Citibank Credit Card Complaint

Citibank Credit card department,

Rewards California

Credit card companies ( e.g., - -, Citi, etc. ) often offer rewards based on purchases made with merchants accepting their cards. The amount of the reward may depend on the Merchant Category ( type of business ) of the merchant. My issue is that it is very difficult to determine BEFORE making a purchase, what the Merchant Category Code ( MCC ) is for a given business ( e.g., -, -, etc. ). I have called both - - and Citi to determine the MCC for a specific business entity, and was told by both that they can not ( not allowed to ) provide that information, even though it is displayed on my billing statement the next month following the purchase. I am told by the credit card companies that it is up to the merchants to specify what their merchant category codes are and that I should contact the merchants directly to determine their code. The merchants I have contacted have been unable to tell me, for whatever reason, what their MCC is for the credit card companies they are associated with. For the consumer, I think the lack of access to a merchant 's MCC is a disservice, if not deceptive marketing practice to not make that information available. The vacation rental that I am looking at reserving for ~ $6000.00 can result in a credit card rewards of $ - $180.00, depending on the one of several reservation agencies MCCs I choose to make the reservation through. Because the credit card companies will not provide me with the Merchant Categories for the several agencies I am looking at, I can not determine ahead of time which merchant can offer me a better offer. It 's like the airline industry not revealing baggage charges ahead of time. Although the rewards are not hidden " charges '' the hidden MCCs can result in lost savings to the consumer.