Citi is currently offering a bonus of 60,000 points after $4,000 in spend within the first three months on the Citi Premier card. Readers had/have a lot of questions about this card and bonus, so the aim is to get those answered.
Q. I signed up for this card recently, can I get matched to this offer?
A. Citi will usually match a sign up bonus if you applied for the card within the last 90 days. Calling doesn’t work, you must send a secured message. That being said some readers are reporting being denied for this match. It’s unclear why this is the case, but I always suggest at least trying.
Q. I already have a Premier card, will they approve me for a second card?
A. As always approval is not guaranteed, that being said many people have had success holding two of the one card especially American Airlines cards.
Q. I already have a Prestige/Preferred card, will they approve me for this card?
A. Approval is never guaranteed, but having those cards doesn’t make you ineligible. Just keep in mind the Citi 24 month rule in respects to when you last opened/closed one of those cards.
Q. I recently did a product change to a Citi ThankYou earning card, am I eligible?
A. Citi 24 month rule says you’re ineligible if you’ve opened or close a “ThankYou Preferred, ThankYou Premier or Citi Prestige” in the last 24 months. If your product change caused the card number to change then this is usually considered as a card being opened/closed and it will reset the clock.
Q. When does the offer expire?
A. There is no expiry date listed. They already pulled the first link that was posted, so it’s entirely possible this won’t be around for long.
View Comments (78)
anyone has recent DPs if bank funding will count toward MSR for the Citi sign-up bonus? TIA
How much cash back is $60,000 points worth and what do people normally do with points.
I applied on Friday, 7/20, with the 50,000 point bonus. Went to 60K on Monday. I received my card on Saturday, and immediately SM'd regarding the bonus. Got my response this morning that they have added 10,000 points to my account
Applied for the Premier today under the 50k offer. Should I wait to send a SM until I receive the card to ask for the match or send a SM now?
SMed and matched with higher offer. Sent email couple of days back and got the response today. TYP to appear in next couple of billing cycles.
Opened a Citi ThankYou Premier on 7/16 and asked to be matched to the 60000 point promotion on 7/23, noting that I just received the card on that day and hadn't used it yet.
Request approved on 7/26 -- Citi added 10000 points to my account in lieu of changing the promotion terms!
Sent a secured message requesting to be matched to the 60,000 points offer. Explained that I had applied for and received the card within the past 90 days, had already met the minimum spend, and had already received the 50,000 points from the earlier offer as a result. Also added a line about being a loyal Citi cardholder, which is in fact true given that this is my third Citi card and all three receive good spend. Heard back this morning that the match was approved, and the additinal 10,000 TY points have already appeared in my account.
approved 4 months ago'ish and was matched , 10k points to be added next statement on citi thank you premier
My SO was also approved about 4 months ago (April 14), but her request was denied - "Dear _________,
We are not able to match the offer that you are requesting us to match. We have a set timeframe from when an account is opened to match offers. Your account is outside of that timeframe; therefore, we are not able to match this offer.
If you have any further questions or concerns, please contact us.
Sincerely,
XYZ
Account Specialist
South Dakota"
Congrats. Please share with others if you SMed or used another method?
I'm confused by the line "If your product change caused the card number to change then this is usually considered as a card being opened/closed and it will reset the clock."
Why would it "usually" be? Does Citi not have a specific rule for this?
The reason I ask is that many people got converted automatically from the Forward to the Preferred and the card # did change. I'm surprised this wasn't included as a separate FAQ.
Do any of you know definitively if those cardholders are eligible for this?
Let me explain my view of how the system works. And by system I mean here the "community".
Usually nobody knows the rules for sure unless they are public or leaked. Some/most the rules DoC so kindly put together to simplify our life greatly are the common knowledge - shared data points generalized to the rules. Some times there are not enough DPs, some times they are contradictory, some times people are not capable of explaining exactly all the details of their situation and the conclusion ends up being incorrect. So, when there is not enough evidence to make a strong conclusion ... hence "usually".
When you add to that the fact that most people do not want to risk and do not apply for cards in the questionable situations that reduces the number of data points the community gets tremendously. Add to that the fact that many of the bank systems run on the old software, and there were so many programmers who programmed all those changed many times over the time rules therefore you can only imagine how many bugs exist in those programs... and in some cases when one small detail is different the workflow of a program hits a different ELSE case and produces the different outcome. So you may see one person reported a success when other failure on seemingly identical situation.
So, if you are willing to help the community please apply and see if you get the bonus. If you do not please call CSR several times (as many CSR do not know what they are talking about which BTW does not affect the confidence they provide you the answer with) trying to get it and ask why you did not get it. After that please share the details here. Everybody here will be extremely appreciative of your effort.
Thank you in advance!
Seriously, I am not being sarcastic here. HUGE thanks in advance!
I appreciate the response (no sarcasm either).
What I meant by my initial question is that this should not be some kind of loophole where the rules are not clear. For example, if Will wrote that an ACH transfer "usually" works as a "direct deposit" for bank bonuses I wouldn't say anything.
It is obvious that he and others are trying to find a loophole to still get the money even though the rules don't allow it.
However, in this case if the rules state that an account cannot be "opened or closed" in a certain time period Citi should advise us whether a product change is considered opening or closing. Wouldn't you agree?
Now just because they "should" do it doesn't mean they "will" of course.
In ideal case yes, totally agree. The problem is that Citi (and I mean Citi reps.. as most of the other reps) know less about their own product then you do after you did some research. And definitely they do not know all the details about the border cases like this. The general flaw of all CSRs is that they never say "I am not sure, let me research"... instead they sound very sure regardless of what they are saying. So, what you are going to get is the definitive answer which is in no way guaranteed to be true.
If I have to get the info this way I always call several times, listen to the responses and challenge their answers with what other CSRs say. Possibly ask a manager. And based on that make my decision. Some times you get lucky and actually get the guy who knows what you are asking, and that saves you time.
So, calling the CSR is not always an answer. Especially in the cases when you are trying exploit the system (in which case it is always better to keep your mouth shut and to not draw attention to a loophole).
Good luck with your research.
Sincerely,
for citibank 8-day rule, if I applied one card on the 1st, what will be the earliest day to apply another one, 8th or 9th?