Citibank Plus - No Fee No Overseas Transaction Fee Account

[jingles]

An update for those interested.
On Friday I came home to find a Visa debit card in my letterbox.

I just got off the phone with Citibank to activate it however needed to be transferred through to a person.

I was told that they would need to send me another Visa debit card as the one they had sent out could not be activated as I had already activated the Citi Debit card which came the day before.

Both the letter for Citi Debit and Visa Debit said that the card can be used at over 820,000 ATMs worldwide so I guess that having Visa Debit doesn't really add to the ATMs you can use.

 

[hummel]

Does anyone find it strange that Citibank have given me a new Platinum credit card with a generous limit, no ID checks etc Yet want me to goto the post office for verfying of the I.D for the citibank plus account? I went to the post office on Friday with the correct forms, and the worker could not make sense of the forms as nothing came up in their systems.

Thoughts?

 

[Chicken]

Does anyone find it strange that Citibank have given me a new Platinum credit card with a generous limit, no ID checks etc Yet want me to goto the post office for verfying of the I.D for the citibank plus account?

Happened to me as well when I applied for this transaction account with Citi. Had a credit card with them for years.

But then again, my sister had an American Express for years, then I wanted to give her a supplementary card, and American Express still wanted her to do an ID check. At least Australia Post has a contract to do ID check for Citi. American Express does not, so it's a lot more difficult to get it done.

I went to the post office on Friday with the correct forms, and the worker could not make sense of the forms as nothing came up in their systems.

Go to another post office. I had my ID check for Citi done at a post office.

 

[jingles]

If you held your credit card before 2009 then when you applied the law around ID verification was different from what it is now.

Some brief information is here Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Counter Terrorism Financing (CTF) - BT
And detailed information Identity verification | ALRC

After you applied for the Plus account did you give them information to electronically identify you?

The verification email for the Plus account says that if you do not hear back from them within 48 hours to go into the Post office to verify your ID however about 4 days after applying without me going into the Post office I received a welcome email from them and my account was set up.

Surprisingly I did not need to make a new online account with Citibank to add the Plus account, it was automatically added for me. (I actually noticed the Plus account in my online sign-in the night before I received the welcome email)

 

[kpc]

I just received an offer to open a Citibank Plus account, and if I deposit $3000 for 2 consecutive months, I will receive 10000 reward points. Sounds like a no brainer for me; and it will be a good backup for the 28 degrees Master card. It is a targetted offer which I need to take up by 31st July.

 

[greenfrog86]

I just received an offer to open a Citibank Plus account, and if I deposit $3000 for 2 consecutive months, I will receive 10000 reward points. Sounds like a no brainer for me; and it will be a good backup for the 28 degrees Master card. It is a targetted offer which I need to take up by 31st July.

They seem to be doing a cross-promotion with their TV Credit Card advertising at the moment too...

 

[pauly7]

Rate has been really good in Europe for me so far. Very competitive...

Only annoying thing is the lack of a chip on the Citigold Visa Debit which has meant I couldn't use it in some places.

 

[Stephen65]

Rate has been really good in Europe for me so far. Very competitive...

Only annoying thing is the lack of a chip on the Citigold Visa Debit which has meant I couldn't use it in some places.

I used mine throughout a recent trip to Germany and Switzerland. The rate was very good and I was able to quite easily find ATMs that charged no ATM-owner fee for cash withdrawals. The lack of a chip was not an issue for any transactions.

Incidentally I did not encounter the dreaded attempted forced DCC at any point. A few times the machine gave me the option of either paying in local currency or AUD but of course I always selected local. A few places also had a little blurb up advertising the supposed benefits of paying in your own currency and indicating the option was available.

 

[pauly7]

I used mine throughout a recent trip to Germany and Switzerland. The rate was very good and I was able to quite easily find ATMs that charged no ATM-owner fee for cash withdrawals. The lack of a chip was not an issue for any transactions

Clearly you aren't doing as much eating out, shopping and training Or conversely I'm doing way too much hahah.

 

[greenfrog86]

Pauly7 - I think Germany is one place where you can eat your heart out, but almost always have to pay cash! I had to plan for this as my favorite thing to do is eat when on holiday....

I had a few times where my 28 degrees gave me a DCC option but I always declined. In restaurants (this obviously wasn't in Germany) I found sometimes they had already agreed to DCC prior to them coming back to the table or before they showed you the terminal...

 

[Stephen65]

Pauly7 - I think Germany is one place where you can eat your heart out, but almost always have to pay cash! I had to plan for this as my favorite thing to do is eat when on holiday....

