Tag Archives: Citi Bank

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Book One Way Award Flights to Hawaii on Delta for 15,000 KLM / Air France Flying Blue Miles

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Good afternoon everyone, I hope your week is going well.  A few nights ago, I was helping a friend find and book award tickets from the Bay Area to Kauai, Hawaii (LIH – Lihue, Hawaii).  She is a teacher and wanted to travel over Spring Break next year. Her Spring Break is the first week of April and Easter is on April 1, 2018, so she wanted to leave right after Easter.  I went to Google Flights to see what flight options were available but their flight calendar doesn’t show any flights past April 1, 2018 (if you are reading this post after May 8, then it should show you later dates).

Google Flights SFO-LIH Map No 4-2-2017

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My Recent Citi Forward & Premier Credit Card Retention / Targeted Spending Offers

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Good morning everyone, I hope you had a festive Drinko Cinco de Mayo yesterday.  A few weeks ago, I called Citi to convert my Citi Prestige Credit Card into a Citi Dividend Credit Card.  During that call, I asked the rep if it were possible to convert my Citi Forward Credit Card to another Citi Dividend Credit Card.  She checked the card’s offers and told me that no product change / conversion offers were available.  Undeterred, I asked if she saw any other offers on the credit card and she read off a few retention / targeted spending offers.  After going through all available offers, I accepted an offer for 3,000 bonus Citi Thank You Points after spending $300 in the next 30-90 days (I don’t remember the exact number of days, since I was planning on completing the spending requirement the following day).

To complete the spending requirement, I loaded / reloaded my Amazon gift card balance with $301 using my Citi Forward Credit Card.  A long time ago, the Citi Forward Credit Card used to offer 5x Citi Thank You Points at restaurants and bookstores (including Amazon).  But unfortunately, on June 4, 2016, Citi changed the earning rate of the Citi Forward Credit Card from 5x to 2x at restaurants and bookstores, thereby reducing my spending on the card from a lot to $0.

Fun fact: The rep mentioned that as long as there is a purchase once every 25 statement cycles (~2 years), Citi will not close the credit card for inactivity.

Reload Amazon Gift Card Balance

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Someone Tried to Hack my Citi AT&T Access More Credit Card

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Buenos dias everyone. I got a voicemail last Sunday afternoon from a Citi fraud prevention representative in Jacksonville, Florida asking me to call in to verify some recent charges. In retrospect, the fact that they were calling on Easter Sunday might have been a red flag, but at the time I didn’t think anything of it, and actually forgot about the call until I tried to place an order with PayPal Digital Gifts using my Citi AT&T Access More Credit Card and got an error message. When I logged into my Citi account, I got a popup message informing me that my charging ability may be limited, and found the following message attached to my Citi AT&T Access More Credit Card:

A screenshot from citi.com showing a message advising that there may have been unauthorized charges on the card and asking the recipient to call a phone number to verify them.

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Booking my First 5x Membership Reward Points Flight on AMEXTravel.com Using American Express Business Platinum Charge Card

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Good morning everyone, I hope you all had a great weekend.  I spent the weekend up in Rohnert Park (in Sonoma Wine Country) with my girlfriend. I started this post a few weeks ago after I booked my first flight using my American Express Business Platinum Charge Card on amextravel.com to earn 5x Membership Reward Points on paid flights.  I was waiting for my credit card statement to close and for the bonus points to post to my Membership Rewards account, but I forgot that there is a 1 month delay between when points are earned and when points post to my Membership Rewards account. Instead of waiting another month for the bonus points to post, I decided to publish this post now.

If you are not working on the $300 travel credit from the Chase Sapphire Reserve or $250 travel credit from the Citi Prestige, earning 5x Membership Reward Points on paid flights beats earning 3x Ultimate Reward Points with the Chase Sapphire Reserve, 3x Citi Thank You Points with a Citi Prestige / Premier, and 2x Arrival Points with the Barclays Arrival+.

Anyway, I received a Google Flights alert for a flight I was tracking from New York to Iceland.  The price had fallen and I wanted to book the flight before the prices rebounded.

Google Flights JFK-KEF Icelandair

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What Cards are in my Wallet Series: Tonei’s Everyday Wallet

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Buenos dias everyone. I thought you might be interested in which credit cards I carry and which ones live in my sock drawer – I know I’d be interested in learning about what my fellow authors use! I’ll start it off, and hopefully Grant, Shelli, Bill, and Whitney will chime in when they get a chance. This will be a multi-part series – I’ll start with what’s in the wallet I carry every day, and later I’ll tell you about what’s I keep in my passport holder, what I keep in my backpack for special occasions, and the cards I use exclusively online or not at all.

A screenshot from a Capital One advertisement showing Samuel L. Jackson looking straight at the camera. A Capital One logo is to the left of him with the text "What's in your wallet?" underneath. At the bottom of the image is a Twitter logo with the hashtag #KaCHING written next to it. Continue reading →