Citi Finally Offers Referral Bonuses
Citi has finally decided to join Chase and Amex in offering cardholders referral bonuses. According to Doc and Reddit, it’s available on the Citi Thank You Premier, AA Platinum Select and the Double Cash Cards. The requirements to successfully earn the bonus are unique. I got an offer to earn 10K bonus ThankYou Points for every friend who is approved after the referring cardholder (me) makes $500 in qualifying purchases. This is not the usual structure for referral bonuses but $500 is not bad at all.
The referral bonus reported on the AA card is 10k miles and $100 for the Citi Double Cash.
Details
- You can refer a maximum of 20 people
- Referral bonuses are limited to 5 per year. Therefore in the case of the Premier card the Max you can earn is 50K ThankYou Points in a 12-month period.
- Enrollment starts when you refer your first friend and that is the date from which you have a year to complete the spending requirement.
Related: Citi Prestige is Going Away & Being Re-Introduced, so How Did that Affect My Retention Offers?
Conclusion
In light of the awesome new Amex Referral Program, it makes sense that Citi is making some changes to it’s rewards program. Since your first referral starts the clock for your spend requirement, it’s prudent to wait until you have someone who’s definitely interested and/or qualified to receive the first referral. Citi Cards are valuable and this definitely makes them more lucrative.
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I referred Citi ThankYou Premier Card to one of my friend yesterday. Got confirmation email from Citi today saying “You’re Enrolled! Now Refer More Friends!”. However, my friend is yet to receive the referral link. Anyone knows how long Citi take to send the referral email??
I’ve referred two friends and their emails. I got confirmation but the friends never had any contact from CITI…..did they cancel this already or is it a scam of some sort?
Question- what kind of sign on bonus does the new cardmember receive?
Great to be able to get bonus points for referrals, but we’re doing the leg work and getting the shaft here… Citi makes money off of each new card sign up (referral), the current user’s card, and the current user’s spending activity already. Now they’re stating we have to do morreee work to be able to make them money…? Let’s hope this doesn’t catch on anywhere else (though, it will because it’s a money maker for the card issuer). Sigh.
Good point, I hadn’t really thought of it in that way.
It would be great if it worked. I forwarded three referrals three days ago, got a note back from Citi each time that the emails were sent, and none has showed up to date in in inbox or spam filter.
That stinks, let us know how things turn out.
That’s great. Did you get it via email or when logging in?
Came through email two days ago.