This is certainly the case in Germany. I was forewarned of this so I kept a ready supply of cash euros on hand and ended up doing comparatively fewer CC transactions than in Australia. I paid for a couple of meals by CC but mostly I used the card for cash withdrawals, accommodation and petrol. I don't recall any transaction being declined because of the lack of a chip though.

 

[Holly]

I just did a "test run" on my new Citi-Plus no fee card against the NAB Gold (to be charged foreign exchange fees from August this year) in Singapore a couple of days ago

Withdrawn the same Singapore $100 dollars with both cards, at the same ATM one straight after another:

NAB Gold charged me AUD$79.25 - exchange rate of 1.2618

Citi Plus charged me AUD $78.62 - better exchange rate of 1.2719

So Citi Plus is actually a better alternative to the NAB Gold - note that either of these rates were still better than the Money Changers in the Singapore street which offered an AUD-SGD exchange rate of only 1.25

I signed up for the Citbank Plus card for my US trip next week due to its "Fee free international ATM access" feature, but I was just informed by the customer service rep that there's a 2.5% forex rate. Is that consistent with other member's observations in recent times? I'm also guessing that in the US, the individual ATM owners likely charge an ATM fee anyway. So in total, a US ATM fee plus Citibank's forex exchange fee.

Has anyone done a comparison recently with 28 degrees CC?

 

[leemin]

I was just informed by the customer service rep that there's a 2.5% forex rate

I've just got the card myself - in the mail today actually. My understanding was that Citibank charged no fees whatsoever (i.e. no forex charge), but that the local ATM operator might charge a fixed fee if it's not a Citibank ATM. And that's it.

I read the T&Cs pretty closely when I applied a couple of weeks ago. I sure hope the CS rep you spoke to got their wires crossed!

 

[Chicken]

I was just informed by the customer service rep that there's a 2.5% forex rate.

Read Schedule of Fees and Charges?

No Citibank Fees are charged for Citibank Plus Transaction Accounts (including no
Dishonour Fees, no Bank Cheque fees, no Telegraphic Transfer fees and no International Transaction Fees).

International Transaction Fee 2.50%

Has anyone done a comparison recently with 28 degrees CC?

Start reading from here

 

[wxxnxs]

I signed up for the Citbank Plus card for my US trip next week due to its "Fee free international ATM access" feature, but I was just informed by the customer service rep that there's a 2.5% forex rate. Is that consistent with other member's observations in recent times? I'm also guessing that in the US, the individual ATM owners likely charge an ATM fee anyway. So in total, a US ATM fee plus Citibank's forex exchange fee.

Has anyone done a comparison recently with 28 degrees CC?

Citi customer service rep was wrong, I think they have very poor knowledge about their products. There is no FOREX fee, and if you use Citi US ATM, there is no ATM owner fee either.

 

[Stephen65]

...I think they have very poor knowledge about their products...

I know they have generally have a very poor knowledge of their products. Occasionally you will get a good agent but most of the time they are clueless and make assertions with great confidence that are just plain wrong. I guess that's what happens when you tender your support out and pick the lowest tender.

 

[wxxnxs]

I know they have generally have a very poor knowledge of their products. Occasionally you will get a good agent but most of the time they are clueless and make assertions with great confidence that are just plain wrong. I guess that's what happens when you tender your support out and pick the lowest tender.

But their US base is very good, actually you can see some good comments on facebook. You hardly can see any good comments in AUS facebook, I still can not figure out how come they have good products in the market combine with the worst customer service, maybe labour here is way more expensive than most countries in the world.

 

[ric_melb]

The problem is that most of their processing and call centre people are overseas due to regional processing. Whilst Australian staff costs maybe more that other regional countries, by the time each query is handled multiple times overseas, they may well find its cheaper to use Australian staff.
When Citibank are good, they are very good, but when bad..........

 

[Aussie_flyer]

Read Schedule of Fees and Charges?

No Citibank Fees are charged for Citibank Plus Transaction Accounts (including no
Dishonour Fees, no Bank Cheque fees, no Telegraphic Transfer fees and no International Transaction Fees).

International Transaction Fee 2.50%



Start reading from here

that 2.5% has a note at the top saying excludes citibank plus transaction accountsExcludes Citibank Plus Transaction Accounts

Excludes Citibank Plus Transaction Accounts

 

[Chicken]

that 2.5% has a note at the top saying excludes citibank plus transaction accounts

Exactly.

I never believe what I'm told over the phone with Citibank. I always read their web site and T&C. Their telephone staffs are wrong a lot of times.