A few days ago we reported on the fact that the Citi ThankYou Premier card was having a number of changes made to it. The most important change was that travel categories would earn 3x ThankYou points and those categories will be greatly expanded (including gas), whilst dining & entertainment purchases would earn 2x ThankYou points.
We also speculated that the annual fee would be reduced to $95 per year from $125, this speculation was based on what somebody had heard from a customer service representative. Miles 4 More pointed out on twitter that this has now actually been confirmed on the Thank You Premier application page:
Annual Fee: $125 (fee waived for the first 12 months). On 4/19/2015, this fee will be reduced to $95 on all accounts.
A $30 difference might not seem like a big change, but the way the bonus is structured you’d really be paying this annual fee twice (although there are reports of this being waived). It’s clear that Citi is positioning this card to compete with the Chase Sapphire Preferred & Barclaycard Arrival+, whilst the Citi Prestige will aim to compete with the American Express platinum card.
I still think the Prestige needs to either increase the benefits, or decrease the annual fee to become competitive but it does seem like they are grabbing some market share from American Express at the moment (which is why you might be seeing those massive 100,000 & 150,000 point bonuses from American Express).
If Citi can add American Airlines as a transfer partner (extremely unlikely) then I think you’ll see both of these cards talked about more often. Keep in mind it might be possible to get a 50,000 point sign up bonus on the Citi Prestige card at the moment.
Competition is a beautiful thing for consumers, so let’s hope that this ends up in better offers and benefits for all the above mentioned cards.
Looking to get this card. Any idea if it would work to spend 3K in year two quickly, transfer the points out, and then cancel, to avoid annual fee?
I was eligible for both Premier and Prestige cards 50k (no splitting) offer after $3000 spend.
@William Charles Which card you recommend for applying?
Personally I’d probably take the Premier, there have been targeted bonuses of 60k on the Prestige, but 50k non split seems to be best for Premier. Plus annual fee is way less.
I thought the AF was waived the first year, then you have to pay it 1 time at the end of year 1/beginning of year 2 in order to get the full bonus? Thus only paying the AF 1 time to get the full bonus. Incorrect?
AF is not waived first year on some of the offers, I could be wrong but that is my impression.
“A $35 difference” is too obtrusive to someone who does math all the time. 🙂
It was a test, I wanted to make sure my readers were paying attention. In all seriousness, thank you. I’ve fixed the post, I’ll try my best not to make so many stupid mistakes in the future. 🙂
How churnable is this card? If not, would you consider all the recent changes qualify it to be deemed a new product? I just finished the 1 year on this card to fully max out the 50,000 thankyou points offer in which I had to pay the $125 AF. However, I messaged citi to downgrade to a preferred card and the AF was refunded in full. Opting for the more direct route of simply closing the premier card and getting the AF refunded was not possible (or atleast that’s what the agent told me when I messaged).
I don’t think the changes qualify it to be a new product. The fine print on the application page states “Bonus ThankYou Points not available if you have had a Citi ThankYou Premier card opened or closed in the past 18 months”. So you’d need to wait 18 months to get the bonus again. Hope that helps, as always you can view the churnable rules here for each card issuer: https://www.doctorofcredit.com/list-of-churnable-credit-cards/