Last year, I applied for the Citi Prestige card with a 60,000 point signup bonus and over the past year, I’ve made great use of the some of the features of this card including the $250 airline credit, 4th night free, AA lounge access and more. In fact, one of my top posts from last year was why I thought the Citi Prestige was better than the American Express Platinum card – something I still believe to be true.
Anyway, the annual fee on the Citi Prestige is a hefty $450 annually though if you are a Citigold checking customer with Citibank, you get a reduced annual fee of $350. Last year, I was a Citigold member for about 3 months when I signed up for a Citigold account to earn 30,000 American Airlines miles and then I immediately downgraded my account to a Basic checking account (no fees if you keep a daily average balance of $1,500) once the miles posted. When the annual fee on my Citi Prestige became due this month, it should have been $450 since I was not a Citigold customer anymore but instead I was still charged the reduced annual fee of $350.
$350 Reduced Annual Fee
This is my only Citibank bank account
I’ll happily continue to park $1,500 in my Basic checking account instead of a savings account if it continues to save me $100 every year on this card. I am keeping the card as after the $250 airline credit (which I will use to buy domestic flights I would normally pay for anyway), I am effectively paying $100 for AA lounge access, Priority Pass lounge access, the 4th free on hotel stays, and more which is a good value to me. I do think Citibank will catch on at some point and fix this glitch but let’s hope I’m wrong on this!
PointsCentric 
I cancelled my Citigold in fall after doing the AA offer in summer and I have still gotten thanked for being a Citigold customer when I’ve spoken to them. I literally have no banking with them! But I haven’t tried to see if it would score me the $350.
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Got to love Citi’s IT! I’d be interested to see if you get the $350 annual fee as well…
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Pro-tip: it has been my experience you can also keep this basic checking account fee free by one bill pay and one ‘direct deposit’ per month. I have had success with a $5 auto transfer from my other bank to Citi, and a $5 bill pay to my electric company. Hope this works for you guys.
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Nice, great tip!
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[…] Confirmed: Downgraded Citigold Accounts Still Qualify for a Reduced Annual Fee on Citi Prestige Card…– I’m glad to finally see a data point regarding this. Good news. […]
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When does the annual fee post on this card? I received my prestige card about a week ago and have not seen the AF post yet.
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It will be on the first statement
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Thanks for this. So when you say you immediately downgraded, does that mean even before the bonus posted?
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I immediately downgraded once the miles posted – it’s in the post but probably a bit unclear
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Good timing on this post. My 50K AA miles are due to post in another 2 weeks. My AF fee for Prestige is coming up in May. I was going to keep the Gold Checking until the AF posted to save a few bucks but I think I’ll try this route.
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I’m confident this will work for you – just wait till miles post to downgrade to Basic
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So if u get the card before u open an account would u still get the reduced 350 dollar fee after you open the account latter on. And just to clarify the fee becomes 450 dollar again if u close the citi gold account?
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Yes the fee should be reduced to $350. And if you close the Citigold account, it should stay at $350 (hence this post)
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[…] in branch to get the reduced annual fee of $350 vs the standard $450. Zombie Citigold accounts (accounts that were Citigold but now Basic for example) should still work for the reduced annual fee of […]
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