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The Citi Prestige recently quietly disappeared as applications were removed from the Citi website. That’s because there were some major changes coming to the Citi Prestige and now in 2019 they are here. Here’s a rundown of both the positive and the negative changes that you can expect.

The positive changes

New bonus categories

The Citi Prestige will offer 5x points on dining and air travel/travel agencies and 3x points on cruises and hotels.

This puts the Prestige in direct competition with the Amex Platinum which earns 5X on airfare and the Amex Gold Card which earns 4X on (US) dining (not to mention the handful of other cards that earn 4% back on dining).

Although Citi recently changed the trip delay coverage for the Prestige from 3 to 6 hours, it still could be a better card for trip delay protections than the Platinum Card, which requires you to pay extra for those benefits. And while I love the 4X for the Amex Gold Card, it’s limited to U.S. dining, so the Prestige has another leg up there.

The 3X on cruises/hotel is nice but that puts the Prestige on par with the 3X offered by the Citi Premier and Chase Sapphire Reserve on travel.

The new bonus categories are going to be a major selling point for the Prestige but you should also think of the broader picture — how are you going to use your points? Earning 3X or 4X with another program could be better if those points are more useful (but more on that below).

Broader $250 travel credit

The $250 airline credit on the new Prestige is going to be much broader in the future and will be activated upon making any kind of travel purchase (before it was limited to airline purchases).

Travel Purchases are defined as purchases made within the travel category, including purchases from airlines, hotels, car rental agencies, travel agencies/travel aggregators/tour operators, commuter transportation, ferries, commuter railways, subways, taxis/limousines/car services, passenger railways, cruise lines, bridge and road tolls, parking lots/garages, and bus lines.

This will allow the Prestige to compete more closely with the Chase Sapphire Reserve which offers a $300 travel credit that’s extremely broad.

With the $250 travel credit, the effective annual fee for the Prestige card will be $245.

Cell phone protection

As we’ve seen some other cards like the Chase Ink Preferred do, the Citi Prestige will be adding cell phone protection for damage and theft (this benefit will come in May). Presumably, this will work the same way that other cards do which require you to pay your bill with the card to get coverage.

Sign-up bonus?

We know that a new sign-up bonus is coming, we just don’t know what it’s going to be yet. If I had to guess, it would be somewhere between 50,000 and 70,000. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a high minimum spend requirement or perhaps a tiered structure for the bonus, either.

Update: The card has started with a sign-up bonus of 50,000 points after spending $4,000 in the first 3 months. Higher offers may come in the future but they will likely have high spend requirements.

The negative changes

With these new benefits, there are some key losses to the Citi Prestige.

4th night free limitations

The biggest loss is that you will only be able to use the 4th night free benefit two times per year. This benefit had unlimited value since you could earn 4th night frees as many times as you wanted and there was no limitation on the value of the free night.

Now, there’ still no limitation on the value you can save for the free night, but you’ll only be able to capture that value two times per year. This means that you’ll need to be much more strategic with your selection of where you want to use your 4th night free.

This isn’t a major loss for most people but for the few who really capitalized on this perk, this will be a huge loss.

Also, Beginning 09/01/19, Citi Prestige Concierge will no longer be available for Fourth Night bookings and bookings must be made either online at thankyou.com or by phone at 1-800-THANKYOU in order to be eligible for the Fourth Night benefit.

This means that you won’t get guaranteed elite perks and will lose out on elite credits.

Bookings made prior to 9/01/19 will not count toward the two-stay cap in 2019.

25% bonus rate on air travel redemptions gone

When you used your points earned from the Citi Prestige, you could receive a 25% bonus on airfare redemptions similar to what the Chase Sapphire Preferred offers. That’s no longer the case and you’ll receive just a flat 1 cent per point rate on redemptions. This isn’t a major loss and Citi had already gutted its point redemptions for airfare for a while.

No more 2X on entertainment

The Citi Prestige will no longer earn 2X on entertainment. The Citi Premier still offers this option.

