Citi closed purposes for its premium ThankYou Rewards card, the Citi Status® Card, in July 2021. Nonetheless, some cardmembers, myself included, have stored the cardboard and continued paying its $495 annual charge due to its beneficial advantages.
Our Citi Status Card overview explains all the advantages and why you must contemplate conserving the cardboard if you have already got it. However on this information, I will talk about simply one of many card’s distinctive perks: its complimentary fourth-night resort profit. This profit, extra generally often known as the Citi Status fourth-night free, offers you a fourth evening free on as much as two stays per calendar 12 months. Here is what you should know.
The knowledge for the Citi Status has been collected independently by The Factors Man. The cardboard particulars on this web page haven’t been reviewed or offered by the cardboard issuer.
What’s the Citi Status fourth-night free profit?
The complimentary fourth-night resort profit is a perk out there to Citi Status cardmembers. This perk offers you a fourth evening free on as much as two resort stays every calendar 12 months.
To get pleasure from a complimentary fourth evening, you could:
- E book a minimal of a four-consecutive-night resort keep by means of the Citi Journey website or by calling 1-833-737-1288.
- Pay in your keep together with your Citi Status Card, Citi ThankYou factors or a mixture of ThankYou factors and your Citi Status Card.
Citi bases the fourth evening profit in your keep’s common nightly charge, excluding taxes and costs. The value you pay throughout reserving contains the fourth-night profit financial savings. Moreover, the fourth-night profit has the next restrictions and necessities:
- Bookings can solely be made within the main cardmember’s or approved person’s identify.
- Just one complimentary evening is feasible per keep. Citi considers back-to-back stays to be one keep, so you may’t use two fourth-night advantages on back-to-back reservations on the similar property.
- For group reservations or different reservations consisting of a number of rooms, just one room will qualify for a complimentary evening.
- Reservations made by means of any celebration or channel aside from the Citi Journey website or 1-833-737-1288 aren’t eligible for the fourth-night profit.
- Low cost charges comparable to company codes, loyalty program member charges, authorities charges and AAA charges cannot be used. You’ll be able to solely guide charges which can be out there by means of the Citi Journey web site.
Lastly, the fourth-night profit would not apply to some keep varieties. For instance, it excludes yachts, riverboats, cruises, campgrounds, castles, safaris, villas, residences and any properties not bookable by means of the Citi Journey web site.
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Easy methods to guide a complimentary fourth-night keep
You’ll be able to guide a complimentary fourth-night keep in two methods: on-line by means of the Citi Journey website or by calling 1-833-737-1288. Since Citi eliminated the power to guide inns that did not seem on the Citi Journey web site over the telephone on Oct. 1, 2021, now there is not any profit to reserving over the telephone. So, here is the method for reserving a fourth-night keep on-line by means of the Citi Journey website.
Enter dates and vacation spot
After you log in to your Citi account and navigate to the Citi Journey portal, choose “Accommodations” and enter your vacation spot, dates and the variety of friends earlier than clicking “Search.”
Choose a resort
The subsequent web page ought to return an inventory of accessible properties close to your vacation spot. You’ll be able to filter the outcomes by property kind, assortment kind, star ranking, neighborhood, room gives, cost choices, property services, visitor ranking and extra.
Select your room and charge
As soon as you choose a resort, you may often see a number of room varieties out there for reserving.
Pay in your keep
On the subsequent web page, you may resolve whether or not to make use of your complimentary fourth-night resort profit. For this keep, doing so would drop the four-night value from $1,847 to $1,531.
When you verify your visitor particulars, click on “Proceed to cost.” On this web page, you may select what number of factors (if any) you’d wish to redeem.
You’ll be able to apply factors to resort bookings at a charge of 1 cent per level. However that is far beneath TPG’s October 2024 valuation of Citi ThankYou factors at 1.8 cents every. So I do not suggest redeeming Citi ThankYou factors for resort bookings by means of Citi Journey.
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Elite earnings and advantages
Sadly, stays booked by means of Citi Journey often will not be eligible for factors incomes and elite advantages by means of resort loyalty packages. The continuously requested questions part of the Citi Status card advantages notes, “Frequent traveler accounts can’t be used when reserving through ThankYou.com or when calling the ThankYou journey middle.”
This being stated, you may all the time ask the resort so as to add your loyalty quantity at check-in. Most inns will not provide elite advantages and earnings whenever you guide by means of a web based journey company such because the Citi Journey portal. However even for those who do not earn factors and keep credit score, the person property may resolve to give you some on-site elite advantages.
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Are Citi Journey portal charges aggressive?
The bottom charges out there by means of the Citi Journey web site are sometimes increased than the member charges out there when reserving straight with the resort loyalty program. Plus, you often will not get elite advantages and earnings when reserving by means of Citi Journey.
Nonetheless, in some instances, you may discover that Citi Journey gives charges just like reserving straight. For example, reserving the instance keep mentioned above straight with Atlantis would truly value me just a few cents greater than reserving by means of Citi Journey with out the fourth-night profit (and $317 greater than reserving by means of Citi Journey with the fourth-night profit).
Likewise, reserving a versatile member charge at The Coral by means of Marriott Bonvoy would value $1,808 — $39 lower than by means of Citi Journey with out a fourth evening free however $277 greater than by means of Citi Journey with a fourth evening free. Nonetheless, I might get Marriott Bonvoy earnings on my room charge if I booked my keep by means of Marriott.
Usually, you may get higher worth from the complimentary fourth-night profit whenever you use it at luxurious inns and inns that do not take part in main loyalty packages. Nonetheless, I like to recommend contemplating the online value — the out-of-pocket value minus elite earnings and bank card earnings — of every of your favourite reserving strategies when deciding the way to guide a keep.
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Backside line
Longtime cardholders will lament how the Citi Status fourth-night-free profit shouldn’t be almost as beneficial because it as soon as was. Certainly, this perk was as soon as probably the greatest Citi Status advantages, whereas now I do not even use it as soon as most years since I worth getting resort elite standing advantages and earnings on my stays. Nonetheless, the perk can nonetheless present worth, particularly for those who rigorously contemplate when and the way to use your two free-night advantages every year.
Should you’re interested by different methods to get a free evening on an upcoming resort keep, bear in mind Marriott offers a fifth evening free on all award stays, Hilton offers a fifth evening free to elite members on award stays and IHG gives a complimentary fourth evening on award stays to pick IHG cardholders. Moreover, some Effective Accommodations + Resorts properties provide a 3rd or fourth evening free.
