A big change from Citi. Credit card applications no longer have the 24-month language for sign-up bonuses. Let’s see what the new limitations are.
New Citi Credit Card Rules
Update: After looking at this closely, the “new accounts only” language is there, however the 24 month language is still showing on the app in a separate spot outside of the actual terms. It isn’t evident if this is indeed a change to policy, a clarification or if they just forgot to remove the 24 month language from the top of the app.
Looks like Citi has changed the restriction for sign-up bonuses on all the applications. Last year Citi changed their rules, limiting new credit card sign-up bonuses to once per 24 months for each family of cards. Under the old rules you could only get one American Airlines credit card bonus every two years for example. This is the new language on the terms of the applications:
This offer is valid for new accounts only.
What does this mean? I can’t really say for sure, since this new language is very vague. But we’ve rarely seen any bank getting more lenient on churners lately so I’m assuming that it’s more like a lifetime rule per card, like Amex and not any new credit card account.
Conclusion
We’ve seen banks tightening up their rules to curb credit card churning and I suspect this move from Citi goes in the same direction. I would be surprised and very happy if I’m wrong.
HT: Out and Out
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Yeah, I think I got this one wrong. I’m gonna take my post down for now.
Sorry for the false alarm!
well i would say who cares if its false alert or not. the painful reality always includes devals and tighter internal controls. it never moves backwards “hey guys sorry about 5/24. its 10/24 now…” no.
meaning, people should have a strategy for banks moving to the amex rule eventually. BofA is a great recent example. it pained me to watch how the community single handedly made BofA notice and begin to implement chase like rules. still TBD on that one.
24 month language still there….false alert
It has always been “new” account only