Help! Citibank GOLD Card - No Annual Fee Ever?

John on 09/06/2008 - 16:07

Okay, since the link was removed a week ago.. I have to create a new forum topic to raise my concern.

Well, some people confirmed there's no annual fee EVER (from what I remembered I read on the discussion). I applied for the card on 3 June 08, couple of days before the link was removed on Ozbargain.

No phone call from them to update me on the cc status.

So I phoned them today. They told me the card was approved and is on its way to my house. Then, I was curious and ask the lady on the phone whether there is an annual fee. She told me there's no annual fee for the first year.. then a $119 fee every year afterwards. What?!

I tried accessing the particular citibank offer through the link in the history pages on my IE but now it redirects me to the citibank main page. Seems to me they found out about the link and have already removed it.

How many of you who signed up last month actually got no annual fee ever? Just wondering.. because if there's a whole lot of you got through the offer.. I have to argue why shouldn't I got through.

Help? :(

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Comments

  • John on 10/06/2008 - 12:08

    Although no one is replying in this thread.. I'll still give some resolution to my own problem.

    So I called again today and was asking for the features of the card. She quickly replied with the credit limit and interest rate. But then I asked her about the fees.. now It took her so long to check it, seems like there's some sort of review happening in citibank.

    Finally, after moments of waiting, she came with the good news - No Annual Card Fee Ever. Yay! Lucky I applied right before time! :)

  • ozzie on 10/06/2008 - 12:31

    Hi John………so it sounds like there's not much chance of this "no fee for ever" likely to re-appear in the near future?

    The "publicity" surrounding the Coles/Shell docket system, and to a lesser degree Woollies petrol scheme having recently been in the spotlight, maybe Citibank think they don't need to offer such an "advantageous" card as one without any annual fee. Add to that the continual increase in the cost of fuel, thereby increasing the "cost" to BP/Citibank of the discount/cashback their card offers……..

    Or on the other hand (like an Economist would say!!) I wonder, with the credit markets starting to "bite", that competition for the "consumer's business" may intensify & see this back again ;->)

    I could kick myself…..I saw the offer & never got back to it. Too late now, and no point "crying over spilt milk". Other credit card providers (albeit Amex & Diners - with their lower acceptance rate & higher merchant fee) are offering a few of these "no fee ever" Credit Cards.

    Time will tell…..lot of "white noise" about whether HBOS (BankWest in Australia) are preparing to "sell out or buy up", and the Westpac/St George's merger…..may be a bit of "planning" going on behind the scenes in a number of Banks, as you allude to at Citibank. I have a thought somewhere in the back of my head that Citibank bought the "Virgin's" Credit Card book - which had previously been "operated" by Westpac…….

    ….we live in interesting times!!! ;->) Cheers, ozzie

    • scotty on 10/06/2008 - 12:49

      Interesting time — oh yeah. Seeing all the banking products and bank shares going rollercoaster over the last 2-3 years…

      Here's another interesting development concerning Citibank. I have just received a request from an affiliate representative from Citibank, and they have requested us to pull all credit-card related deals off OzBargain — including the popular BP-Staff family & friends offer for BP/Citibank Master card. They have also requested that no future credit card "deals" from Citibank can be posted on OzBargain.

      Since we don't really have a mechanism to block on the credit card, it probably means we'll have to block all the Citibank deals.

      (Note — while OzBargain is not Citibank's affiliate/partner site, I don't think our current size can make much impact on the way they make decisions. However if OzBargain continues to grow, commercial entities might realise how much they have "missed out" by making this kind of requests.)

      • John on 10/06/2008 - 13:01

        They certainly don't want lots of people to know about these offers. If they are making profit with new customers, they shouldn't mind the free advertising in OzBargain, which seems to work really well.

        Anyway, there's still a back door to accessing the previous Citibank deals in OzBargain though. Searching through googles and opening the cached images would lead you to it. If anyone is curious. :)

      • [Deactivated] on 11/06/2008 - 07:07

        Agree that's interesting, and not being lawyer etc. But if they publish the deal on their site, how can that stop someone 'discussing' this. now maybe you can't provide the link, but providing info on how to get to the link is different.

        Then again they have the bucks or they did prior to the subprime fiasco, so might is right.

        So that then comes back to what is a bargain, if a company uses might to enforce it's ideas against a site like this, they can use might against their customers too, not really someone i would want to continue to deal with.

        And given my brothers (and others here) dealings with Citibank's Customer service the bargain also relates to the quality of service you can obtain….

