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The Citi Prestige Changes Are Here: What Changed & What Didn’t

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Disclosure: Miles to Memories has partnered with CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. Miles to Memories and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities. Links in this post may provide us with a commission.

Citi Prestige Changes & New Offer

Following a lot of noise last week, the Citi Prestige went through some changes. The official offer died through the affiliate channels a few days ago, however the 50K offer had still been on the Citi website until today. Now, they have updated website and here is the new offer.

Citi Prestige Changes

The older offer was 50,000 points after $3K spend so basically they lowered the bonus by 10,000 points and raised the spending requirement by $1K. Not a huge deal either way I suppose, but it does alter the first year value of the card. (Which I still think is worth it the first year given the airfare credit.)

Update: There is still a working link for the old 50K offer.

Admiral’s Club Access

The big change that we learned of this week is the loss of Admiral’s Club access with this card in July, 2017. While it isn’t evident if new applicants will get Admiral’s Club access until then, access is missing as a benefit from the application page. Instead, the only mention of lounge access goes to Priority Pass. Since the card itself gives access, my guess is new cardmembers will get access until next year, but you would have to confirm with Citi.

Other Things Being Removed

Thanks to the Travel Hacking 101 Facebook Group, I have now learned the following benefits will also be removed as of 7/23/2017:

  • 1.6 cents per point redemptions for American Airlines.
  • All airline mileage redemptions will be 1.25 cents instead of 1.33 cents.
  • The golf benefit is being removed.
  • 4th night free will be based on the average nightly rate and taxes are no longer included.

Things Remaining the Same

All of the following benefits remain the same:

  • 3X on air and hotels
  • 2X on dining and entertainment
  • No foreign transaction fees
  • 4th night free on bookings through Citi Concierge
  • $250 airline credit each calendar year
  • $100 global entry credit

In other words, the bonus went down 10K, the spend requirement went up $1K and the card lost Admiral’s Club access starting in July, 2017. I still think this card is worth it the first year (and beyond that for many), but hopefully those of you who are immediately interested were able to get it before these changes.

You can find the new offer directly on the Citi website.

Disclosure: Miles to Memories has partnered with CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. Miles to Memories and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers.

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Shawn Coomer
Shawn Coomerhttps://milestomemories.com/
Shawn Coomer earns and burns millions of miles/points per year circling the globe with his family. An expert at accumulating travel rewards, he founded Miles to Memories to help others achieve their travel goals for pennies on the dollar. Shawn also runs a million dollar reselling business, knows Vegas better than most and loves to spend his time at the 12 Disney parks across the world.

Responses are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.

45 COMMENTS

  1. Because of the changes in benefits/terms ect,,is this now considered a ‘new product’ therefore eligible for a churn?

  2. This is a trend with citi cards. When I got my premier card way back in 2008, you could trade in 20,000 TYP for any flight under $400 and then there was a progressive scale for flights more than that. That benefit went away pretty quickly. When I got this card, I didn’t expect all these benefits to last very long!

  3. The facebook post you link to says 7/27/2017 (i.e. a year from now, when the admiral’s club benefit goes away), not 7/27/2016 (i.e. this week).

  4. I’m not sure if this facebook post is a credible source. I called Citi and they said there aren’t any immediate changes coming to the golf benefit or the 1.6 cents on AA tickets.

    • Be clear that there are no “his links” or affiliate links. The link in this post is a public non-affiliate link to the Citi site. At this time they seem to have two versions of their site and I am sure it will be fixed. No links in this post are my links or give me any compensation. In fact the post says it is a direct link to the site.

      The $800 is most likely a hold over from the old bonus language and we are still waiting to hear what the new reality is with the value when it comes to AA flights. It is clear that they deleted the $800 language from the link I provided (a direct link) which is troubling.

  5. A little spend down & bonus difference, & losing the club. No big deal. Travel once and this card costs $0.
    Stay in a nice hotel and you make a little money. Travel twice and you can nearly double the cost of the card in benefits. Winner Winner Chicken Dinner.

  6. Shawn, sorry for off topic question

    my citi premier annual fee is due, the retention dept is closed and I am not sure if I should renew it for another year or not. I renewed prestige last month. What would u recommend ?

    • Sorry for not answering this sooner. I have been traveling and this thread has a lot of comments due to the Prestige changes.

      If you cancel it then the 24 month window begins again on when you can get a new bonus on the card. The question is whether you need it for points transfers and whether you use its benefits and use it for bonus categories like 3X travel. If you get enough benefit to justify the $95 fee then consider keeping it.

  7. New application is also lacking any info about the free rounds of golf. Any idea if this is going the way of aa lounge access?

  8. If the 1.6x on points applied to AA purchases will no longer be offered, do we have any experience about how that applies to existing points, and/or for how long we would still be able to spend them on AA at the 1.6x rate? I’m sitting on >250K, so even a 16.6% decrease in value (from 1.6x to 1.33x) would be a >$400 sting — something I’d like to avoid if I still can. For the moment, account is still allowing me to purchase from AA at 1.6x rate.

  9. According to your link there is no longer an extra TYP redemption value for AA flights as opposed to other airlines. Now it just reads:

    “By earning 40,000 Bonus ThankYou Points you can redeem for travel or rewards even sooner with:

    $532 toward flights on any airline
    $400 in gift cards from a wide range of merchants
    Other great rewards”

  10. “Admirals Club Lounge Access” is printed on the back of the old cards so I doubt the new ones will have access even for the first year. The question is, will they send me an updated card in 2017?

    • Yes I am sure that is a typo which is leftover from the old bonus amount. The link I have has purposely had it removed. I am 99.9% sure it is an error and am waiting for clarification. Since I found this link without it, I didn’t want to stoke the fire since that all but confirms it was a leftover piece of text.

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