Starting March 1st Citi airline rewards will be a lot less rewarding! Previously the rewards program was based on fixed points given out. Now points are variable.

Now redeeming them will mean 100 points for every $1.00. Do the math and you will see that means 40,000 points will be needed for $400 flight. Before domestic flights up to $400 in value only cost you only 20,000 points.

If you were planning on using your Citi rewards to book a summer flight, book it now before the rewards system gets changed upside down.

On an unrelated note, days ago Citi still announced it is continuing with its $400 million sponsorship for the NY Mets. They can afford to give $400 million to a baseball team but not $400 plane tickets for the previous price cardmembers paid!

So last week I got an offer In the mail for the American Express Blue Sky card. This is basically the same as the Blue card except you get airline rewards instead of cashback. I have NEVER seen a bonus offer anywhere for this card (neither online or off) so when I received a letter with 30,000 bonus points for signing up, I was excited!

Problem is the name on the invite was the person who lived here before me. However I’m a long time American Express cardmember and have several high limit credit cards with them, so I figured if I called them up and told them about this letter, they would give me the promotion anyway. After all, 30k points equals $300 in discounts, and since this card has no annual fee, I would be stupid to pass it up!

So I call the number on the letter and the phone is immediately answered (without even ringing) by a CSR ready to take my application. I explain to them the situation and they say they can’t help me. “But wait! I have the letter here in front of me! The envelope was addressed to [name] but it’s my address! Here I can tell you the RSVP code and we’ll sign up the card”

She responds “I’m sorry, the RSVP code is linked to the name on the letter.”

After several minutes of heated discussion and getting no where, she recommends I speak with marketing, so I say “Sounds good, please transfer me over.”

While I wasn’t transferred to marketing, but rather regular customer service – who claim it’s not even possible for customers to talk to marketing directly via phone so the other rep made a mistake.

I get the same run around with her. Finally one last idea pops in my head… I’ll start quoting USPS laws! So I begin reciting that this envelope was addressed to [name] or current resident, and by law, I am the current resident since this is my home! To put it nicely, she wasn’t the brightest bulb in the chandelier, so despite repeating it multiple times I don’t think she ever got it. She would just respond to things I would say by reading a bad script.

“That’s it!” I say. I give up. By this time I’ve spent nearly 20 minutes total, so I give up. But one of the last things she told me I found very odd “The marketing department gathers it’s data through public sources like credit ratings. They have no knowledge if the people that receive their solicitations are already American Express cardmembers or not.”

Oh that’s super… they would rather give that offer to a random person than a loyal customer!