get me into any trouble! 😀
It just signs me off when I click on Virtual number link. Anyone else?
update: You have to click on “Advanced” now to set a time or # limit.
…. while creating a new VAN
Yes on my double cash. Nope on my Citi AAdvantage Business card.
We’re sorry, your account is not eligible for this feature. We apologize for the inconvenience. For further assistance, please call 1-855-472-3251 and refer to Error Code [1074].
Pro tip: if you’re having technical difficulties with your account – ask support to unlink your credit card account from your online profile and create a new online profile. My online account had a lot of issues – for example, I couldn’t even change the password on my account. All of that got resolved when I created a new online profile. Most importantly, VANs started working again on my Double Cash.
https://online.citi.com/US/VANRAN/main is the direct link
I’ve personal Citi AAdvantage Platinum & Mileup cards. Working for both types.
It’s not working anyway. It’s using flash which has been disabled and blocked by chrome or edge.
Citi recently updated VAN system. It no longer uses Flash so it even works with Chrome or chromium based browsers now.
I tried and it’s still using Flash plugin. It says Flash plugin blocked can’t load.
Enable Flash once.
Personally, now that Paypal can generate virtual numbers with any card, plus the fact that Citi is still using Flash technology, not enticed to use Citi Virtual numbers
Citi allows you to set a limit
No. Not when I just signed in. Without the $ limit and date limit feature Citi is no better than PayPal’s.
You’ll have to click on Advanced Options when the VAN window opens to select validity period & amount for a card. Otherwise, view the number of an existing card & change amount/period.
I think you only need to enable Flash once to let it work for the first time. Change your Chrome settings pertaining to Flash. BTW, their verification server is down today anyway, so card numbers aren’t being generated. It was working fine until yesterday, though.
Working again today
Back now. Via website.
I received my replacement Citi AAdvatage World Elite Platinum Select card, and it had a different first four digits. My VAN capability is gone. It was one of the reasons I kept the card, and I used the facility in the past, especially for online purchases, not wanting my real credit card number to be stored in vendor databases to be hacked.
I suspect that the real issue is that the feature was built using Adobe Flash, which is being retired and has been riddled with security issues from the start, proving itself to be an insecure platform. Rewriting the VAN feature using newer technologies is possible, but not without cost and may carry its own security flaws, unfortunately.
I was offered a card with Barclays with AAdvantage points, so I may ditch the Citibank card, or just put in a drawer and not use it, to avoid affecting my FICO score, which is sensitive to your total credit card balance as a percentage of your total credit limit.
Back again
I got a Citi AA card in January in large part because of the VAN capability, which was advertised as an included benefit when I applied. After trying to it use it the first time, it wasn’t available. A rep told me that it was discontinued “some time ago.” Apparently Citi is clueless on this front.
My cards (Citi AA) still work with VAN today – July 20,2020 – but the service is getting worse by the day… Functionality is great but the development was always terrible with many errors and interruptions. I was planning to write to them with some suggestions but now I better wait until they decide what they will do. VAN is a great tool and instead of terminated it should be expanded with new features like an auto warning when a card is expiring with a one click renewal, a variation limit in recurrent charges if more than x% from the average last payments, etc.
I was also hoping that with Flash support being discontinued that they would come with an HTML5 version more stable, robust and feature-rich but, now, little hope is left. Anyway, it does not hurt to write and request they continue with it.