Thailand Citibank Gold Card Upgrade

[camerata]

I have a Citibank Gold card and just received an unasked for "upgrade" to the Platinum Rewards "limited edition" card. According to the letter my Gold card will be invalid in 15 days time.

Has anyone else received one of these? There is a garbled sentence in the letter that seems to imply the annual fee won't change, but I don't believe it. My friend had a similar letter with an upgrade from Silver to Gold and it turned out the annual fee only remained the same if it was paid in cash.

With so many cards out there competing I'm surprised Citibank is railroading its regular customers like this. I canceled my UOB card after they tried to upgrade me to Platinum and activated the card without asking me.

[LaoPo]

It will become worse....much worse.

Banks are blowing even more air into the CREDIT CARD bubble....

They want their customers to spend, spend and spend, because they see the problems coming with the speed of a Typhoon #5.

Better fasten your seat belts and before you do: cancel your credit card, whatever the color.

LaoPo

[WitawatWatawit]

Exactly the same thing happened to me with my Citibank gold card -- I rang them to complain, and was basically told that it was inevitable, but joy oh joy, my credit line was increased by about 60k. Thanks for nothing you jerks, because I have since found out that many places won't take the Citibank Platinum card as Citibank charges them more for its use. Just check out Foodland in Sukhumvit Soi 5. There are signs up which tell customers not to pay for their purchases with platinum cards (reason stated: to keep their costs down). They say on the sign that they will accept only cards from certain banks, Bangkok Bank being one of them, as I recall.

I shall be cancelling my Citibank Platinum card in the very near future.

Wit

[camerata]

Thanks for nothing you jerks, because I have since found out that many places won't take the Citibank Platinum card as Citibank charges them more for its use. Just check out Foodland in Sukhumvit Soi 5. There are signs up which tell customers not to pay for their purchases with platinum cards (reason stated: to keep their costs down).

Thanks for the info. Something similar happened to me with Amex Gold, when Amazon and other online retailers suddenly started rejecting the card. I never got any explanation from the retailers or Amazon. I guess, it's time to go back to a regular bank credit card.

[torrenova]

I had Amex to Centurion and unless at high cost places, there was an ever increasing number of places which refused to accept the card. That was worldwide. Eventually cancelled.

[womble]

In a country where face and wealth are so important it would make sense to charge so much more for use of a platinum card...........

The funny thing is now the secret is getting out it will be funny to see those that continue to use the platinum when they could use a regular less face making card for less..........

[camerata]

Well, I just spent 30 minutes arguing with Citibank on the phone. As Witawat said, they seem pretty intransigent and would only offer to refer my case to the marketing dept. They say a letter was sent about the platinum upgrade in August and I should have contacted them before the actual card was sent. I never received this letter but it's possible it arrived and I didn't open it assuming it was more Citibank junk mail.

I pointed out that my Thai friend was called and asked if she wanted to upgrade to platinum and was told it was no problem that she didn't want to. So how come I am being forced to upgrade? I pointed out that UOB did the same thing to me and I cancelled the card (even though in the end they allowed me to stay with the gold card). I told them the same friend had originally been persuaded to upgrade from silver to gold with the verbal promise that the annual fee would remain the same, and then the next year was told that was only if you pay the fee in cash. I told them the letter they sent did not specify the period the annual fee would remain the same and the relevant sentence was in near-incomprehensible English anyway.

In the end I told them if their manager would send me a letter (not a fax) with a guarantee the annual fee would remain the same as the gold card and the number of years this would apply, I might not cancel the card and kiss Citibank goodbye. According to the guy I spoke to, the meaning of Platinum "limited edition" is that there is a special annual fee deal.

Another annoying thing about this discussion was that after asking me some security questions the guy then said something like, "Have you got your T-pin number?" Not thinking (it's normally requested in the lengthy recorded message process) I gave him the number. Then he said, "Don't give your number to officer" and asked me to enter it. If he'd just said, "Please enter your T-pin number' I would have understood and entered it. Now I suppose I'll have to change it.

BTW, since a year or two ago Amazon has rejected my Amex Gold card. Is anyone using a Thai-billed Amex Green card successfully with Amazon?