TravelingForMiles.com may receive commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on TravelingForMiles.com are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. TravelingForMiles.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers.
Some links to products and travel providers on this website will earn Traveling For Miles a commission which helps contribute to the running of the site – I’m very grateful to anyone who uses these links but their use is entirely optional. The compensation does not impact how and where products appear on this site and does not impact reviews that are published.
The Citi Prestige Mastercard has taken a bit of a beating recently following the news that a number of its better benefits are either being scaled back or removed completely. The card’s cause hasn’t been helped by the recent introduction of the Chase Sapphire Reserve Credit card which has got a lot of people all whipped up in a frenzy. But, as I pointed out in my review, the Prestige card still has some merits and I’ve just been a recipient of an unexpected one.
A few months ago there were stories doing the rounds that told of Prestige Card holders receiving “thank you” emails from the Prestige card’s concierge team after they made use of the card’s excellent “4th night free” benefit.
While thank you emails are not exactly uncommon in the loyalty world the thing that made these emails stand out is that they contained a claim code for a $50 Amazon Gift Card. Not only were Citi Prestige customers getting the 4th night of their hotel stay for free (courtesy of Citi) but now they were also getting $50 to spend at Amazon…which as far as I’m concerned is as good as cash!
Since the news of those emails first broke things seem to have gone a bit quiet – either Citi stopped sending out the emails or people aren’t publicising them any more – I’m not sure which it is but up until a few days ago I hadn’t heard any more about them.
So far this year I’ve booked two stays using the Citi Prestige 4th night free benefit and both were booked quite a few months ago. One stay has now passed (that was the Grand Hyatt in San Francisco) and the other is later this year so I was quite surprised when I saw this in my inbox the other day:
Fantastic!
The email mentions an “upcoming stay” so I presume I’m getting this “thank you email” as a result of my stay later this year and not the one that happened in July….which makes me wonder what the criteria are for getting the generous gift.
Both of the stays I’ve booked have quite a few similarities:
- They both cost about the same amount
- Both stays were booked in the same month
- Both stays are at Hyatt properties
- Both stays were upgraded with a Hyatt Diamond suite upgrades (although I highly doubt Citi know that)
So what triggers the email and the gift card?
I’m completely in the dark on this one although I can’t say that I’m too bothered why Citi feels the need to give me $50. I’m just happy they’re being generous 🙂
I’d be interested to know if anyone else has received one of these emails in the past few weeks and if anyone has been able to figure out why it would appear that some stays trigger the email and others don’t. Has anyone got more than one of these emails? Let me know in the comments.
