Reconciling Citibank Points

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gizzard

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Have you ever tried to reconcile your Citi spending with your Citi points transactions? I just went through this process for the last few months of statements and it was a nightmare and ended up with several transactions that I couldn't match.

This worked both ways. There were some expenditure items that didn't appear to have points and some points that didn't seem to have the matching expenditure.

These are a few of the things that I found (note this is for a single card holder on the account it may get even worse if there are more than one, I'm not sure):

On the monthly Expenditure Statement there are 3 points categories:
- Points Earned
- Bonus Points Earned
- Linked Diners Card Points Earned

On (my) Points Statement there are two:
- Earned
- Bonus

Looking at the Expenditure Statement:
- it can happen that the Points Earned does not match the points that would be expected to have been earned when looking at the transactions listed. This can happen for transactions that are listed that are close to the end date of the statement. These transactions may be included in the Points Earned of the following month's statement

- generally the points earned using the Visa card can be matched easily against the Points Statement. The last 4 digits of the card number appear on the Points Statement so the value and date can be used to make a match

- however, sometimes transactions that occur on the same date or close to the same date can be grouped into a single points transaction on the Points Statement.

On the Points Statement:
- Diners Card points all appear as Bonus Points so can't be easily distinguished from other Bonus points

- as mentioned above, one point transaction can include several expenditure transactions grouped together

- there are different rounding methods used.
For Diners only the dollar amount is considered. Eg. for a transaction of $28.95 the points earned would be 2 x 28 = 56 and $28.35 would also earn 56 (2 points per dollar for Diners)
For Visa transactions the dollar amount is first rounded to the nearest dollar so $28.95 earns 29 points while $28.35 earns 28 points.

- if you are lucky enough to get bonus points then the bonuses are only applied to the full dollar amount. So a an expenditure of $28.95 on Visa would earn 29 points and a bonus of 28, for example.

- another odd thing is that Bonus points can appear on the Points Statement before the associated expenditure transaction's points appear. A couple of days later and they can both be seen.

- then there's the whole problem of how many points an expenditure transaction is expected to earn with Citi's complicated 0 / 1 / 1.5 / 2 point categories
I have included zero as my electricity and water payments seemed not to accumulate any points and yet telephone does.

I think that's about all of my findings.

As I mentioned, having determined all of the above I was still left with a few transactions that I just could not reconcile. I really don't want to go through the hassle of trying to work this out with Citi as I am sure that it would be more infuriating and time-consuming than it's worth.

I hope this is of some use to anyone that can be bothered or needs to go through a similar process.
 
Have you ever tried to reconcile your Citi spending with your Citi points transactions?
Yes I have, its diffficult and I have never found a mistake. Its not worth the effort at all to check thoroughly.

If I make a large purchase I often spot check that one, its very easy to identify those.
 
Reading your title, the first thing I thought was: "Good luck".

It's been a while since I've had a Citi card direct, but to be honest, I never bothered because it always seemed all over the shop and too much effort.
 
Gizzard thank you for your post I am very confused with hiw they count points. Did the visa amount spend ever match up with the spend on the front page of the statement.
 
Gizzard thank you for your post I am very confused with hiw they count points. Did the visa amount spend ever match up with the spend on the front page of the statement.

I hope that the post provides some pointers to help others. Yes, most months the total matched once I'd been through some of the steps that I indicated in my post. I probably have no more than 10-20 transactions each month so not too hard to reconcile.
 
I haven’t had a Citi card since their last devaluation. I recall when I held the Prestige, I’d put everything into a spreadsheet and manually categorize transactions. Each month there was some variance (no more than 500 points) from what I was expecting. Not worth following Citi up about it. I always checked they would post after a large transaction which they did. Probably very hard now with so many point, bonus and no point categories.
 
Did the visa amount spend ever match up with the spend on the front page of the statement.
It cant match up, the points earn varies depending on the transacttion type, if you want to waste your time you need to check each transaction seperately.
 
It cant match up, the points earn varies depending on the transacttion type, if you want to waste your time you need to check each transaction seperately.
I guess that depends on your spending and what you mean exactly by "can't match". Mine definitely "match" but there are only around 10 transactions on a statement and they are all of the same earn. I can total the transactions (with rounding) and the total matches that on the first page for several of the months that I checked.

I have reasons to try and identify the points earned with certain transactions which is why I have spent time trying to decipher the puzzle.
 
Sorry I don't think I made myself clear. On the front page of your statement in the your rewards points summary it says points earned this statement period and the line below is bonus points. I would have thought that the points earned this statement would be all transactions as 1:1 then the next line is bonus points on top of that. Or have I got this wrong?
 
Your theory is true but that's not necessarily the way it works.
"Points Earned this statement period" has a good chance with tallying with the rounded amounts of the transactions listed on the statement.

However, you may have some transactions listed towards the end of the statement period that aren't included but will be tallied on the following month's statements.
Sometimes you don't get points at all. I had a transaction posted last week where I can see the bonus points online just as I would have expected but the actual transaction points are not listed. Unless there's a change before the next statement then there will be a difference between the total and the tallied transactions.
 
points seem to post 2/3 days after the transaction is posted. So any transactions within 3 days fo the statement date wont be inluded in the points summary, and you miight have got some carried over from the previous month.
 
I have also randomly tried to 'balance' my points earned with my spend. More out of curiosity than anything else.
I can never get it to work. I have stopped using the card for any transactions that don't earn points and incur charges for using the card.
 
Mine never balance but usually less than 20 or so. Does anyone know whether they ever do transfer bonuses to Velocity, KF etc?
 
I can generally get mine to balance. Yes, they were part of the recent Velocity bonus campaign. I doubt if you'll ever see a KF bonus.
 
I have also randomly tried to 'balance' my points earned with my spend. More out of curiosity than anything else.
I can never get it to work

You just have to realise that the dates the points are accrued never match the dates of the transaction, and can vary by many days.

I have never found a mistake, but whenever I feel the need to check, its going to be for a large transaction, and those are just too easy to spot.

I put through 60+ transactions a month on this card, mosty small and its a total waste of time to try to and balance these up. One sensible way to check this would be to stop using the card for a week, at both ends of your 'balancing period". and just run the totals.
 
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