Citibank cuts credit card frequent flyer points: what you need to know

Is paying rates and utilities considered as Bpay?

Well so long Citibank Signature card, unfortuantley some places don't offer direct debit for fees paid (body corp, rates, land tax) which add up to quite a nice haul. 

Fortunately the Priority Pass is still there.

Lol... Just as I was about to cancel one of my other credit cards, along comes this bad news from Citibank. I'll now switch the card I intend to cancel in January to the Citi Visa Signature card. Thank you Citibank (& AUSBT) for helping me make what is now an easy decision on which one of my credit cards to cancel.

HSBC VISA Platinum, you're off the hook.

Off memory CitiBank tried a points decrease a few weeks ago and backed down after consumer backlash. It looks like airlines are trying to have the best of both worlds with these programs:

On one hand, they want to have an impressive suite of partners for revenue and added value for their members, but also want to keep everyones eyes on the prize which is loyalty to the airline.

Of what I've seen you always get the most value for your points when flying, (which isn't surprising, these programs are run by airlines,) but interesting to watch partners like Woolworths, Optus, CitiGroup and alike tighten their rules.

A friend of mine who is a more hardcore follower then I with these programs, once reminded me that there is always someone paying for the points and whilst I accept playing devils advocate here will probably earn me a record number of down votes, having to buy 10,000's of points ads a lot to the cost of aquiring customers. 

I'm not advocating these drops in exchange rates for points. I'm just pointing out the antithesis that when partners spend money buying us as consumers points, they have to make that cash somewhere. 

it's disappointing that Citi didn't learn after the huge backlash - points earn rates are watched closely by customers.

surely they could have rebalanced the commercials of these cards through other means (annual fees, rewards transfer fees) rather than penalising/deterring high spending customers.

just lazy and short sighted cost cutting.

Any recommended Visa/MC cards with no annual fee that might be an alternative to the citibank one?

Undecided if I'll keep it or not (currently doing the usual rounds with sign on bonuses but figure that will come to an end in a few years with all the fee changes being pushed through by the RBA, at which point a no annual fee card earning SOME points is still better than nothing)

HSBC Platinum to Velocity. No annual fee. Better than my citi platinum.

Redemption of HSBC Reward Points for Velocity Points is only available to eligible HSBC Premier or Platinum credit card holders. 1 Velocity Point will be earned for every 2 HSBC Reward Points transferred. A minimum Points transfer requirement applies; members must transfer in blocks of 5,000 or 10,000 HSBC Reward Points.

its bye bye birdie to citi emirates mastercard they've reduced it to rubbish in the last few years and with high annual fee now they offer peanuts 

It isn't only Citi's directly marketted cards that are impacted.

Virgin Money's cards have also been impacted:

https://virginmoney.com.au/credit-card/rewards-and-benefits/earn-and-redeem-velocity-points/

Even though the High Flyer card has seen the earn rate cut by 20% and the Flyer card by 33% (!!), the annual fees remain the same.

I urge all Virgin Money cardholders to write to the issuer and complain bitterly.

Of course, this action is entirely due to the actions of the RBA Payment Systems Board - their reasoning bears no resembelence to logic but has real impacts on cardholders with no net benefit to business.

overseas transaction fees rise to 3.4%? Wow, what a rort. That is $34 for every $1000 spent. I'd much rather a card with no transaction fee and no points than a card charging this kind of rate.

@ AlexTravAddict. I feel the same way. FWIW, I used to work at a high level with another bank, and the Citi changes to the Emirates card reeks of Citi virtually giving up on this product. No card scheme with aspirations of long term success goes out of its way to make itself useless to it's primary customers, and to rip away from them almost everything that encouraged them to take up the card in the first place - yet this is precisely what Citi has done.

Citi are now basically saying to anyone who wants an Emirates card that you can only have it by paying a high fee and high charges, while getting close to the lowest set of benefits in the market.

For  once  we   should    all  teach   a  bank   a   good   lesson.  After    March   2016 let  us   all     boycott   citibank   and  it's  credit  cards   completely. Canel   all   citibank  cards   and  take   something   else.  That  will   teach   them.

Well that's it for me also. I've already put a reminder in my iphone to stop using the card on the 18th March. Earned over 1.1 million qantas points using this card in the last 12 months. Good while it lasted. Don't think I'll stomach the $700 pa fee to upgrade to their top tier card.