Citi Gold Checking: Another Dead Deal

I’ve been waiting to write my post explaining on how I opened a Citi Gold Checking account because I haven’t received the bonus yet. I figured that I would elaborate on the whole process after it was complete. Yesterday, a TPOL reader messaged me to say that Citi no longer allows the Gold Checking account to be funded with a credit card. Today, multiple outlets have confirmed that this is the new policy. For that reason, I figured I might as well write the post now.

For those that are unaware, Citi had a promotion where a client could open a Citi Gold Checking account and received either 50k AA points or 50k ThankYou points. I wish I had selected the 50kAA option because I still haven’t found a great use for ThankYou points besides the dream of transferring them to SQ and actually finding availability. The bonus points this offer should be earned after using online bill pay for 2 consecutive months. It is that simple.

While the points are great bonus for doing essentially nothing, the best part of the offer was the ability to fund the account with a credit card in an amount up to $100,000. I consolidated my Alaska Airlines card and funded my account with $32,000 bringing my balance to 40k Alaska points. There was no cash advance fee on the transaction and in case there could have been, I reduced my cash advance limit to $200. On a side note, I let greed get the best of me when I applied for another Alaska card shortly thereafter and was promptly rejected.

Now, while I wait for the ThankYou points to come in, I will try to figure out the rules about their expiration and transferability.

Regardless, the takeaway from this latest dead deal is that points hustlers have to act fast when they hear about an offer. This one was available for quite some time most likely because there weren’t any annoying posts that have a tendency to kill great deals.