Citibank ThankYou Awards redemption?

[Castle Knights]

Hello,

 

I have the Citibank Prmier Pass Elite Visa that has a RCCL certificate for $500. Does anyone know what Ii do with the certificate when I receive it? Turn it into Travelocity before final payment? Send to RCCL? Redeem on board? If any one has any experience with this Visa and its rewards please advise. Thanks, DEB

[Cruisechick82]

Did you ever find out about how to use the RCL certificate? We have the Citibank Diamond Rewards Card that also has RCCL gift certificates for $100 or $500.

[AFT_LOVER]

You get a certificate worth some $$$ for RCCL. This is usually on onboard credit that you redeem with the credit card & then call RCCL with the certificate # & award info & they will have you mail it to them at the address they give you. Then by day #3 of your cruise, you will see it show up as a credit on your account & if you do not plan to spend money onboard, then goto the casino to cash it out to a -0- balance. Good for tips at the end of the cruise.

[nerak]

I just received (in the past two months) 2-$100 certificates from CitiRewards and was told by someone (luckily I do have a name) at RCCL that I could not use them...I was told after a lengthy search that Maritz, the distributor, was not in business anymore the best they could tell. I went ahead and booked through my TA instead because he gives me my travel insurance (good insurance) for free. (On the back my certificates say you must book directly through RCCL and that they can go for payment of the deposit or the cruise itself, not onboard credit) Any way, I had been battling with the thank you redemption for almost a month now. They say RCCL should have taken the certificates and just keep telling me I have buyers remorse...which I do not have since I purchased my cruise anyway. After 3 phone calls, they finally were to send me a form to dispute this...the form came and it was for lost certificates, certicates never received in the mail. I have now submitted that, with a letter, stating the communication problem between of all 3 of us (including the wrong form) and that I would just like my points back at the very least and they can have the certificates back. I have redeemed points in the past with a different credit card and RCCL both with never any problems. I also do not usually write letters like this, but I do feel like I lost my certificates AND points. Good luck with yours...maybe I should have been more persistant with RCCL to begin with, but I was booking a Chritsmas cruise and needed to get it done. PLease let me know how yours goes.

[nerak]

BTW...Castle Knights...is that name for your marching band???

[AFT_LOVER]

We closed our Citibank for MBNA after the scam with air miles card that they came out with a year ago. They advertise you get miles for amount of purchaes & also miles RT for the flight. NEVER GOT MILES!!!!

 

We moved our platinum that we got when they had lifetime warranties on purchases, so all my appliances for our house we bought in '91 had 10-15 years on it. Computers were only 5 years. Then they dropped it but stated that they add 1 year to all purchases with warranties under 5 years, then 3 months ago they dropped that when I went to get warranty service on a month old vacuum.

Dyson sent me a better newer vacuum DC14 to place the DC7 which I am very happy with.

 

My DH still has his Sears card which is Citibank also, but Sears backs their purchases.

[sherry7]

I'm glad I read this thread. I have quite a few Citibank points built up, and had noticed the RCCL option. Now I know to choose something else. :eek:

[Cruisechick82]

Has anyone used them for airfare? Is it difficult? It says no blackout dates and they can be used on any airline, but you never know.

 

We are supposed to get 5 points for every $1 spent on gas, supermarket, or drug store. We have only had the card a month, but it only shows points=1 point per dollar. Do the extra points take longer to show up or are they not giving us the extra points they should?

[nerak]

Cruisechick82

 

I haven't tried using my points for air, but I do know my booklet says you must use their service provider to redeem your points. Be sure to check for that restriction.

[Coolcruise02]

We used the $100 award certificate for our just completed Grandeur cruise. The coupon was applied back in April. Since it was a fairly new program I had to speak to a customer service supervisor to determine how to deal with it. She was very helpful and the credit was applied. The only drawback was that even though the booking was made thru the RCI website it was linked to Maritz Travel as the TA although they are not really a TA, only handling the promotion. Consequently all options of booking thru RCI were not available on the website. Also any changes made over the phone required the booking agent to speak with a supervisor to ok changes to the reservation. Rather cumbersome and time consuming.

