Citibank Credit Card Complaint

Citibank Credit card department,

Advertising and marketing Illinois

My complaint is regarding Citibank 's AAdvantage Platinum Select credit card. In short, I believe that this card is marketing and servicing strategy behind this card is knowingly deceptive. Citi is offering a financial incentive to open an account with them in the form of an alternative currency ( the offer I was promised was - AAdvantage miles ). This alternative currency expires in 18 months unless a purchase is made with a specific vendor ( - - ), or the card is used ( a condition that is hidden in the fine print ). For the vast majority of consumers, the latter method of keeping their miles alive is obviously the more realistic option. In effect, this creates a significant financial penalty for closing the card ( often in the magnitude of hundreds of actual dollars ). As the card itself is not very competitive when it comes to rewards, the primary reason that I ( and I believe many others ) keep this card open and pay the $95.00 annual fee is because Citi and - have structured the card to essentially exploit this penalty. Their primary method of doing so is by


be used to partially pay for a ticket. These limitations effectively make it impossible to redeem miles in smaller denominations, which makes it much harder to redeem them at all. As a result, people are more likely to have miles left on their account and therefore a financial incentive to keep paying Citi a $95.00 annual fee. Even more alarmingly, these limitations are entirely absent from any marketing materials for the card. I believe that most individuals somewhat reasonably assume that this alternative currency, which is only redeemable at one vendor, is at the very least applicable for any purchases at that vendor. Neither Citi nor - - would incur any significant cost for removing these limitations. When I called - -, they mentioned that they launched the paid upgrades within coach class over 4 years ago, meaning that they have had ample time to address this issue. The only reason that I believe these limitations still exist is because they allow Citi to maintain a deceptive financial incentive over their Cardmembers.