Good morning everyone. A few months ago, I converted my Citi Premier Credit Card into a Citi Rewards+ Credit Card. My new Citi Rewards+ Credit Card arrived a few months ago and the 60 day conversion period just finished. This morning when I was looking at my Citi online account, I noticed a $50.41 credit on my Citi Rewards+ Credit Card. After doing some digging, I found out that this is a partial annual fee refund of the $95 from my Citi Premier Credit Card.
The $95 annual fee from my Citi Premier Credit Card posted on June 5. Citi backdated the prorated annual fee refund to show that it posted on June 5, but I think it actually posted around November 4.
Strangely, the prorated annual fee refund shows that it was posted on October 3. This is not true because I check my Citi online accounts every few days and haven’t seen that annual fee refund before November 4.
After doing some math, I was able to figure out the prorated annual fee refund reasoning. $55.41 / $95.00 = 58%. 58% of 12 months = 7 months. Therefore, I got a refund for 7 months of the Citi Premier Credit Card annual fee and only paid for 5 months of the Citi Premier Credit Card annual fee. 5/12 x $95.00 = $39.58. $95.00 – $39.58 = $55.41 (the amount of the prorated annual fee refund). I remember converting my Citi Premier Credit Card to the Citi Rewards+ Credit Card on September 5. 60 days later, around November 5, the conversion finished. I paid the $95 annual fee in June, so the 5 months of the Citi Premier Credit Card annual fee covered June, July, August, September, and October. In November, the prorated annual fee was refunded.
This information could be useful for another reason. Let’s say that you have a Citi credit card with a high annual fee (like the $450 annual fee for the Citi Prestige Credit Card or the $450 annual fee for the Citi AAdvantage Executive Credit Card). If you decide you want to close the credit card, but your annual fee was billed a few months ago, I think Citi stopped issuing prorated annual fee refunds. There could be a workaround by converting your high annual fee credit card to a no annual fee credit card (Citi Double Cash, Citi Rewards+, Citi AA MileUp, Citi Dividend, etc.). You could wait for the conversion process to finish and wait for the prorated annual fee refund to post. Then you could close the converted credit card, or keep it open, since there is no annual fee.
Here is the front and back of the Citi Rewards+ Credit Card:
Let me know if you have any questions. Have a great day everyone!
Nice move Grant. Was it about 7 months from your Premier card approval until you made your request for conversion?
I just got a new Premier card (after sitting out well over 24 months) and the Double Cash card would be nice with the new conversion opportunity.
Hi Gaston, I actually had 2 Citi Premier CCs at one point. First Citi Premier CC was opened a few years ago and that is the one I converted to the Citi Rewards+ CC, but not until I was approved and got the bonus on my second Citi Premier CC. Hopefully that makes sense. I wouldn’t recommend product changing / converting until around the 11 or 12 month point.
Hi Grant, I have a question. I’m in a similar situation where my Premier annual fee is due and I’d like to downgrade to a no fee card. Will I lose my points I’ve acquired with the Premier if I downgrade to the Rewards+ or Double Cash card? Thanks.
Hi Matt, when you downgrade / convert your CC, you will not lose your TYPs, but unless you have a premium Citi CC (like the Premier or Prestige), you will lose the ability to transfer your TYPs to travel partners like LifeMiles, Turkish, etc. How important are those transfer partners to you?
Thanks Grant. I do have the Prestige, and plan to keep it for the time being for the exact reason you listed.
Oh good, then your TYPs can still be transferred to travel partners. You also need to take into account the 24 month rule and family rule with Citi. If you do not plan on applying for a new Citi TYP earing credit card in the next 24 months, you are fine to do whatever you want. I would recommend converting to the Citi Rewards+ CC because of the 10% rebate on TYPs (up to 10,000 TYPs per calendar year). Since the calendar year is up soon, you could transfer/redeem 100k TYPs before January 2020 and get 10K TYPs back. Then after January 1, your limit resets. That is what I am trying to max out in November and December.
Thanks for the heads up on that, that’s really good info. I will definitely be converting to a Rewards+ card. I also have a TY Preferred card that I want to convert to the Double Cash.
You will have a great collection of Citi TYP earning CCs then. If the cards and TYPs are not already linked together, call Citi and make sure they are linked together. Then you can proceed with the product changes.
Hi Grant,
Does product changing from Premier to Rewards+ start the 24-month TYP clock over? I’d hate to have to wait 24 more months for the Prestige after product changing the Premier to Rewards…
Thanks.
I’m not sure if their is 100% conclusive evidence one way or the other, but when I converted from the Citi Premier CC to the Citi Rewards+ CC, my CC number did not change.
In my case, I applied for my second Citi Premier CC before converting my older Citi Premier CC to the Citi Rewards+ CC. I also waited to get the sign up bonus on my second Citi Premier CC before starting the conversion process.
DOC has more info: https://www.doctorofcredit.com/citi-24-month-churning-rule-explained-detail/
Just curious, Grant, which Citi cards do you have in your portfolio currently?
I have a total of 6 Citi CCs: 3 AT&T Access More, Citi Premier, Citi Rewards+, and Citi Double Cash.
Thank you!
At one point or another, I have had a Citi Dividend, Citi Prestige, Citi AA Exec, and Citi Freedom too :)
When you applied for your second Citi Premier, were you logged in to your existing Citi account or did you enter all the information as if you were not a Citi cardholder? Did they automatically link your 2 Premier cards on the same login or did you have to do something special? I have a Citi Premier from more than 24 months ago; trying to follow your footsteps of opening a second one and convert the first one to a Rewards+
Good questions See. All my Citi CCs were linked and I applied for a second Citi Premier CC logged into my existing Citi account. I believe my new Citi Premier CC was automatically linked to my Citi account when I activated the CC online. Everything went smoothly. I waited until the sign up bonus posted on my second Citi Premier CC before I product changed my original Citi Premier CC into a Citi Rewards+ CC. Let me know if you have any other questions.
Thanks! I got approved for the second Citi Premier CC. It opened a second Thank You points account for me too – should I combine the two Thank You Point accounts before or after converting the original Citi Premier CC into Citi Rewards+ CC? Does it matter?
I would call Citi and combine/link your TYP accounts. That will make it easier going forward. That is what I did.
Hey Grant, can you post a pic of the front and back of Rewards+ card? I love when you post pics of cards, it’s nice to see the designs up close. I can’t locate a pic of this card anywhere.Thanks.
Hi Jonathan, sure thing, I just uploading pics of the front and back of the Citi Rewards+ Credit Card. Enjoy :)
Thanks, just got mine and the MC logo is on the front. It looks better on the back. Do all of the Citi cards now have the network logo on the front?
That is a great question. I’m not really sure. Some of my Citi CCs are a few years old, so Citi could have updated the look / feel of the Citi CCs during the last 1-2 years.