My wife scored another 70,000 points. I got a rock.

18

For the past 6 months I’ve been happily earning two extra points per dollar on all purchases with my Citi Forward card.  Those two points per dollar were in addition to the 1 to 5 points per dollar the card normally earns (sadly the card is no longer available to new applicants).  So, I’ve been earning 7X at restaurants, bookstores (including Amazon.com), and movie theaters, and 3X everywhere else!

The reason I was earning so many points was that I had simply called Citibank to ask about retention offers.  You can read the details in this post: How one call led to a points bonanza and rethought plans.

Then, mid August came, and my miraculously awesome Forward card lost its superpowers.  It’s still awesome for its 5X categories, but its no longer my go to card for all purchases.

Calling Citi

I called Citibank to see if they would give me another retention offer.  We started with my AA Executive card (which I really did need to get rid of before the annual fee became irrevocable).  I was offered a lower interest rate.  No thanks.

Next card: Prestige.  Lower interest rate? No thanks.

Next, Citi Forward.  Lower interest rate? Nope.

Then, ThankYou Preferred.  Lower interest rate?  I’ll pass.

You get the picture.  We cycled through all of my cards and the nice phone agent was as surprised as I was that she couldn’t offer me anything useful.  But… my wife was nearby…  So, I asked the agent if she could check my wife’s cards.  With my wife’s permission, she did so…

My wife’s offers

My wife has two ThankYou Preferred cards.  For each card she was offered 2 additional points per dollar for six months.  Unfortunately, the offers were limited to a 35,000 bonus points each.  Still, that’s pretty good!  With these two cards, we can easily earn a total of 70,000 points in addition to the points earned by default.  Citi even sent helpful reminders via email:

70,000 points

And the fine print states:

*For the next 6 months, starting from the date you’ve accepted this offer, you can earn two additional ThankYou Points per dollar spent on purchases made with this card account. Purchases exclude balance transfers, convenience checks, cash advances, items returned for credit, fees and interest charges. All purchases must be posted during the promotional period. You may earn a maximum of 35,000 additional points with this offer. Points earned under this offer may take up to 2 billing cycles to post to your card account. The account must be open and current to earn and redeem ThankYou Points.

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