CitiBank Credit Card Promo - Oct 2021 Issue of LVA

Decided to sign-up for CitiBank card to earn the 80,000 points reward and return back to Vegas.  Spent over $4,000 within 3 months as outlined to earn the promotion points.  Customer Service said the $95 annual membership fee is not considered a purchase so their website said I purchased $4,055 but their customer service system said we purchased $3,960.  So an appeal was made over the $45 variance and they sent a letter stating they have denied the award.  Boo-hiss on CitiBank N.A.

They have lost me as a customer and will tell every person I meet for the remainder of my life to never signup for a CitiBank credit card.  So over $45 (basically a pizza and a beer) they should lose approximately $1M as I plan to live to be 100 years old and have my tombstone read at the bottom 'And though I rest in a box that's cold and hard, it's still better than signing up for a CitiBank card'.

-Paperman

Man, talk about "penny wise, pound foolish." I'm sorry to hear that, Paperman.

Mike

As far as I know, all credit card companies have similar policies. So you better scratch Amex, Capital One, Chase, FNB, and Barclays off your list too.

And there are multiple things that can trip you up, such as buying gift cards to hit your spending minimum. So anyone who wants to go for credit card sign-up bonuses needs to do one of three things:

1) Spend hundreds of dollars over the minimum spend, or

2) Actually read the terms and conditions, or

3) Regularly read websites/Facebook groups devoted to the subject of points/miles and travel hacking. There are lots of them, and on the FB groups, you can ask questions.

Sorry, but education is expensive.

Well, yeah, CitiBank adhered to the letter of the agreement, but man, talk about utterly shitty customer service. They didn't even give him the opportunity, apparently, to spend another goddamn $45 and get the perks he had been promised.

I'm hearing more and more about the credit card companies drastically tightening the screws on these signup-and-spend offers. It probably has the same cause as the current Great Casino Screwfest--people have lotsa money to spend and the freedom to frolic, so they're saying, we don't need no steenkin' giveaways.

Maybe bargains, on pretty much anything and everything, are gone for good.

 I learned a long time ago that with these offers if the qualifying threshold is, say $2000.00, I always spend/charge more than the minimum just to avoid this type of event happening. Seems that everytime such type offers are made, that the ones making the offer will do anything to avoid honoring the offer. 

Citibank did not do anything to avoid honoring the offer.  The applicant expected to receive the reward with out completeing the terms he agreed to.

I dunno.  Were the things that didn't count for the $4000 spelled out, clearly, not in such fine print nobody could read them?  I'd probably have not thought of the fee...that it would 'count' in the total spent  THE FIRST THREE MONTHS, which could mislead a person to overlook it as an exception to the mandatory total to receive the award.  Isn't there somebody higher in the food chain than 'customer service' to appeal to? 

Bummer.  So sorry.

Do consider that you have provided valuable hard lessons to learn to lots of LVA folks by posting this.

Candy

I've lived approximately thirty years without credit cards. My personal last straw was a horrible customer service experience with Capital One, may they perish in flames.

I remember selling a used car for $850 (it was a very used car) and the guy who came to get it had...$845 cash on him. I laughed, spat on hm, and told him to go to a nearby truck stop and turn tricks to get the additional $5. No, actually, I accepted his $845. But that's what I would have done if I had been a credit card company.

I don't even know what fees and interest rates are now, but I remember that not too long ago, the average interest rate charged on credit card balances was 18%, at a time when savings accounts were paying 0.9%. That difference is called the "spread" and ensures that America's big big big banks are always very very very happy.

Appreciate almost everyone's supportive thoughts on this (sorry Doufous). 

I wanted to share my experience to help others.  It was the principal and the opportunity for CitiBank to work with their customers over a matter of contradiction between their website and their customer service system.  In the end, we as customers win and they have lost.  They got their annual fee from me but that is all. This story is exploding with support on social media and people are clearly seeing the points intended for this, (sorry Doufous).  

Don't get mad, get even. There are lots of reward credit cards out there.

My wife and I have 27 active credit cards, all with zero balances, and we probably got eight of those in the last year. Last year we went to Spain, in December it was four nights at the Atlantis in the Bahamas, and this year it will be Ireland, Greece, and Turkey. Because we have lots of points and miles, about 1,700,000 presently even after "paying" for all of the above, overseas flights and hotels are hardly a financial consideration anymore.

And it's a fun hobby if you like that sort of thing. And you'll make plenty more mistakes along the way, too, just like me.

A good starting point is the following book which you can buy on Amazon, or you can get it free by (temporarily?) joining his Facebook group: https://milestalk.com/milestalk-the-book-live-your-wildest-travel-dreams-using-miles-and-points/