2 months ago I applied for the Citi ThankYou Premier card under the 50,000 bonus, during all of the hype to get the credit card, which is redeemable for about $750 in airfare on American Airlines. It earns 3x on travel including gas, 2x on dining and entertainment and 1x on all other purchases. It’s got no annual fee the first year, and the offer I had required only a $3,000 initial spend to earn the bonus, which wasn’t terrible.
Fast forward 2 months, and they now have a 60,000 point bonus for the same card out, which you can apply for here. (HT: Doctor of Credit)
Like many others are doing, I messaged Citi asking to me matched to this newer offer. Generally, if you applied within 90 days, they’ll honor the newer, higher offer, however you’ll need to complete the additional spending requirement, if there’s any change.
This is the response I got back from Citi:
Unfortunately, we are unable to complete your request. While the promotion was inadvertently made public, the offer in question was only intended for solicited pre-qualified applicants. Therefore, we are unable to match the offer on existing accounts.
If there is any way we can be of further assistance, please feel free to contact us.
There’s several things I find troubling about this:
- While the offer was “inadvertently” made public, it still is public, and anyone can apply (see link above).
- The offer was only intended for solicited, qualified applications, however nothing on the landing page states that targeting.
- Other cardholders ARE being matched, so for Citi to be matching some, but not others doesn’t seem right.
I’ve contacted Citi back with a follow-up response with my thoughts. We’ll see what they say, and ultimately, if I get matched.
If you applied under the 50,000 point offer, were you matched to the 60,000 point offer? What’s your experience?
Jamie Larounis is an avid traveler, blogger and miles/points educator. Traveling well over 100,000 miles a year and staying in hotels for over 100 nights, he leverages miles, points and other deals to fly in first class cabins, and stay in 5-star hotels. The Forward Cabin shares his experiences, musings, reviews, tips, tricks, resources and industry news with you, the fellow traveler.
I was approved for the Premier on 7/31. I called Citi on 8/28 and asked to be matched to the 60k point offer. The agent said she would forward it to the Citi marketing team and I would receive an email in about a week. Being that I’m impatient, I did an online chat yesterday in an effort to learn the status of my request. The online agent was nice, but offered no assistance and said I should call in again. So, I called yesterday. The first agent I spoke with had no record of my initial request. He said that I was matched to the 50k offer and there was nothing he could do since the offer wasn’t meant to go public. I told him that I understood, but requested to speak to a supervisor. After a few minutes, I talked to a manager. I was very nice and explained that I thought it was worth a shot to call and see if I could be matched. She explained again that is offer was never meant to go public. However, she agreed to give me the extra 10k points after spending the additional $500. I asked if I would get an email confirming this. She said she didn’t technically match me to the new offer, but that she made a note on my account to give me 10k points after the statement in which I spend the additional $500 closes, so I won’t get an email. It sounds like I won’t get the 10k automatically once I hit the initial $3,000 spend (I’m about 70% done with that). I was good with this, thanked the agent for her help, and called it a day. Since I wasn’t technically matched to the offer, I fully expect I will need to call in once I hit $3500, but I think it’s worth it.
On another note, it was pretty clear that the agents are getting tired of dealing with this request. I made sure to be extra nice and even joked with them about how many calls they must be receiving about this. I’m not sure if it helped or not, but it certainly made for a much more pleasant conversation. Good luck!
I got the Premier card 2 months ago. Secure messaged Citi on 8/28 and was matched to the 60,000 point offer without issue.
Is there a specific email or number you are going thru or just the customer service contact info?
Just the customer service contact info.
I got Premier card about 90 days ago. Called them yesterday to ask to be bumped up to 60K with an extra $500 to spend. Got the same response as the one you articulated, except the woman on the line would not budge and said that the bump up is not available, period. I then asked for the supervisor who quickly offered to meet me down the middle by giving me extra 5,000 points without any extra spend. I took that. It seems from the blogo-sphere that Citi was much more accommodating in the first day or two of the 60K offer but has tightened the response since then.
I was matched 🙂
Sounds like I’ll have better luck calling Customer Service.
Below is the reply I got to my secure message
“Unfortunately the offer to earn 60,000 bonus Thank You point was inadvertently made public and has since been corrected; requests made after the offer was removed from our website will not be eligible for enrollment. Please be advised we do not honor links to special offers that have been obtained through third party websites, blogs or forums.
If there is any way we can be of further assistance, please feel free to contact us.”
I got that same follow-up reply, too.