Citi Makes Changes to Bonus Terms, There’s Good and Bad News
Citi has changes the terms for receiving bonuses on their ThankYou Points credit cards. They have long had a restriction of 24 months on bonuses which didn’t allow you to get a bonus if you have opened or closed a card in the last two years. The new rule might extend that by a couple of more months but also has some positives.
Citi Rule Changes
Here’s what the new terms say for ThankYou Points bonuses:
Bonus ThankYou Points are not available if you received a new cardmember bonus for Citi Rewards+℠, Citi ThankYou®Preferred, Citi ThankYou® Premier/Citi Premier℠ or Citi Prestige®, or if you have closed any of these cards, in the past 24 months.
And here’s the old terms:
Bonus ThankYou points are not available if you have had ThankYou Preferred, ThankYou Premier or Citi Prestige cards opened or closed in the past 24 months.
The new terms are only showing for ThankYou Points cards for now, but we could see them extended to their other cards as well.
Analysis
With the new rule, the main difference is that now the clock will be based on the last time you received a bonus or closed a card.
You will have to wait a few months more till the next bonus. If you get the bonus 3 months after getting a new card, then it’s now basically a 27 month wait until the next bonus, instead of the 24 months based on the old terms.
On the other hand, if you get a card but don’t receive a bonus, then it does not reset your 24-month waiting period. Converting a card from another family to the ThankYou Points family shouldn’t reset it either. And another positive thing is that you should be able to get more than one ThankYou Points card at once and get the bonuses together. This might be a great option for those who need lots of points in a short amount of time.
Closing a credit card will still reset the 24-month clock.
Conclusion
These changes are not all bad as they give you some options that weren’t available in the past. The only bad part is a longer wait since the last bonus, but that’s only extended by 2-3 months. For now it only affects ThankYou points cards.
Let us know what you think of these changes.
HT: Doctor of Credit
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“And another positive thing is that you should be able to get more than one ThankYou Points card at once and get the bonuses together.”
I could see a technicality where the second bonus could be disqualified for receiving the first bonus within the last 24 months. As far as I can tell, this is not necessarily evaluated at the time you open the card. That is, they could say you just earned the bonus for a mentioned card between the time you were approved for the second card and the time you met the bonus requirements for it and it was < 24 months ago. Citi being Citi, YMMV and anything goes though.
[…] H/T: Doctor of Credit via Miles to Memories […]
I closed my Premier card a little over 2 years ago and the Prestige card 18 mos. ago. I started to apply again and got that popup. The chat person said I was good to go on applying and getting the bonus. That is not what I read. I called into Citi and the phone person said I was good to apply and get the bonus. I asked they check with a supervisor. After 15 min. on hold, she comes back and says she was wrong. I would have to wait until the Prestige cleared 24 mos. of being closed. The key term here is closed, and not when I got the bonus. I did downgrade one of those cards to the Preferred, but got a different card number and no bonus on that card. It is still open. I will wait until late June and apply for one or the other and wait 9 days and apply for the other one. Lesson learned is to close both cards at the same time somewhere down the road.
Sounds like lifetime restriction. Better get citi on record with clarification.