Citi closed functions 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 invaluable advantages.
Our Citi Status Card overview explains all the advantages and why you need to take into account protecting 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 generally known as the Citi Status fourth-night free, provides you a fourth night time free on as much as two stays per calendar yr. This is what it’s essential to know.
The data 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 out there to Citi Status cardmembers. This perk provides you a fourth night time free on as much as two resort stays every calendar yr.
To get pleasure from a complimentary fourth night time, you should:
- Guide a minimal of a four-consecutive-night resort keep by way of the Citi Journey web site or by calling 1-833-737-1288.
- Pay to your keep together with your Citi Status Card, Citi ThankYou factors or a mix of ThankYou factors and your Citi Status Card.
Citi bases the fourth night time profit in your keep’s common nightly fee, excluding taxes and charges. The worth 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 major cardmember’s or approved consumer’s identify.
- Just one complimentary night time is feasible per keep. Citi considers back-to-back stays to be one keep, so you possibly can’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 night time.
- Reservations made by way of any social gathering or channel aside from the Citi Journey web site or 1-833-737-1288 should not 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 e book charges which can be out there by way of the Citi Journey web site.
Lastly, the fourth-night profit does not apply to some keep sorts. For instance, it excludes yachts, riverboats, cruises, campgrounds, castles, safaris, villas, residences and any properties not bookable by way of the Citi Journey web site.
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How you can e book a complimentary fourth-night keep
You possibly can e book a complimentary fourth-night keep in two methods: on-line by way of the Citi Journey web site or by calling 1-833-737-1288. Since Citi eliminated the flexibility to e book motels that did not seem on the Citi Journey web site over the telephone on Oct. 1, 2021, now there is no profit to reserving over the telephone. So, here is the method for reserving a fourth-night keep on-line by way 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 “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 possibly can filter the outcomes by property sort, assortment sort, star score, neighborhood, room provides, fee choices, property services, visitor score and extra.
Select your room and fee
As soon as you choose a resort, you may often see a number of room sorts out there for reserving.
Pay to your keep
On the following web page, you possibly can 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 affirm your visitor particulars, click on “Proceed to fee.” On this web page, you possibly can select what number of factors (if any) you’d prefer to redeem.
You possibly can apply factors to resort bookings at a fee 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 way of Citi Journey.
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Elite earnings and advantages
Sadly, stays booked by way of Citi Journey often will not be eligible for factors incomes and elite advantages by way of resort loyalty applications. 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 heart.”
This being stated, you possibly can all the time ask the resort so as to add your loyalty quantity at check-in. Most motels will not supply elite advantages and earnings while you e book by way of a web based journey company such because the Citi Journey portal. However even in case you 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 way of the Citi Journey web site are sometimes larger 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 way of Citi Journey.
Nonetheless, in some instances, you may discover that Citi Journey provides charges much like reserving straight. For example, reserving the instance keep mentioned above straight with Atlantis would really value me a number of cents greater than reserving by way of Citi Journey with out the fourth-night profit (and $317 greater than reserving by way of Citi Journey with the fourth-night profit).
Likewise, reserving a versatile member fee at The Coral by way of Marriott Bonvoy would value $1,808 — $39 lower than by way of Citi Journey with out a fourth night time free however $277 greater than by way of Citi Journey with a fourth night time free. Nonetheless, I might get Marriott Bonvoy earnings on my room fee if I booked my keep by way of Marriott.
Normally, you may 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 applications. Nonetheless, I like to recommend contemplating the web value — the out-of-pocket value minus elite earnings and bank card earnings — of every of your favourite reserving strategies when deciding easy methods to e book a keep.
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Backside line
Longtime cardholders will lament how the Citi Status fourth-night-free profit is just not almost as invaluable 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 resort elite standing advantages and earnings on my stays. Nonetheless, the perk can nonetheless present worth, particularly in case you rigorously take into account when and easy methods to use your two free-night advantages every year.
In the event you’re keen on different methods to get a free night time on an upcoming resort keep, bear in mind Marriott offers a fifth night time free on all award stays, Hilton offers a fifth night time free to elite members on award stays and IHG provides a complimentary fourth night time on award stays to pick out IHG cardholders. Moreover, some Positive Accommodations + Resorts properties supply a 3rd or fourth night time free.
