Yesterday, I shared my story about how I threw away 46,487 ThankYou points. You’ll need to read Part 1 of the story to get the details, but suffice it to say, possibly losing over $600 in travel (at least!) was not something I was going to just give up without a fight.
Call #2
My original call was the explanation of why my points had expired, and the agent (while friendly) said there was nothing that they could do to reinstate the points. Not deterred, a few days later, I tried calling into Citbank again
(SEE ALSO: Citibank reconsideration phone number and website)
This time, I decided I’d try to beg for mercy. I explained what had happened, explained my mistake and asked if there was anything the agent could do. This agent was super friendly, put me on a brief hold and then came back on the line. She said that normally they are told to never reinstate expired ThankYou points, but as a one time courtesy, they could reinstate half of the points.
I figured half was better than none, so I agreed to have them reinstate half my expired ThankYou points, and sure enough, within a day or so, I had 23,424 more ThankYou points in my account
Survey and Call #3
A few days later, I got an email about a Citibank survey
Normally I don’t bother with these, but I was pretty annoyed about this whole situation, so I filled out the survey. I gave pretty low marks across the board, expressing my frustration with how my ThankYou points could not be reinstated. I said that the agent was courteous, but pointed to Chase and American Express, who both have policies that make it much easier to keep your points if you cancel a card.
A few days later, I got a call from Citibank. They had read my survey (surprise!) and were reinstating the other half of my expired ThankYou points!
New Citibank policy on expired ThankYou points
The lady I spoke to said that Citibank has just released a new internal policy on expired ThankYou points. What she said was that Citibank’s new policy was that if you had other existing accounts with Citibank and closed a card, that your points WOULD be eligible for reinstatement.
This would bring Citibank’s policy on expired TYP nearly in line with those of other banks such as Chase or American Express. It sounded like your points STILL would expire after 60 days, but if you called in, they would be eligible for reinstatement as long as you had other Citibank accounts.
She said that she was in the middle of writing an email to the call center supervisors instructing them of this new policy
I could not find anywhere online where this policy was posted officially, but her recommendation was if you have expired ThankYou points that you want reinstated, to make sure and speak to a supervisor. And of course, if you’re not successful the first time, HUCA!
Have you had expired Citi ThankYou points? Were you able to get them reinstated? Leave your experience in the comments