The time has unexpectedly come to decide whether I should keep or cancel my Citi Prestige. As I had written, the annual fee for my card prematurely came this month because I opened the Citi Gold Checking account. A perk of the checking account is a reduction of the Prestige annual fee from $450 to $350. Unfortunately, it also means that they reset the clock as to when the annual fee is assessed. It was supposed to be in May and now it is due the end of February.
To recap, here are the perks of the card:
- $250 Air Travel Credit each year: already used for 2016
- Admirals Club & VIP lounges: Not really flying AA enough to care and have Priority Pass via AMEX plat.
- Complimentary 4th Night for any hotel stay. Used this once only. I have so many Hyatt, Hilton, and Club Carlson points that this is not something that I will benefit from in the immediate future.
- 3 Free Rounds of Golf: This is the perk that I enjoy the most and the reason that I am especially annoyed that they moved my annual fee due date from May to February. If I cancel the card, I have to speculatively book rounds of golf now in the dead of winter instead of booking them for the summer when my annual fee was supposed to hit.
I called Citi to complain about the change to my annual fee. They were very friendly but said nothing could be done. The retention offer I was given was 3k ThankYou points for my trouble and an additional 10k points if I spent 3k in 6 months. I accepted the offer but was not excited about it. The agent did say that I had 37 days to cancel my card after paying the annual fee in order to receive a full refund of $350. If I wait longer than that I would be refunded a prorated amount for each month I kept the card. (This policy is different for the Citi AA Exec which will not refund any money after 37 days.)
Conclusion: I’m going to keep the card until I burn the 3 free rounds of golf. I may try to get the additional 10k TY but with the current state of manufacturing, I don’t know if I will go after it. Had the annual fee hit in May as originally forecasted, I may have kept the card. Now, having exhausted most of the benefits, I see no reason to hold on to it.
We’re Citigold and I decided to keep ours. I like the Priority Pass membership, which is superior to the Amex Plat. It’s basically a $100/year fee card and it helps our 1.7 mil TYP go further.
You just want to boast about your obscene ty balance lol. I don’t think it’s a bad deal, I just don’t like how they changed my annual fee date because the golf timing will always be off now.