Pros
- High rewards rate
- 50,000 points initial rewards bonus
- No foreign fee
Cons
- High membership fees
- No intro APR on purchases
- No intro APR on balance transfers
- Requires excellent credit
The Verdict: You can’t spell “Prestige” without the letters in “trip.” And you might be able to take a few of those for free, thanks to the Citi Prestige® Card. That is, of course, if you can handle one to the bank to fetch some cash for the card’s steep annual fee. Indeed, this travel rewards card costs a whopping $495 per year – a fact that alone limits its use to wealthy frequent travelers who charge a significant amount to plastic.
If you fit that description, then it’s at least worth considering what Prestige actually has to offer. This includes an initial bonus worth up to $500 in airfare, $250 each year toward airline expenses, and solid spending-based rewards.
One thing that Prestige does not provide, however, is an advantageous financing environment. It doesn’t offer 0% introductory interest rates, and its regular APR is above-average for an excellent-credit credit card. You can therefore add “always pays bill in full” to the list of attributes you must have for a Citi Prestige® Card to be a worthy addition to your wallet.
That being said, we ultimately don’t recommend this card due to its prohibitive fixed cost. While you could easily squeeze $495 in annual value out of it, the fact that you’ll be starting from such a considerable deficit makes it unnecessarily difficult to maximize your returns.
Citi Prestige® Card
- Earn 50,000 bonus points (worth $500 in travel) after spending $4,000 within 3 months of account opening.
- Earn 5 Points for each $1 spent on purchases at airlines, travel agencies and at restaurants (including cafes, bars, lounges and fast food restaurants).
- Earn 3 Points for each $1 spent on purchases at hotels & cruise lines. Earn 1 point for each $1 spent on other purchases. Points have no limit and they don't expire.
- Points are redeemable from travel to statement credits, cash and gift cards from popular retailers or to make a donation to charity.
- Up to $250 travel credit every calendar year. Now, through December 2021, supermarket and restaurant purchases will also count towards the $250 Travel Credit.
- Up to $100 every 5 years, as a reimbursement of your application fee for Global Entry or TSA Pre✓®. Terms apply.
- Complimentary 4th Night at a hotel of your choice after a minimum 4 consecutive night booking through ThankYou.com. This benefit is capped at 2 times, each year. Terms apply.
- Easy points transfer to certain airline loyalty programs, include TrueBlue®, Virgin Atlantic Flying Club and Singapore Airlines Krisflyer.
Rewards Details
- Earn 50,000 bonus points (worth $500 in travel) after spending $4,000 within 3 months of account opening.
- Earn 5 Points for each $1 spent on purchases at airlines, travel agencies and at restaurants (including cafes, bars, lounges and fast food restaurants).
- Earn 3 Points for each $1 spent on purchases at hotels & cruise lines. Earn 1 point for each $1 spent on other purchases. Points have no limit and they don't expire.
- Points are redeemable from travel to statement credits, cash and gift cards from popular retailers or to make a donation to charity.
- Up to $250 travel credit every calendar year. Now, through December 2021, supermarket and restaurant purchases will also count towards the $250 Travel Credit.
- Up to $100 every 5 years, as a reimbursement of your application fee for Global Entry or TSA Pre✓®. Terms apply.
- Complimentary 4th Night at a hotel of your choice after a minimum 4 consecutive night booking through ThankYou.com. This benefit is capped at 2 times, each year. Terms apply.
- Easy points transfer to certain airline loyalty programs, include TrueBlue®, Virgin Atlantic Flying Club and Singapore Airlines Krisflyer.
Additional Info
- Enjoy complimentary access to 1300+ VIP lounges through Priority Pass™ Select.
- Citi® Identity Theft Solutions & Fraud Early Warning.
- Digital Wallets let you shop with confidence in millions of places online, within apps and in stores.
- $75 annual fee for each authorized user.
- More Details & Reviews About Citi Prestige® Card
The Highlights
- $250 Annual Air Travel Credit: Each year, you will automatically get a statement credit for $250 in airline charges – including air fare, baggage fees, upgrades and “some in-flight purchases,” according to Citi’s website – within two billing periods of such charges posting to your account.
- Free 4th Night For Hotel Stays: As a Citi Prestige cardholder, you will have the ability to obtain a free night for any hotel stay of at least four consecutive nights paid for with your card. This can obviously prove to be a good deal, but there are a few important caveats to note before you get too excited. For starters, only reservations booked through thankyou.com or by phone qualify for this benefit. Citi’s Prestige Concierge could help connect you in the past, but it was not an easy process and is no longer available for the Fourth Night benefit since September 2019.What’s more, there’s no guarantee that you’ll be quoted rates as low as you might find on third-party travel-comparison websites such as Kayak.com, and you cannot use points to book your stay. However, you are guaranteed a price that is equal to or lower than what is quoted on the hotel’s website.
