If you’ve got a Citi Preferred card that you haven’t used in a while, you might want to put some charges on it to avoid account closure.
My wife got an email from Citi notifying her they’d already closed her account:
Subject: Notice of account closure
This is significant because I believe it resets the clock on receiving signup bonuses on new Citi ThankYou cards. The terms on new ThankYou card applications says (emphasis mine):
Bonus ThankYou® Points are not available if you received a new cardmember bonus for Citi Rewards+SM, Citi ThankYou® Preferred, Citi ThankYou® Premier/Citi PremierSM or Citi Prestige®, or if you have closed any of these cards, in the past 24 months.
It’s open for debate whether Citi closing the account is the same as “you” closing the account. But when Citi denies a signup bonus it can be difficult or impossible to change their mind.
So put some spend on your old Citi Preferred card(s) at least once a year to avoid their closure and resetting of your 24 month clock. I sense that a lot of us are on a similar timeline due to the timing of past Citi ThankYou card signup bonuses.
We discussed this in Episode 20 of our podcast and other topics including:
- Bypassing Chase 5/24
- Churning American Express Cards
- Paying Taxes with Credit/Gift Cards and More
Has anyone else had this happen to them? If so, did you have to wait 24 months to get a Citi ThankYou card signup bonus since the closure?
I wonder if Citi sees the irony of the fact that their policies are what cause people to keep these cards open without putting much spending on them.