Citibank Enhancements

[DaveB]

Citibank sure have been busy with the enhancements.
The $700 Select annual fee has increased in redemption points from 116,700 points in 2012 to now 280,000, more than making up for the previous discrepancy with cash payments.
Citibank Travel Program now provides $75 for every 10,000 points equivalent to 133,333 points per $1,000. Approximately 18 months ago, the rate was 100,000 points per $1,000 and last September, 116,000 points per $1,000.

 

[asterix]

Are you sure it is $75 worth for 10,000 points. When I contacted Citibank Travel last week, they told me $68 worth for 10,000 points.

 

[kyle]

And I thought it's my mind playing tricks with the devaluation. I remember it started with $0.01 = 1 point.

The thing is, after I got issued with a new Citibank credit card when it got compromised, I couldn't even use Citibank Travel. An error comes up saying there's an error retrieving the points balance. So now I just transfer my points to Velocity which seems to give a greater value when redeeming J fares.

 

[DaveB]

Are you sure it is $75 worth for 10,000 points. When I contacted Citibank Travel last week, they told me $68 worth for 10,000 points.

Can't confirm, just advice from one of their international operators using it for planning points allocation.
I did a couple of dummy online bookings - J SYD - ADL rtn which required 210,820 points for VA ($1,298) and 229,350 for QF ($1,400). These seem to show a rate just over $61 per 10,000 points.
Given an ASA is 162,400 points for VA and 181,400 for QF (old system booked MASA's at 80,189 points), I see little value using Citi down the track given you can't control the airfares being charged which from past experience was always at least 10% above the airline's online rate.