Citi prestige 4th night free

  Hotel Strategies, Credit Card Reference

The Citi Prestige card has a unique and potentially lucrative benefit—it gives you your 4^th night free on up to two hotel reservations per year.

The “4^th night free” benefit works whether you are booking a $80 per night hotel on the outskirts of town, or a $800 per night resort hotel in some exotic locale. Each time you can take advantage of the benefit, you can save hundreds of dollars.

If you stay put for four or more days a couple of times per year—whether you are visiting relatives, touring around a city, relaxing on the beach, traveling for business, or hitting the slopes—you can potentially save hundreds or dollars per year by using the Citi Prestige card.

Unfortunately, you need to book the hotel through the Citibank website, which doesn't usually have the best rate, often doesn't have the best availability, and is treated as a "3rd party booking" by the hotel's own loyalty program. So, it doesn't tend to pencil out quite as well as you might expect.

For most people, signing up for credit cards, just to receive travel benefits, good reward earning rates, or lucrative signup bonuses, isn't an irresponsible thing to do. It won't kill your credit rating—it just might improve it. But, if you have a problem with credit, or you aren't organized enough to avoid unwanted credit card fees, you'll need to stick to our other strategies for discounted travel. For more information, see our Credit Cards 101 guide.

The rules

Changes Coming Soon

Citibank is updating the Citi Prestige card sometime in January 2019. While they are making some positive changes, the are also reducing the value of the 4^th night benefit as of August 31st, 2019.

Instead of being able to take advantage of the benefit as often as you like, you'll be limited to twice each calendar year. Not only does that limit the total amount of money you can save, it also introduces some extra decision making to the process. Each time you have an opportunity to use the benefit, you'll need to decide whether the opportunity is worthwhile enough to use up one of your two annual slots.

Even worse, you will no longer be able to book through the concierge. All bookings will need to take place through the Citibank travel site. That means you can't access discount or corporate rates, can't take advantage of other hotel promotions, can't use the benefit at hotels that can't be booked through Citibank's website, and your stays won't count with the hotel's own loyalty program.

These changes dramatically reduces what was once one of the most lucrative benefits available from any credit card. Until the end of August, you can use the benefit as often as you like and book through either the concierge or the website.

• You can use this on every hotel stay of four or more nights—multiple times per year.
• You need to book the reservation through Citibank’s travel concierge. Many hotels can be booked online at Citi’s travel booking website. However, if you book through the website, it will be considered a 3^rd party travel booking, and you'll only have access to Citibank's room rates. If you can’t find the hotel there, you need to take advantage of a special rate, or you want to make sure to get hotel loyalty program points, credit, and benefits, you can call (877-288-2484), or send an email (concierge@yourconciergecenter.com).
• You can take advantage of the benefit at almost any hotel. If the concierge can’t use their system to book the hotel, they will usually go out of their way to try to book it, by contacting the hotel directly. On a recent reservation, they faxed reservations back and forth to book a hotel that didn’t take online reservations at all.
• You can take advantage of most discounted rates available directly from the hotel. You can ask the concierge to use a special rate, such as a AAA rate, members rate, or even a special rate code. You can sometimes also book special packages and promotions that are available through the website, but this won’t always be allowed.
• When you book via phone or email, it counts as a direct reservation in terms of taking advantage of hotel loyalty programs. Because the concierge is booking the hotel directly on your behalf, this isn’t counted as a 3^rd party hotel reservation. You should earn points and elite night credit for your stay, and get access to any benefits from your hotel status. You’ll even earn hotel points and elite night credit for the night that is being reimbursed from Citibank. However, if you book online, it will be considered a 3^rd party booking, and you won't get any points or status credits.
• You CAN’T use it for Airbnb and other similar services. The benefit is designed for hotels. You won’t get credit for reservations on “yachts, riverboats, cruises, campgrounds, castles, safaris, villas, and apartment rentals”. They had prohibited the use of the benefit for “hostels”, but these are now supported.
• They pay for the average room rate, and give it to you as a credit. They used to pay the actual rate for the last night’s reservation. With recent changes, they will pay for the average room rate instead. You’ll pay the full price for the room upfront, and then receive a credit on your card for the value of the free night later.
• You need to pay the taxes on the free night. This wasn’t initially true when they first launched. You’ll also need to pay any resort charges.
• There are no caps on how expensive the hotel can be.
• You need to pay with your Citi Prestige card. It is how they track that you actually stayed at the hotel. The good news is that you’ll earn 3x ThankYou points for the hotel stay. The bad news is that you can’t take advantage of another card. If you book online, you can also use ThankYou points to pay for some of the cost (at 1 cents per point).
• You CAN’T use this to book more than a single room at a time. If you need 2 rooms, you’ll only get the free night for one of them. Of course, if you and your partner each have their own cards, you can each book a separate room.
• You WON’T get 2 free nights on an 8-night stay. You can’t even break-up the stay into two separate four-night reservations. You’ll need to switch hotels, or have at least a one-night break, or Citi will consider them part of the same reservation.

Tips

• If you are only planning on spending 3 nights, it sometimes makes sense to make a 4-night reservation instead. If the rate drops for the 4^th night, the average rate you’ll pay for your room will drop. Since you’ll get one night free (other than taxes), you could spend less total money for the 4-night reservation, than you would for a 3-night stay. Even if you pay slightly more, you’ll some extra hotel points that may make it worthwhile.
• You can stack the 4^th night free benefit, with other free night offers, to get multiple free night on your stay. For example, if the hotel also offers a 3^rd or 4^th night free, the average rate on a 4-night reservation would be ¾ of the room rate. Citibank will refund the average room rate, and you’ll wind up paying for just 2¼ nights of a 4-night stay. If you are booking a hotel with a 5^th night free, you can try to tack the 5^th night onto a 4-night reservation made by the Citi concierge. If you can, you can get 5 nights for the price of 3. Otherwise, you will wind up paying 3.2 nights.

The Citi Prestige annual fee

Unfortunately, there is a cost associated with this extremely lucrative benefit. The Citi Prestige card has a $495 annual fee.

However, the real cost can be much less than that. The card includes a $250 per year travel credit which is automatically applied to your credit card statement. Just use the card to purchase airplane tickets or a hotel room, and Citibank will automatically subtract $250 from what you owe. Since you are almost certainly going to be buying at least $250 in travel very year, and the card provides one of the best reward rates on air travel, the travel credit nearly effortlessly drops the effective annual fee to $245. Furthermore, if you have a Citigold account, the base annual fee is $350, and your effective annual fee is $100.

Other Prestige card benefits

Citi Prestige Guide

• Airport lounge access. Priority Pass access gets you, and up to 2 travelling companions, or your immediate family, into any of hundreds of airport lounges around the world.
• 5x points on airfare, online travel agencies, and restaurants.
• 3x points on hotels and cruises.
• Global entry fee reimbursement. You’ll receive a credit for up to $100 in US Immigration application fees (once every five years).

Credit Cards 101

Build Up a Core Credit Card Collection for Travel Benefits and Rewards

Send comments or suggestions to editor@travelstrategies.com or leave a comment below.

blog comments powered by Disqus