[Castle Knights]

Hi,

 

Thanks for all the replies. And yes, my daughter goes to Castle High School and the marching band is the Castle Knights. :)

Debbie - Indiana

[Castle Knights]

Hi,

I found out today that you must register at Thankyoupoints.com or something like that to get the extra points on the supermarket,gas purchases etc... I also found out alot of the extra points only qualify if you use online stores like Target.com FTD.com etc.... Check out the thank you points web site. I have had such an easy time with redemption with my Southwest Visa & my Marriott Visa they have me spolied...I didnt have to jump thru hoops with those cards. Hope the Citbank card works out for me. :rolleyes: Deb- Indiana

[Shiba]

I've had this card for over a year and the points have added up - especially with the price of gas latetly! I used one of the $100 RCCL cruise certificates for our upcoming Explorer cruise and freaked out when I was told I had to go through my travel agent to make any changes or payments (we booked direct on Majesty last year). Finally, a helpful RCCL rep explained the Maritz travel thing and I had no problems from there on out - cruise docs came straight to our house (my biggest worry was they would be sent to Maritz).

 

No special sign-up is required to earn the 5 pts for gas stations, supermarkets or pharmacies. It just happens and you'll see the "bonus" points applied to your Thank You account on thankyouredemptions.com. When you register on this website you can also order your rewards when the time comes. There is another program - called Thank You Merchants - which you have to sign up for. That's a program where you can earn even more points for online shopping - but you have to place the web order when logged in on that site. I used it when I did some Christmas shopping and never saw any points and thought the whole thing was bogus - but low and behold the extra points showed up on my account in August. Better late than never!

 

Hope this info is helpful to anyone who's interested :)

[nerak]

Castle Knights

We've always enjoyed your band, although we have been away from marching band for about 5 years now. My son and daughter both played tenors for the Columbus East band...never quite as good as your band, although percussion was awesome my daughter's sophomore year. Glad to see someone else from "close by" on the boards. Good luck with your certificates...I will post more about my problems when I hear something else.

[nerak]

I came home tonight to a message from the redemption center. They are going to return my points. I have not gotten to speak with anyone yet as to what happened or why my certificates were refused, but I ma very curious. I will update when I find out. I am very pleased that they are going to help with my certificate problem. And yes, I do have to return my certificates. :rolleyes:

[Castle Knights]

Thanks for the news of your points being returned. I hope Citibank will get all the rewards figured out. It has made me a little leary of counting on them for rewards. Deb-Indiana :)

[nerak]

Deb...

 

I actually got to speak with them today. They are requesting the points returned or the $200 applied to my card...which is higher than my 20,000 points would buy if I bought the master card credit with the points. They are also investigating the confusions. I should get an answer any day now. I'll let you know what I end up with. I have figured out that we are working with several businesses when requesting and redeeming....not just ThankYou rewards and Royal Caribbean, that caused part of the confusion by not being sent to the right places.

[Castle Knights]

Nerak....

 

I hope the vendors that supply the rewards get insync with Citobank and the redemption process. It is confusing enough trying to redemm thru the credit card reps. At least with my Marriott rewards I am dealing with Marriott products only and the same with Southwest Rewards.I know Amer. Express has many merchants to redeem from...I wonder how they handle all the different merchants? Keep me posted ......I want to redeem for a Marriott reward in a few months. Deb-Indiana :)

 

P.S How long did it take to get your 15,000 sign up bonus points? How many billing cycles? It wasnt on my first one? Thanks, DEB

[nerak]

Castle Knights

I received my points really quick...I just can't remember if it was first or second billing. I know it wasn't later than that.

[nerak]

I finally got a call today to return my certificates and get my points back. I asked the supervisor what went wrong...she had no idea. She said this is a big time of year to redeem and had never heard of a problem like mine before. So, I get my points...although I would have rather used the certs. After I hung up, I called RCCL as if I were just getting ready to book my cruise for Dec. 24th. I was told I could use them, but not for a holiday sailing. I told the lady it specifically says "This certificate is valid for all sailings, ships, cabins including air/sea cruises." I was still told no, not a holiday sailing. Now I am curious...if anyone uses one of these, please let me know how it goes for you. I would love to try again in the future, but this has really be a lot to deal with. Good luck.