Citi closed functions for its premium ThankYou Rewards card, the Citi Status® Card, in July 2021. Nevertheless, some cardmembers, myself included, have saved the cardboard and continued paying its $495 annual payment due to its worthwhile advantages.
Our Citi Prestige Card review explains all the advantages and why you need to take into account conserving the cardboard if you have already got it. However on this information, I will focus on 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 yr. Here is what you’ll want to 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 supplied by the cardboard issuer.
What’s the Citi Status fourth-night free profit?
The complimentary fourth-night resort profit is a perk accessible to Citi Status cardmembers. This perk offers you a fourth evening free on as much as two resort stays every calendar yr.
To take pleasure in a complimentary fourth evening, you should:
- E book a minimal of a four-consecutive-night resort keep by means of the Citi Travel web site or by calling 1-833-737-1288.
- Pay in your keep along with your Citi Status Card, Citi ThankYou points or a mixture of ThankYou factors and your Citi Status Card.
Citi bases the fourth evening profit in your keep’s common nightly price, 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 consumer’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 identical 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 get together or channel aside from the Citi Journey web site or 1-833-737-1288 aren’t eligible for the fourth-night profit.
- Low cost charges resembling company codes, loyalty program member charges, authorities charges and AAA charges cannot be used. You possibly can solely guide charges which might be accessible by means of the Citi Journey web site.
Lastly, the fourth-night profit does not apply to some keep varieties. For instance, it excludes yachts, riverboats, cruises, campgrounds, castles, safaris, villas, flats and any properties not bookable by means of the Citi Journey web site.
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guide a complimentary fourth-night keep
You possibly can guide a complimentary fourth-night keep in two methods: on-line by means of the Citi Journey web site or by calling 1-833-737-1288. Since Citi eliminated the power to guide motels that did not seem on the Citi Journey web site over the cellphone on Oct. 1, 2021, now there isn’t any profit to reserving over the cellphone. So, this is the method for reserving a fourth-night keep on-line by means of the Citi Journey web site.
Enter dates and vacation spot
After you log in to your Citi account and navigate to the Citi Journey portal, choose “Lodges” and enter your vacation spot, dates and the variety of company earlier than clicking “Search.”
Choose a resort
The subsequent web page ought to return an inventory of obtainable properties close to your vacation spot. You possibly can filter the outcomes by property sort, assortment sort, star score, neighborhood, room provides, cost choices, property amenities, visitor score and extra.
Select your room and price
As soon as you choose a resort, you will often see a number of room varieties accessible for reserving.
Pay in your keep
On the subsequent web page, you may determine 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 affirm 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 possibly can apply factors to resort bookings at a price 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 advocate redeeming Citi ThankYou points 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 regularly requested questions part of the Citi Status card advantages notes, “Frequent traveler accounts can’t be used when reserving by way of ThankYou.com or when calling the ThankYou journey middle.”
This being stated, you may at all times ask the resort so as to add your loyalty quantity at check-in. Most motels will not provide elite advantages and earnings while you guide by means of an internet journey company such because the Citi Journey portal. However even when you do not earn factors and keep credit score, the person property might determine to give you some on-site elite advantages.
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Are Citi Journey portal charges aggressive?
The bottom charges accessible by means of the Citi Journey web site are sometimes increased than the member charges accessible when reserving immediately with the hotel loyalty program. Plus, you often will not get elite advantages and earnings when reserving by means of Citi Journey.
Nevertheless, in some circumstances, you will discover that Citi Journey provides charges just like reserving immediately. For example, reserving the instance keep mentioned above immediately with Atlantis would truly value me a number of 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 price at The Coral by means of Marriott Bonvoy would value $1,808 — $39 lower than by means of Citi Journey and not using a fourth evening free however $277 greater than by means of Citi Journey with a fourth evening free. Nevertheless, I would get Marriott Bonvoy earnings on my room price if I booked my keep by means of Marriott.
Typically, you will get higher worth from the complimentary fourth-night profit while you use it at luxurious motels and motels that do not take part in main loyalty packages. Nevertheless, 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 methods 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 worthwhile because it as soon as was. Certainly, this perk was as soon as among the finest Citi Status advantages, whereas now I do not even use it as soon as most years since I worth getting hotel elite status benefits and earnings on my stays. Nevertheless, the perk can nonetheless present worth, particularly when you rigorously take into account when and methods to use your two free-night advantages annually.
In the event you’re all for different methods to get a free night on an upcoming hotel stay, bear in mind Marriott gives a fifth evening free on all award stays, Hilton gives a fifth evening free to elite members on award stays and IHG provides a complimentary fourth night on award stays to pick out IHG cardholders. Moreover, some Fine Hotels + Resorts properties provide a 3rd or fourth evening free.