Citi closed purposes 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 price due to its priceless advantages.
Our Citi Status Card evaluate explains all the advantages and why it’s best to contemplate retaining 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 lodge profit. This profit, extra generally often known as the Citi Status fourth-night free, provides you a fourth night time free on as much as two stays per calendar 12 months. Here is what you have 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 lodge profit is a perk out there to Citi Status cardmembers. This perk provides you a fourth night time free on as much as two lodge stays every calendar 12 months.
To get pleasure from a complimentary fourth night time, you need to:
- E book a minimal of a four-consecutive-night lodge keep by way 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 night time profit in your keep’s common nightly charge, excluding taxes and charges. The worth you pay throughout reserving consists of 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 title.
- Just one complimentary night time is feasible per keep. Citi considers back-to-back stays to be one keep, so you’ll be able to’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 night time.
- Reservations made by way of any social gathering or channel apart from the Citi Journey website or 1-833-737-1288 aren’t eligible for the fourth-night profit.
- Low cost charges equivalent to company codes, loyalty program member charges, authorities charges and AAA charges cannot be used. You possibly can solely e-book charges which might be out there by way 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 way of the Citi Journey web site.
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How one 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 website or by calling 1-833-737-1288. Since Citi eliminated the power to e-book resorts that did not seem on the Citi Journey web site over the telephone on Oct. 1, 2021, now there isn’t any profit to reserving over the telephone. So, this is the method for reserving a fourth-night keep on-line by way 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 “Resorts” and enter your vacation spot, dates and the variety of company earlier than clicking “Search.”
Choose a lodge
The subsequent web page ought to return a listing of accessible properties close to your vacation spot. You possibly can filter the outcomes by property sort, assortment sort, star ranking, neighborhood, room affords, cost choices, property amenities, visitor ranking and extra.
Select your room and charge
As soon as you choose a lodge, you may often see a number of room varieties out there for reserving.
Pay in your keep
On the subsequent web page, you’ll be able to determine whether or not to make use of your complimentary fourth-night lodge profit. For this keep, doing so would drop the four-night price from $1,847 to $1,531.
When you verify your visitor particulars, click on “Proceed to cost.” On this web page, you’ll be able to select what number of factors (if any) you’d prefer to redeem.
You possibly can apply factors to lodge 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 lodge 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 lodge loyalty packages. The regularly 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 heart.”
This being mentioned, you’ll be able to all the time ask the lodge so as to add your loyalty quantity at check-in. Most resorts will not supply elite advantages and earnings if you e-book by way of an internet journey company such because the Citi Journey portal. However even in the event you do not earn factors and keep credit score, the person property may determine 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 increased than the member charges out there when reserving straight with the lodge loyalty program. Plus, you often will not get elite advantages and earnings when reserving by way of Citi Journey.
Nevertheless, in some circumstances, you may discover that Citi Journey affords charges much like reserving straight. For example, reserving the instance keep mentioned above straight with Atlantis would really price me a couple 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 charge at The Coral by way of Marriott Bonvoy would price $1,808 — $39 lower than by way of Citi Journey with no fourth night time free however $277 greater than by way of Citi Journey with a fourth night time free. Nevertheless, I might get Marriott Bonvoy earnings on my room charge if I booked my keep by way of Marriott.
On the whole, you may get higher worth from the complimentary fourth-night profit if you use it at luxurious resorts and resorts that do not take part in main loyalty packages. Nevertheless, I like to recommend contemplating the web price — the out-of-pocket price minus elite earnings and bank card earnings — of every of your favourite reserving strategies when deciding e-book a keep.
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Backside line
Longtime cardholders will lament how the Citi Status fourth-night-free profit just isn’t practically as priceless because it as soon as was. Certainly, this perk was as soon as the most effective Citi Status advantages, whereas now I do not even use it as soon as most years since I worth getting lodge elite standing advantages and earnings on my stays. Nevertheless, the perk can nonetheless present worth, particularly in the event you fastidiously contemplate when and use your two free-night advantages every year.
When you’re inquisitive about different methods to get a free night time on an upcoming lodge keep, bear in mind Marriott supplies a fifth night time free on all award stays, Hilton supplies a fifth night time free to elite members on award stays and IHG affords a complimentary fourth night time on award stays to pick out IHG cardholders. Moreover, some High-quality Resorts + Resorts properties supply a 3rd or fourth night time free.
