We’ve got a number of reports from people regarding their Citi credit cards being shut down (thanks to Miles Per Day for letting me know about this originally on Twitter), the official reason that Citi has given them is as follows:
Pursuant to our Card Agreement, we have the right to close your account at our discretion anytime without prior notice. We have chosen to exercise this right.
There is some discussion of this talking place on Flyertalk and I’m told it’s also being discussed in various private forums/chat groups/snapchat accounts/however else people share information these days. From what I can gather at the moment it seems these shut downs are relatively small scale at the moment and are targeted towards people with unusually high levels of spend on their cards.
It also seems like these people have been blacklisted by Citi, meaning any cards that they apply for in the future will lead to an instant denial. We’ll talk about blacklists for all the different card issuers in a future post. This also follows on from Citi disallowing credit card funding on their deposit accounts. Â Please feel free to share your data points in the comments.
Old post but figured I’d add just had my Citi Double Cash card closed due to security risk. Not sure what that means as no one would explain it. Always paid the full balance off but I did do a lot of spending with the card and some months would earn close to $1k in cash back,.
2 of my credit cards with Citi were closed with no explanation. Never missed a payment. I am baffled and confuse.
how long did you have the Citi DB card? just to know around how much cash back in total that card gave you? you spent around 100k per month to gain 1k in cb
I got it whenever it was first released to the general public. Total cash back I’m not sure. I was spending up to 50k per month as the balance was always paid off in full.
Citibank is very sensitive on how you pay their credit cards. I got a phone call from Citi Rep asking me why I pay my Citi credit cards with money orders. I don’t pay the whole balance with money orders, some from personal checking account. I don’t know what will happen next. They also questioned some of large $$ of purchases.
I had to field a similar call. Any update on your credit card accounts?
How much danger is there to leaving your thank you points accumulating? Should we just transfer to travel partner every so often?
Depends on the type of activity on your account I guess, no way to give any realistic answer.
Citi’s compliance department is closing account without providing any explanation. Once they made decision (without giving you an opportunity to explain) and flag your account, nobody within Citi can have them change the decision. Not even executive office. I have tried all avenues of Bank manager, social team, banking back office, executive office, etc. with no result.
I had my Citi checking account closed because I could not provide explanation for few legitimate cash deposits within 5 days as I was traveling out side country. Within 3 months they closed all my credit cards accounts even thought there were no transactions in past 6 months.
To those whose checking account is closed first; will have 3 months to empty all your Thankyou points via gift cards or transfer to partner programs. Your partner program points are safe from any citi closer.
2016 will start a recession. 8+ years of Bull Market is getting “tired”.
Save your dollars for upcoming rainy day!
Anyone you had their account closed and lost points should put up a fight to at least recover those. Most will just let it go. I once had a situation with Chase where they tried to keep more than 300K of points earned fairly. Eventually they gave me the value in a check because I worked non stop against them. I do not do any MS. I think one comment about banks seeing a recession in one way or another could be a possibility. They may be using some AI to identify accounts that might carry higher risk to the bank. If they can reduce their losses in any way, that benefits them.
Just got a notification today in the mail that my old citi preferred card account is shutdown due to inactivity (I havent used it in over a year). I’m definitely not an MSer, so it seems they are closing old and unused accounts as well.
Banks are getting ready for a recession. Forget points, are your jobs safe?
My name is credit and remember my post as a forewarning in a few months.
Don’t get injured patting yourself on the back there Nostradamus. Newsflash – many intelligent people here keep up with what’s going on in the world economy.
I realize this will be very unpopular with those selling tickets.
This disregards cashback. I suspect people who do $100k+ are doing a majority of it in CB because after a certain level points/miles lose value if they aren’t being used. With cashback flexibility is king.
Good point. That could add up to a ton of cash.
The banks should quit focusing on collecting points and make the airlines clamp down on using (or selling) the points for other peoples’ tickets.
If only the points member and designated family member could use his points, then there would not be much need to collect 100,000 every month.
That would benefit both the airlines and the banks and reduce the scammers.