Update 10/1/19: Miles Per Day is now reporting that the concierge is now only 1.1¢ per point :(.
Original post: City National Bank offers the Visa Infinite card, there are two main ways people redeem points:
Unfortunately they have updated the travel portal and you now only get 1.2¢ per point and prices are still inflated according to reddit user MidnightEnnui. At this stage we’re not sure booking via concierge has been changed as well or not. Concierge was already the better redemption option so if that stays intact it doesn’t matter too much. It’s also rumored that the Visa Infinite card will have negative changes made.
Hat tip to MtM
I called 8005958950 to book flight today and was told to pay additional $25 worth of points as booking fee. I asked the agent if this is a new policy but he keeps refusing to admit and claiming CNB charges that money not the booking agency. I eventually canceled the booking. Worst experience ever.
The Concierge Number 1-800-595-8950 on the back of the card no longer works. Tried 10 times calling today and it just hangs up after a few rings.
It’s working just fine for me.
I priced out a ticket.
$850 on the JAL website,
$999 on the Amex portal,
$1046 on CNB rewards portal,
$1056 on wells Fago rewards portal.
It wanted 81000 points+$73 for CNB giving me 0.95 c/point. Amazon gift card is for 0.9 c/point.
Wells Fargo and CNB use the same Travel provider. The UI is exactly the same except for the bank names.
bah, this sucks. I still have about 40k points left with them.
It is good that I have just used all my points last month. 85,000 points. Going to wait to see if there is any more value in the future.
They need to make the points transferable to miles.
Again, their clientele is film stars and music producers, people who don’t know where their money is much less care how much these points are worth.
This bank is very inefficient. With lot of gay
What the fuck is this comment? LOL
People with money aren’t going to care about credit points. They’re interested in padding their bank accounts first.
Ideally, that’s what everyone on the credit card blogs should do first before engaging in the points game…But to each his own.
Just checked my ticket.
All major sites: $116.30.
Inflated price listed on Travel portal: $134.79.
Required points: 11,233
Frequent Miller’s formula still holds true:
CNB Airfare Price = Actual Fare x 1.03 + $15
see: https://frequentmiler.boardingarea.com/the-exact-value-of-cnb-crystal-visa-infinite-points/
and indeed if we divide $134.79 to 11,233 we get 1.2cpp
However the real value for this particular ticket is: 1.04 cpp calculated as $116.30 divided by 11,233
Pretty poor 🙁
So I booked an airline ticket in the past 4 days with them. I saw on Google flights it was $482 but called them and it was $522 I paid it with points + $50. Went to Delta and looked up the receipt. They paid $482for the ticket so called back got a supervisor and spent 20-30 minutes arguing and got the difference refunded by their accounting department. Ridiculous I had to do that.
The concierge is a separate company. Maybe the concierge eats commission in between. CNB may not be aware of this so you should complain or maybe that is their business model. Save money on concierge and make you pay for it.
More and more sounds like an unethical bank
The best way to deal with an organization that engages in these sorts of scams is to fight fire with fire: get in, squeeze the value out and make them pay, and then leave.
Also i had bought a ticket concierge once and had paid more than the ticket price. I was told or perhaps i convinced myself that the extra portion was for credit card fees that the airline charged. This was a LCC in asia and couldn’t be booked through OTA. But now i am doubtful. Maybe that was the commission the concierge ate in the middle.
I think we need more datapoints about this.
> paid more than the ticket price.
Awesome, congrats!