Six Reasons Why You Should Not Get the Citi Prestige

The Citi Prestige is a premium credit card that can earn you a plethora of Citi Thank You (TY) points. However, it is far from perfect and is not for everybody. This post presents six reasons why you should not get the Citi Prestige.

Nonetheless, the Citi Prestige is a great card for certain travelers. Its earning structure is excellent for conventional and common travel expenses. And its partners are great for international travelers. On top of that, the Prestige has a nice sign-up bonus, especially for those who have never had a Citi TY point-earning card before.

Update: As of 2022, Citi has discontinued the Citi Prestige Card…

High Annual Fee

The Citi Prestige is a premium credit card and its annual fee shows. It has a $495 annual fee (NOT waived the first year). That’s a lot even though it is slightly lower than the fees of the Chase Sapphire Reserve and American Express Platinum Card.

Many people argue that this card’s “net annual fee” is $245 after taking the annual $250 General Travel Credit. But $245 is still a lot of money for an annual fee, especially with what you are (not) getting in terms of benefits.

There Are Better Sign-Up Bonuses Elsewhere

Citi has copied Chase with their mid-tier and premium card sign-up bonuses. That means the Citi Prestige has the same bonus as the Chase Sapphire Reserve. They both earn 50,000 points for $4,000 in minimum spend. However, the Citi Prestige earns TY points as opposed to Chase Ultimate Rewards points. Both currencies are different because they are associated with different transfer partners.

Furthermore, the American Express Platinum Card beats both the Reserve and the Citi Prestige with its public sign-up bonus. The Platinum Card comes with a public bonus worth 60,000 Membership Rewards (MR) points after spending $5,000 within the first three months. American Express is known for having high minimum spend amounts. But the Platinum Card offers more points, especially if you get an even higher targeted offer.

Plus, the Citi Premier has a higher bonus than the Prestige if you want to earn TY points. You can earn 60,000 TY points after spending $4,000 within the first three months with the Premier. That’s 10,000 more points for the same minimum spend.

Bonus Categories Are Too Specific

One of the Citi Prestige’s strengths are its excellent earning opportunities. However, you must earn within its specific bonus categories to get the points. The Prestige earns 5x TY points on Dining and Airfare, 3x points on Cruises and Hotels, and just one point per dollar for non-bonus spend.

These categories are great for those who have lots of conventional travel expenses. However, there are a lot of people who use alternate means of travel. And these people would be missing out on bonus points if they used a Citi Prestige. Furthermore, there are others who often use ground and/or public transportation. They use ride sharing services, taxis, subways, trains, buses, and toll roads.

You Fly Domestically or Stay in Hotels

All of Citi’s transfer partners are international airlines, except for Jet Blue. However, Jet Blue is a transfer partner of Chase, Citi, Amex, and Capital One, meaning that you can transfer any type of transferrable points to them.

Unfortunately, Citi does not have any hotel partners or other domestic airline partners. This is a shame because the only way to use TY points and earn more than one cent per point is transferring to an international airline.

Some travelers would rather use their points at hotels or travel across the United States. These travelers would be better of with either Chase UR points or American Express MR points.

No Travel Insurances

Once upon a time, the Citi Prestige was one of the best cards in the industry for travel insurances. It competed with the Chase Sapphire cards and the Amex Platinum. But in 2019, Citi devalued its entire card lineup by dropping several benefits. The Citi Prestige was one of the biggest casualties of this devaluation as it lost all travel insurances.

This was a terrible move by Citi because of the Prestige card’s target market: international travelers. Citi’s transfer partners are mostly international airlines. And most people who travel internationally by plane want the peace of mind of travel insurances in case something goes wrong. Premium (and mid-tier!) cards from Chase and American Express offer Trip Delay, Trip Cancellation, Trip Interruption, and Baggage Delay Insurances. While the policies are different between cards, at least they are present.

Very Few Unique Perks

Perks are the one area where every other premium card issuer is running laps around Citi. Since it was devalued in 2019, the Citi Prestige became forgotten about by many in the way of perks. And that is no coincidence because there are so many premium card options available with more perks.

The Citi Prestige’s only remaining significant perk is the Fourth Night Free. This perk used to not have a usage limit before the 2019 devaluation. Since then, you can only use this perk twice per calendar year. Plus, the perk is limited to direct hotel bookings. And oftentimes, booking directly with a hotel is more expensive than booking online through a travel portal, bank portal, or third-party website.

Citi has replaced the Prestige’s perks with more generic World Elite MasterCard perks to save money. The main perk is Cell Phone Insurance, which is nice. But its not as valuable as travel insurances. Furthermore, the Prestige comes with a Global Entry / Pre-TSA fee waiver credit as well as Priority Pass lounge access. But so do most other premium credit cards. Therefore, these perks are far from unique and exciting for a lot of travelers, especially those with a premium credit card.

Final Draw

In September 2019, I wrote a post about why I think Citi should permanently discontinue the Prestige Card. This post was a response to the infamous devaluation that Citi’s entire lineup of cards suffered from that month. Many of the sentiments in September’s post echo back in this one. However, September’s post comes from a business standpoint while this one comes from a consumer’s standpoint.

Nonetheless, I continue to feel the same way about the Citi Prestige. It is still not a great card compared to its competitors. And Citi has not done anything to enhance it six months after the 2019 devaluation.