Citi Prestige and Premier Cards

Dear Annabelle,

I am enjoying learning about all these points, credit card, currency land.  I rarely (now that I am not working) have the opportunity to really try and get my mind around such a complex space.  I am still not there yet, but I am enjoying the process.

For example, when I was looking here at just the Citi ThankYou Points they didn't really seem like that good an option since they didn't have the best partners.  But now that I am starting to understand how the earning multipliers work I see the value in different card/point combinations more.

This post by Travel Codex really highlights for me why the Citi Prestige Card could be useful specifically for its 1.6 cents per point when booking on American and US Airways (1.33 on other airlines).  I knew this was a good use of the points from previous reading but this card has a $450 fee and as I have said that is not what I want.  BUT it comes with a $250 per calendar year annual airline fee credit, so if you are going to use the credit it is more like a $200 annual fee.  Plus the fact that you can use the credit every calendar year so you could come out ahead in your first year of card ownership (calendar vs. ownership year overlap).  Also this blog indicates that the 1.6 cents bookings also work on codeshares with American so that might open up the options.

This card has 2X on dining (same as the Chase Sapphire Preferred) and 3X on travel, which is 1X higher than the Chase (CSP) card.  I thought based on my reading that gas stations were included in the travel category but I am not seeing gas stations count when I am looking at the card on Citi's website.  It looks like the 3X on travel including gas stations is actually for the Premier card (I read the blog post wrong at first).  Now if you own the Prestige card you can use the Premier earned points at the Prestige level (of 1.6) but this means you would have to own both cards.

To be clear the Prestige card (the one with the 1.6 cents per point on American and US Airways and 1.3 on others) earns:

• Earn 3 ThankYou® Points per $1 spent on air travel and hotel
• Earn 2 ThankYou Points per $1 spent on entertainment
• Earn 2 ThankYou Points per $1 spent on dining out
• Earn 1 ThankYou Point Per $1 spent on other purchases

The Premier card points can be redeemed at 1.25 cents and are earned at

• 3 ThankYou Points for every dollar you spend on purchases at airlines, hotels, car rental agencies, travel agencies, gas stations, commuter transportation, taxi/limousines, passenger railways, cruise lines, bridge and road tolls, parking lots/garages, campgrounds and trailer parks, time shares, bus lines, motor home/RV Rental and boat rentals;
• 2 ThankYou Points for every dollar you spend on purchases at restaurants and on select entertainment merchants, including sports promoters, theatrical promoters, movie theaters, amusement parks, tourist attractions, record stores and video rental stores; and
• 1 ThankYou Point for every dollar you spend on other purchases.

Both cards currently have a 50K bonus with a 3K spend.  The annual fee on the Prestige is $450 (plus $50 authorized user) and $95 waived first year on the Premier (with $0 authorized user).

Definitely cards to consider once I better understand which frequent flyer points/airlines I want to use for the routes I am the most interested in.

Hugs,
Jen