First I wanted to state that I understand this all comes down to a personal opinion on what I value from my credit cards. I simply just want to hear the opinions of others, along with others personal experience with Citi's CS.
I recently made a post regarding the Capital One Venture card, with the intention to eventually PC that card to a savor and then get the VX for the duo. I really love the idea of how stupid simple the Capital One duo is to actually use, but I keep eye balling the Citi's Strata Premier card along with the CC + DC. The multipliers are just so much more powerful, along with a very strong transfer to AA, where from my own research on flights I would most likely be able to get 1.6cpp without extensive research / planning. Capital One's transfer partners seem pretty good when flying Internationally, but anything domestic looks like you pretty much just use their travel portal for 5X back and then erase. The welcome bonus from C1 is stronger on paper, but the Citi's bonus is going to be easier for me to get great value from (beyond 1cpp).
My point here is that I would personally value the transfer partner of AA along with the multipliers of Citi, but see many times more complaints regarding Citi's customer service over Capital One's. I do not want to chase points towards a system that will randomly decide my account needs to be locked while being impossible to unlock. Is my view on Citi overly dramatic? Is the multipliers from Citi and the AA transfer worth the potential minor headache if the CS is not actually as bad as everyone says?
Again, I know the right answer for me will be down to what I value, but I guess it's hard to know that when I am unsure of how common issues actually are, along with how hard they are to resolve. I would like to get either card in the next couple of weeks due to a large purchase (to earn the SUB).
Thanks!
Is the Citi Ecosystem Worth the Potential Headache?
byu/InteractionFew1222 inCreditCards
Posted by InteractionFew1222
7 Comments
I’ve been with Citi for almost 20 years without any problems.
I could totally be wrong about this on a case by case basis, but broadly, a lot of the related problems experienced in this credit card community have more behind them. Using improper links to game bigger sign up bonuses, credit cycling, gift cards, and a variety of other this people never admit to or include when bitching about banks freezing their accounts.
If the cards were even I would 100% take Citi over Capital One. Over the past 30 something years, Citi’s fraud protection has helped me on multiple occasions and the process was always quick and painless. For customer service I sometimes have to call a few times to get someone who can help me, but eventually they always come through. Capital One’s service is probably the worst I have experienced out of the big banks. Their rules are too rigid, and they don’t give their agents much room to be of any help. I also think their app is a step down. It’s a pain for me to log into my wife’s account because of their authentication, and I hate that the only offers they give you are online shopping offers. All the other major banks give you simple discounts that you can activate and use at the stores.
Funny enough, I just came off of a call getting help from Citi’s CS department over merging my ThankYou accounts so this post came at the perfect time haha. I just recently got the Citi Strata Premier to complete the Citi Trifecta (or in my case Quadfecta, multiple CCs go brrrr) after weeks of weighing it against the C1 duo for the sole intention of using it for the AA 1:1 transfer along with the multipliers it provides.
Not going to lie, while Citi’s CS can be a pain sometimes, I mostly haven’t had any trouble with them and when they help out, they really do help out (my phone number was not able to receive an OTP from them to verify my identity but the representative actually correctly figured out that it was a problem over on my carrier side so after getting it situated it with my carrier, it started working again). I highly suggest pulling the “I want to speak to a US representative” card whenever you call in for help, it really makes a difference.
As for the Trifecta itself, while I will re-evaluate if they devalue the AA transfer (it’s going to happen one day 🙁 ), it’s my strongest set of cards especially since I live near an AA hub and it’s easy to pivot back to cash back if need be in the future. I would say give it a shot!
Yes!
Try it out for yourself. I have no problems with Citi personally.
I told myself I would drop Citi as soon as it became a headache to hold their cards.
I now have 4 Citi Custom Cash cards.
Worse case scenario, you just use a different ecosystem. The stakes are very low.