Annual fee going up $450 to $495

The annual fee will now be sandwiched between the Amex Platinum’s $550 and the Sapphire Reserve’s $450 as Citi attempts to carve out its new space in the premium card market niche. This isn’t a huge increase but it’s definitely significant enough to re-evaluate the card for current cardholders.

Citi ThankYou Partners

Should you apply?

If you’re thinking about going for the Prestige there are a few things you’ll want to consider.

Citi application rules

If you’re planning on applying make sure that you are aware of the 24 moth rule which does not allow you to earn a Citi sign-up bonus if you’ve opened or closed (or downgraded/upgraded/product changed and received a new card number) a Citi ThankYou card in the last 24 months.

So for example if you closed the Citi Premier six months ago, you’ll need to wait 18 months before you can apply for the Citi Prestige. Or if you product changed a Citi Premier to a Double Cash 12 months ago and received a new card number, you’ll have to wait 12 more months.

Amex Gold Card vs Citi Prestige

A lot of folks will wonder if they should move their dining spend from the Amex Gold Card to the Citi Prestige next year.

There’s a lot that goes into choosing one card over the other when the annual fees, travel credits, bonus categories, benefits, and transfer partners are different but I think a primary concern is what are you going to do with those points?

Earning more points on dining with Citi is tempting but I much prefer the Amex Membership Rewards travel partners to Citi, because I regularly use/pursue miles for ANA, Avios, Aeroplan, and Emirates. So I’d usually prefer 4X Membership Rewards to 5X ThankYou Points.

However, Citi has some pretty good airline partners too and you might be more into those partners than I am. If that’s the case, then you’ll likely treasure the chance to earn 5X for those partners. So it could make sense to put your dining spending on the Prestige over the Amex Gold Card but it will come down to how you value those transfer partners.

The point is to remember there is no reason to go chasing 5X over 4X if you don’t have use for the points earned from the higher bonus rate.

Using multiple cards to maximize rewards

If I wanted to use points with airlines like Singapore Airlines, Virgin Atlantic, and Flying Blue which are partnered up with Amex, Citi, and Chase then I might spread my spending around to all three programs. Depending on how much you spend and how you much you’re able to maximize credits, it could make sense to have many cards in your wallet that you actively use.

Here’s what your wallet could like like and what your effective annual fees would be with maxed out travel/dining credits.

Citi Prestige: 5X on dining and airfare ($245 effective annual fee)
Amex Gold: 4X on US supermarkets ($30 effective annual fee)
Sapphire Reserve: 3X on travel ($150 effective annual fee)
Chase Freedom: 5X on rotating categories (no annual fee)
Chase Ink Cash: 5X on the first $25,000 spent in combined purchases at office supply stores and on internet, cable and phone services; 2X on gas (no annual fee)
Amex Blue Business Plus: 2X on all purchases up to $50,000 per year (no annual fee)

This would be a pretty fantastic line-up of credit cards and allow you to really maximize different spending areas. While it might seem crazy to spread your spending across three programs, if you were trying to use your points with Singapore, Flying Blue, and/or Virgin Atlantic, it could make a lot of sense to have a credit card line-up like this.

If you wanted to use partners unique to Citi, you should really get a sense of the mileage requirements for those partners so that you don’t end up with stranded ThankYou points (not enough points to do anything with). This likely won’t be an issue if Citi comes with a decent sign-up bonus but for the long-term it could be an issue if you don’t spend enough and you’re trying to spread your spending around.

Will Chase respond?

With the Amex Gold Card offering 4X on US dining and US supermarkets and now the Prestige going with 5X on dining and airfare, Chase is getting beat pretty thoroughly in the dining department, where they used to be among the best for credit card spend. I’m really interested to see if Chase comes up with a card with dining-focused rewards on par with these cards or implements them into a card like the Sapphire Reserve.

Final word

These are exciting changes for many people. Unless you were someone who repeatedly used the free 4th night benefit, you will probably consider this a major positive change to the Prestige. We will see what the sign-up bonus looks like but the Prestige card just got much more attractive and should be on your radar for early next year.

H/T: TPG

Daniel

H-Town based Attorney turned credit card rewards expert. Founder of UponArriving.com.

Huge Changes Coming to the Citi Prestige in 2019