Citi Prestige Card – worth the hype?

Going contra is sometimes cool but going contra with logic is sometimes a solid perspective on the scheme of things that happen in the credit card world. Recently, Citi came up with the Citi Prestige card and upped the bonus to 50,000 Thank you points which are generally okay and if you redeem in American then you are supposed to get $800 worth of flights. Now travelling in American, getting flights and seats on them.. that itself is a pain. There is also $250 annual credit that can be used if you buy airfare and other incidentals such as baggage fees or inflight entertainment and meals. The $450 annual fee is offset by this is what the claim of many a blogger out there. Of course, the high referral fees is another hidden reason why all blogs are promoting this credit card left right and center. Do I think this is a good card? It is decent. It gives you access to American Express lounges. If you are like the majority of travellers like me, I would like to keep the transit time as short as possible and get home rather than sit near a juice bar and wilt away time in some lounge in some airport. There is a global entry permit of $100 or so. Again, a common feature with many cards and in the grand scheme of things, not really making too much of a difference. A few lines here and there is not going to break you. So it all boils down to $450 annual fee that gives you 50k Thank you points and $250 * 2 airline credit. If you have planned travel coming up, by all means go ahead and get a card but if not, is there a reason to invent travel and go just for the sake of miles and points?

Remember: 450 Annual fee. That is not waived for the year. You could close it on time before they bill you for next year. But still. 450. That is not chump change. In the world of regular 500 reloads, people become sensitized to 450 or anything under $500. Ha, I would recover that in a few reloads. But that is not the point. $450 is no chump change for a huge number of people. You are putting that as a fee. There are folks out there who are regular business travelers and get reimbursed by their companies. Many of course, do not have the time or necessity for such point accumulation. For the rest who do not have access to such travels and would rather prefer the short and sweet world of point accumulation, where does one draw the line? This does look highly commoditized and calculated. But more importantly, it is leading to real and perceivable change in consumer behavior of people like you and me. Remember the monkey is taught to do the tricks of buying stuff online and act in a certain way and after some time, it pretty much does that on its own. The whole credit card bonus points and cash back is just geared towards that. Make you use the credit cards more and  more so much that you don’t even think about using cash and would rather just pay extra and return to your default of being “credit card nirvana” state. It is stunning to see how many otherwise reasonable bloggers are doing credit mile runs, going to china for a weekend just because of some few extra points or a $500 “mistake” fare while the capitalist producers simply laugh at the way the humans can be manipulated into relative action and minor changes in behavior. So maybe I might rethink my line on this particular card but I wanted to take a moment and recognize this aspect of having to simply pay huge fees so that there is an “offset” of some invented travel in future. Something that may well be avoided and instead, one can go visit the local library or local zoo or just sit in a beach or a park somewhere nearby!