We Have a Challenger!  Citi Premier Card and CitiGold Checking Come Out Swinging With a 90,000 Point Offer.

As a follow up to my post a couple of days ago about the Chase Freedom Rewards, there is another great credit card / checking account combination in the Citi Premier Card and Citi Gold Checking Account.  Usually in the ferocious battle for Thank You Points value, Citi comes up the black eye. Chase, and a few others definitely offer more value for their points than Citi.  Still, since we are on this topic I thought I would review this combination for anyone who may be a loyal Citi customer.

Are Citi’s Thank You Points worth it?

Like most rewards programs, they do earn miles and status.  However Citi Thank You Points are limited to participating programs.  In other words, you cannot transfer these points to any hotel or airline. Still, ThankYou Points will transfer at the usual rate of 1 point equals 1 cent for gift cards. That’s a pretty standard deal but like I said if you are a Citi customer you may want to check this out.

Yes, Thanks You Points and the Citi Premier are worth it . . . .

Because right now the Citi Thank You Premier will say “Thank You” with 50,000 points when you sign up.  Of course you have to spend $2,500 within the first 3 months before you get the points but that is also pretty standard.  As an additional bonus, Citi is waiving the typical $125 annual fee for the first year if you sign up now.  A quick Recap of the card follows:

Skip the details, What do I get if I sign up for this card?

1.     $500  in gift cards or

2.     $665 towards airfare and you earn status points on flights and hotels that accept ThankYou Points.

Get an additional 40,000 ThankYou Points if you open the CitiGold Checking account.

Clearly the good aspect of getting points through a checking account is that it does not ping your credit.  If this appeal to you then open the Citi Gold Checking before the December 31, 2011 and jump through a few hoops to get your extra 40,000 ThankYou Points.  The hoops are as follows:

1.     You have to enroll in the Citi ThankYou Rewards Program within 45 days of opening the account

2.     You have to sign up for electronic bill pay and use it for two months

3.     You have to deposit $500

4.     There is a $30 monthly fee if you have less than a $50,000 balance or a $100,000 relationship.

a.     100,000 relationship means that you have $100,000 with Citi across all accounts including a mortgage.

Is signing up for the CitiGold Checking worth the 40,000 extra ThankYou Points?

I would say that it depends on whether you are a large client of Cit already.  The Citi Gold Checking also allows you to accumulate points monthly (its only 1,350 points per month but that’s the most I know of for a checking account).  But you have to be a pretty large customer to accumulate those points without a hefty monthly fee.