When Will Citi Prestige Benefits Change for New Card Applicants?

We’ve covered the upcoming 2017 changes to the Citi Prestige card extensively.

• We learned about the lower signup bonus and the link that still gets you 50k.
• The Admirals Club benefit will be removed.
• We wrote about the other changes that will take place – removing the golf benefit and lowering the redemption value to 1.25 cents-per-point.

All changes will take effect on July 23, 2017.

New Card Applicants

We clarified that the benefit changes haven’t yet gone into effect, and new card applicants will still get all of the existing benefits. We weren’t sure, however, how long the old benefit terms will apply to existing cardmembers.

New information indicates that all benefits will continue for new applicants until July 23, 2017, when it changes for everyone. The one exception is Admirals Club access: this benefit will be removed completely for those who apply on September 1, 2016 or later.

• Apply now through August 31 and get all benefits that existing cardholders get; changes will all take place on 7/23/17.
• Apply from September 1, 2016 onward and get all the same benefits with the exception of Admirals access; the remaining changes will take effect on 7/23/17.

We learned this timeline from the TravelHacking101 Facebook group. They had good info about the original changes so I’m inclined to trust this information as well. Thanks also to Milestomemories where I first learned about this.

Booking Out Benefits for Later Date

Also confirmed in that Facebook group is that the old benefit terms will be available until July 23, 2017, even for benefits booked after that date.

You can book a golf round before 7/23/17 for a later date, you’ll get the old terms when booking the 4th night benefit before 7/23/17, and you can book flights using the 1.6/1.33 values before 7/23/17.

We mentioned this point in a previous post, but it’s good to have another confirmation on that.