The old Citi Prestige card, Citibank’s premium credit card competing with the like of Amex Platinum and Chase Sapphire Reserve, was actually a great card. It offered many of the same benefits as other cards, but it also offered one huge, unique benefit: fourth night free at hotels on cash bookings.
Old Citi Prestige Benefits
For a $450 fee, the card offered:
- $250 annual airline travel credit
- 3x on airfare and hotels
- 2x on dining and entertainment
- Priority Pass Lounge membership
- Global Entry application credit
- Complimentary 4th night at luxury hotels when booked through Carlson Wagonlit Travel
The benefits of the card have changed several times since it came out, mostly because the value it provided was significant and they were most likely losing quite a bit of money to savvy travelers like us. The biggest of these changes was with the 4th night free, which now gives you 25% off the total room rate on the 4 night stay (rather than the actual rate on the 4th night) and excludes taxes. More recently Citi decided to stop accepting new applications and even product changes to the card, with rumors that the card was being revamped.
Well, Dave at Miles Talk has some very interesting new information/rumors on the revamped version of the credit card. It appears the revamped card will offer the following:
New Citi Prestige Benefits
- 5x on Airfare and Dining
- 3x on Hotels and Cruises
- 4th night free benefit limited to two uses per year
- A new cellphone damage/theft benefit
- A slightly larger $495 annual fee
- Continues to have Priority Pass Lounge membership and Global Entry application credit
- I’ve also learned there will no longer be a 25% bonus when booking through Citi. This means points are now worth 1 cent each for this method of redemption.
- The $250 airline credit will now be a general travel credit (which is much more useful)
- These new benefits will be mostly effective January 2019, with some of the devalued items (4th night free etc.) will start in September 2019
Summary and Quick Take
This is a very compelling card to add to the premium credit card mix. The Amex Personal Platinum currently gives 5x on airfare, and the new Amex (Rose) Gold card gives 4x on Dining. There are quite a few that give 3x on travel/dining, so that’s not much of an improvement. Still, having all of those in a single card is compelling. My recent post comparing the value of popular credit cards will definitely have to be updated, and I’m curious to see how this card will compare.
The big change, of course, is the 4th night free benefit now being limited to only two uses per year. There’s no doubt been heavy users of this benefit. Some bloggers posted how they regularly save hundreds or even thousands of dollars by making use of it, so I can understand why they wanted to limit it. Still, two per year is quite a limitation, but if you’re a “normal” traveler that goes on one or two trips per year, this is probably still incredibly useful.
With the extra points, airline fee credit, and even with the limited 4th night free benefit, I’d say this card is worth getting and/or keeping. Again, it’s still rumor at this point, but it sounds fairly credible. The only thing left to be revealed is the sign-up bonus. Here’s hoping for a huge new bonus for the re-launch of the card!
Hat Tip: Dave at Miles Talk
If these changes are true, count me as a very, very happy camper. We cruise often, so 3x points on those is huge. I nearly canceled the Prestige a couple of years ago with the idea of replacing with the CSR. This will make me glad I didn’t.
Looks like these rumors are being confirmed now. I might argue it’s worth getting the CSR for the bonus points and canceling after the first year, but looks like you’re going to enjoy the Prestige quite a bit now.
It seems so long ago when it also offered access to a certain lounge