- Up to 5 Points Per $1 Spent: With all of the big-ticket benefits that Prestige provides, it would be easy to overlook its ongoing rewards. After all, what’s 5 points per $1 spent on airfare and restaurants, or 3 points per $1 spent on hotels and cruise lines, compared to a pile of 50,000 points? Well, when you look at it that way, not much – especially since an actual airline or hotel chain has to be the billing party. Flights and nights booked through third-party booking websites such as Kayak.com do not qualify. They will instead accrue rewards at the card’s base earning rate of 1 point per $1 spent, just like all other purchases.However, unlike the card’s initial bonus, these rewards offer more than a three-month steal. Over the course of a year, the average person would earn roughly $390 in airfare, or gift cards just from this per-dollar rewards structure. That’s based on $32,010 in annual spending and the fact that points are worth 1 cent with each of those redemption methods.
The Lowlights
- $495 Annual Fee: The most glaring downside to this flashy travel rewards vehicle is undoubtedly its stratospheric annual fee. After all, the $495 that you have to shell out to Citi each year is nearly enough to buy two roundtrip airline tickets from New York to Los Angeles. Better still, you could use it to buy roughly six shares of Citigroup stock – based on its Jan 10th closing price of $79.25 – and perhaps actually see your money grow over time.
- No 0% Introductory Rates: In case a hefty annual price tag and a plethora of rewards didn’t already clue you in, it’s important to note that this offer was not designed with financing in mind. Another clear indication of that is the card’s lack of a low introductory interest rate for either new purchases or balance transfers. Balance transfers are an especially bad deal, considering that you’ll also have to pay a fee equal to 3% of any amount transferred.
- Above-Average Regular APR: A 16.99% - 23.99% (V) regular APR certainly isn’t the highest on the market, but it is above the 18.04% average for credit cards for people with excellent credit. This merely underscores the importance of always paying your bill in full if you decide to apply for Prestige and ultimately get approved.
Other Things To Consider
- No Foreign Transaction Fee: It would be rather unfortunate for a serious travel rewards credit card to charge a foreign transaction fee in this day and age, so it’s good that Prestige does not. Using it or any other no foreign transaction fee credit card on the Visa or Mastercard network as your main spending vehicle while traveling abroad will allow you to save up to 9% on currency conversion.
- $75 Annual Fee For Authorized Users: This is a pittance compared to the primary annual fee, but when you’re already spending $495 each year on a credit card, wouldn’t you expect something like this to be free? Most of the big-ticket benefits are exclusive to the primary cardholder, after all.
- Rewards Don’t Expire: Unlike most Citi ThankYou Points, which expire after three years, the only time the points earned with the Prestige Card can expire is if Citi shuts down the whole ThankYou Rewards program. Even then, you would have 90 days to redeem any points that you’d accumulated.
- Point-Transferring Capabilities: The Citi ThankYou Rewards program boasts nine travel partners to whom you can transfer points earned with the Prestige Card for free, typically at a 1:1 ratio. This could enable you to pool earnings from multiple rewards programs in order to book your travel of choice. You just need a minimum of 1,000 points and to make sure that you avoid transferring points to a program where they’ll be worth less than if you’d redeemed them through Citi. That is, of course, if you can find a travel partner that fits your travel plans. None of Citi’s partner airlines is domestically based.
Compared To The Competition
WINNER | |||
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annual fee$495 | annual fee$0 | annual fee$95 | annual fee$95 |
rewards rate
| rewards rate
| rewards rate
| rewards rate
|
bonus offer 50,000 points | bonus offer 25,000 online bonus points after you make at least $1,000 in purchases in the first 90 days of account opening - that can be a $250 statement credit toward travel purchases. | bonus offer Enjoy a one-time bonus of 75,000 miles once you spend $4,000 on purchases within 3 months from account opening, equal to $750 in travel | bonus offer Earn 60,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening. That's $750 when you redeem through Chase Travel℠. |
Purchase Intro APRN/A | Purchase Intro APR0% for 15 billing cycles | Purchase Intro APRN/A | Purchase Intro APRN/A |
transfer intro aprN/A | transfer intro apr0% for 15 billing cycles for any balance transfers made in the first 60 days Transfer Fee: 3% for 60 days from account opening, then 4% | transfer intro aprN/A | transfer intro aprN/A |
Regular APR16.99% - 23.99% (V) | Regular APR18.24% - 28.24% Variable | Regular APR19.99% - 29.99% (V) | Regular APR21.49% - 28.49% (V) |
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