  • ozzie on 10/06/2008 - 13:43

    Interesting comments, indeed Scotty & John…….have Citibank decided they don't want the "everyday person" & just the "high rollers"?? ;->) What a crazy move to sever any associations with Ozbargain???!!!

    They are about the only "foreign" Bank allowed in during Keating's open door policy circa 1983 that have been active in the consumer banking sector…….and yet they are & can be so picky and strange. We've seen Chase, Royal Bank of Canada, Bank America et al all come, look, & leave again….and rarely touch the "consumer" market…….maybe Citibank's US acquisition of Travellers for US$B's a few years back, together with the credit hammering most US Banks are taking has been an influence?

    And yet they flit from consumer "friend to foe" over & over…..maybe they don't know where they want to position themselves in the Australian market……which way is the wind blowing today? ;->)

    ====>>> John, you mention : <Anyway, there’s still a back door to accessing the previous Citibank deals in OzBargain though. Searching through googles and opening the cached images would lead you to it. If anyone is curious. :) >……tried that & could only find the really old (2007) offers cached…..nothing of more recent times…….don't have a url or two by any chance ;->)

    Cheers, ozzie

    • John on 10/06/2008 - 13:57

      Put a 2008 on the search term. Here's the GOLD Visa one http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:sOuhSjThWVkJ:www.ozbarg…

      Although it's not much of a use now other than reading the discussions there. The link to the offer has been pulled so clicking on the promotion link now will only lead you to the main citibank page.

      Scotty, is this still considered as "promoting Citibank Credit Card" deals in OzBargain? :S

      • scotty on 10/06/2008 - 14:28

        Well. Not really. What has been cached is on Google's server so nothing to do with us :)

        For those who are interested in those deals can contact me as the deals are only unpublished but not removed.

        • ozzie on 10/06/2008 - 15:48

          Hi Scotty……this is going to sound like a really dumb question…..but you indicate above :

          "For those who are interested in those deals can contact me as the deals are only unpublished but not removed"

          …….how do I contact you? Is there a PM function on the Board? If so where is it & how do I get to it to send you a "Private Message" for those details? :->)

          Cheers, ozzie

          • scotty on 10/06/2008 - 17:38

            @ozzie: PM function — coming "soon".

            However you can use the Contact link at the bottom of this page to contact me, and it goes straight to my email box.

            Edit: Actually, don't bother. I just checked again and all the links we have are dead. Might need to keep an eye on the AFF forum :)

    • tstsang on 13/06/2008 - 21:12

      Well I think CB are targetting the high rollers or high flyers.

      There is a thread in an popular Australian high flyers website (which I am a member of, under a different name) which has a Citibank no fee for life deal thread that is so long it has about 500 replies so far, and is on since September 2006. Yet this thread has gone on for years without being requested to be pulled out by CB, and is still going on now …. Probably the reason is that a lot of the members of that website are high flyers and high spenders ….. They normally spend more than 100K per year (reported by all those members of website) on those cards and fly everywhere regularly, and probably that is the type of people which CB wants to get.

      It is these people that CB makes money and can afford to offer fee free for life offers, and CB wants to keep it that way.

      • scotty on 13/06/2008 - 23:24

        Yeah I know what that forum is as I think I've got a few tips there. Most of the no annual fee ever links are from 2006 and Citibank is indeed cracking down on those links (they don't do it all together as they somehow have issues collecting all the promo URLs they've got :)

        If they are targeting just the high flyer — then they should have said so, instead of telling us that the info provided is not correct and then pull the page!

  • POWERevolution on 09/12/2008 - 22:08

    Damn…miss out on this & now I want one…no fee for life!

  • [Deactivated] on 10/12/2008 - 08:20

    no fee - well not sure about for life, but its still no fee

    http://www.wizard.com.au/creditcards/task.aspx?id=580

  • coolsteps on 02/03/2009 - 12:13

    tstsang what is the website or name of the thread in an popular Australian high flyers website ?

  • the crocodile on 23/03/2009 - 20:31

    I think its probably because citibank got badly burnt due to the N95 credit card points rebate deal!!!

    • scotty on 24/03/2009 - 10:36

      Or Citigroup's share price has tanked so much over the past years that they simply cannot afford those fee-free credit card anymore?

      /me is kicking himself not buying any when it dropped below $1 a few weeks ago.

      • the crocodile on 25/03/2009 - 11:52

        Yep, there have been alot of self kicking myself too… its price is now well over $3.

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