Citibank is giving 75,000 reward points after $6,000 spend and a $199 annual fee (first year).
After the first year the annual fee reverts to a standard $395/year.
Complimentary Priority Pass Membership with two airport lounge visits per year
Complimentary international travel insurances including Transit Accident Insurance and Interstate Flight Inconvenience Insurance.
Well, a $250 Mastercard Gift Card costs 46,000 points. Smaller denominations are available.
They can be converted to velocity, singapore or emirates miles.
75000 reward points converts to 30000 Velocity (VFF) points. $1 spend earns 0.6 VFF points
Considering 30,000 velocity is worth 1c per mile this deal is worth about $100 profit.
Velocity points is far superior than Qantas points.
comparing 30,000 velocity points to $100 is not a fair comparison. It depends what you use the points for.
I flew from Austin Tx to Sydney via LA for 55,000 Velocity points one way (May last year virgin had a 15% off points to book else it would have been 63000 something points). They were worth $1200 for the one way ticket. The beauty of velocity points, you can buy the taxes using points which is far cheaper than cash. That's were Qantas kills the deal. Qantas points are only good to upgrade. I will swap my Qantas 285k points any day for velocity points.
@igreen:
Buying the taxes with points is a waste. Equivalent to converting them to gift cards. And I agree VFF over QF anyday.
Dont citi transfer 2:1 to velocity and krisflyer now?
The $199 for the first year only. $395 per year there after.
Sign up. Get the points. Cancel. Wait 12 months to qualify for next years sign up bonus and repeat.
Watch out for the hits to your credit rating…
If you do it every 2 years its not a problem.
Issue is when you do it across multiple cards from different banks
Complimentary Priority Pass Membership with two airport lounge visits per year
Complimentary international travel insurances including Transit Accident Insurance and Interstate Flight Inconvenience Insurance.
Cruddy Points coversion though. Citirewards points 10,000 = 4,000 Emirates Skywards
"Complimentary Priority Pass Membership" - when I get these passes ? After $6000 or after approval ?
after approval
The spend is only for the 75,000 Citirewards. You will need to enrol for the PP membership after you get your credit card. And about 6 weeks after your enrolment you will receive the Priority Pass card. The card will allow 2 lounge entries, and any further lounge entries will cost $US27. You can also 'guest' someone in on your pass, and pay $US27 per entry for a guest.
Wow $6000 spend just to get those points. No thanks!
75000 reward points converts to 30000 Velocity (VFF) points. $1 spend earns 0.6 VFF points
Better just to get the AMEX Velocity card
Or get both for even more miles.
There are still better cards out there with the high spend cost. NAB is another one from memory.
Getting both would severely affect your credit score. not sure that would be wise
@nightelves:
There is this, NAB, Amex, and ANZ for velocity miles right now. I'm still looking for more before I fire off all the credit card applications tonight. Should get a total of 80k+60k+37.5k+30k *2 (wife) for a total of 415k velocity.
I pay off my credit cards. My credit score hasn't been negatively hit with mass credit card openings before.
will be interesting to see whether any major credit approval red flags are raised with that many concurrent credit applications
Niceee the elusive one is the Amex Platinum Charge card. That's the one you wanna get. That has 100k Amex reward which is very valuable.
If you do them all at the same time they all get the same report. By next year your credit score is back to normal if you haven't racked up any debts.
It's actually 120k points with referrals plus I think one of the forum member who's an expert with cc broke down all the benefits for this card. It's actually quite good.
I know, i have the card ;)
It definitely has a lot of benefits. I was talking more from a fee to bonus perspective, plenty of better cards out there
Whilst a spend of 6k to get 75k points is good, the $199 fee reduces the deal significantly.
The Signature Card for free lifetime is a better deal and just accumulate points with daily spend.
I have the Signature Card free for lifetme and I am planning to cancel it since I have never utilise the free bottle of wine while dinning. They are very strict with minimum credit limit of $15,000 so you are blocked from getting another card. furthermore, Citibank have dropped the points conversion.
Currently I have the ANZ black (15k min credit limit) and the Citibank (15k). I want to apply for the Amex to get 80k points once my 12months wait is over and apply for the NAB card (if the deal is still there in June since I want the lounge access that I get using the ANZ black) and close the ANZ and Citibank.
I would say keep the Signature card for the priority pass each year.
I was in the same situation but refinancing home loan to borrow a bit more.
I actually called up Citi and they reduced my limit down to 6k.
Worth a call to see what they can do for you.
https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/236581 may be a better deal. I'm going to sign up for both at the same time.
"After the first year the annual fee reverts to a standard $395/year." Citibank have lost the plot !!
They already lost the plot when they started giving out fee free for life with their Signature card. Still can't believe I missed that!
I got this card back when it was fee free for life.
the fee kills this deal for me once you include the conversion rate to kris flyer/velocity
Recently Citibank reduced their conversion for airline points - there were many rounds of free offers (without airline points). Not sure if this is a good offer
would anyone know if the 'cheque to self' feature is still available?
and if yes does this one qualify?
tqvm in advanced
One other thing to consider is that Citibank cards and Citibank backed cards no longer give points for Bpay payments. I pay all of my bills with the C/C so that will put a big dent in my earning potential now. I think if I hadn't jumped on when it was free I would definitely bin the card.
http://www.ausbt.com.au/citibank-cuts-credit-card-frequent-f…
Citibank are also crap for 'Charge backs'/disputes. I had one sitting on their books for over 2 years.
When I tried to close the card that they said, "oh you have a dispute running and so we can't close your card whilst there is a dispute running".
I cut my losses, closed the dispute and closed the card.
What can I use 75,000 reward points for? I plan on spending $6k soon.