Citibank Credit Cards
After Amex and Chase, Citibank is probably the most useful travel and reward credit card company.
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ThankYou Rewards Cards
Other Interesting Citibank Cards
Other Citibank Cards
In addition to the cards above, which may want to get for various reasons, Citibank offers a few additional credit cards:
- AT&T Access Card. A typical signup bonus is 10,000 ThankYou points. Before you could convert Double Cash points into ThankYou points, this card had the advantage of earning 2x points on a broad range of online purchases (and on purchases from AT&T). Now you can earn 2x points everywhere with the Double Cash and this card is mostly superfluous. You also can no longer convert the Access More card which offers 3x points for online purchases. Official webpage.
- Expedia+ Voyager Card. A typical signup bonus is 25,000 Expedia points, typically worth worth up to $180. You'll earn bonus rewards on Expedia purchases, but you are better off using almost any card that provides a bonus on travel purchases instead.
- Citi Simplicity card. No rewards or notable benefits. A great card to transfer a balance to, while you work down your debt. Official webpage.
- Citi Diamond Preferred card. No rewards or notable benefits. Official webpage.
- Citi Secured Mastercard. No rewards or notable benefits. Requires a security deposit. Official webpage.
Each year you have the card, you'll get a $100 incidental airline fee (that also works for inflight Wi-Fi and global entry fees). You'll also get automatic Expedia Gold status, which gets you room upgrades (subject to availability) at VIP access hotels, and 30% extra points for your bookings. There are lots of better signup bonuses out there. If you make the effort to get full use from the incidental airline credit, it offsets the annual fee, making the card marginally useful for some travelers. Official webpage.
There is also a no-annual-fee Expedia Card that typically provides a 15,000 point signup offer and provides Silver status. Official webpage.
Citibank Rules and Tips
- Citibank operates its own reward program called ThankYou Rewards, which earns points that can be converted into frequent flyer miles with over a dozen different frequent flyer programs. This is usually the most valuable way to redeem your points. Otherwise, you can cash them out at 1 cent each. ThankYou points aren't quite as valuable as Ultimate Rewards and Membership Rewards points, but they are still a very valuable points currency.
- Citibank bonus eligibility rules differ for different cards.
- For the core ThankYou cards (Premier, Reward+), you can only earn a signup bonus if you haven't opened or closed any of these cards in the last 24 months. In other words, you can get a bonus on one of these cards every 24 months, but if you cancel a card it resets the clock.
- For the American Airlines cards, you can only a earn a signup bonus every 48 months. However, each variety has its own independent clock, so you can earn one bonus from each of these cards every four years. Targeted offers can avoid this restriction.
- For its other cards (including cards like the AT&T card that earn ThankYou points), the 24 months since opening or closing the card rule applies, but the rule works independently for each card.
- You might want to delay closing an account, until after you collect your next signup bonus. Because Citibank will reset the clock when you cancel your card, you'll need to wait two years (after cancelling) to receive another signup bonus. If you don't want to wait as long, you can keep the initial card open (paying the second year's annual fee). Then two years after you received your card, you can sign up for another card in the same family or even for the exact same card (Citibank will let you get multiple copies). After your approved, you can cancel the older card. If you do this immediately after your anniversary, you will avoid paying the fee for your older card's third year.
- If you are initially declined, there is a good chance that you can still get the card if you call their reconsideration line. You just may need to make a few changes to your accounts, such as reducing your other card's credit limits.
- Citibank rarely offers referral bonuses.
- You can downgrade cards to any other Citibank card. There are several no-annual-fee options.
- Advanced details. You can only apply for two personal cards every 65 days, and only one card every 8 days. For business cards, you can only apply for one card every 95 days. They will frequently, but not always, match a higher signup bonus that becomes available after you sign up for the card. They won't usually send the cards with priority shipping.
Several Citibank credit cards, such as the AT&T cards, earn ThankYou points that can usually only be redeemed at 1 cents each, for things like gift cards. However, if you have the Citi Premier (or Citi Prwestige) Card, you gain the ability to transfer the points from these cards to their frequent flyer partners and get much more value for your points.
If you need to talk to a representative, you can take advantage of myFico.com's list of backdoor phone numbers. These, often unpublished, phone numbers will get you directly to more experienced credit card company employees that may be better able to provide assistance.