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
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
I think I transferred my points to my husband’s account earlier this year and forgot about them and they expired. Any chance for my points? I closed my Citi Prestige but he still has his.
Dunno – you could always call and ask!
I just went through the same experience. On July 13th I closed my Citi Prestige Card to replace it with an AA Elite Card. (The reason was that the Prestige Card no longer offered Admirals Club membership). I tried to sign into my Thank You points account and received a message that the page was not available.
So, I called Customer Service and was told there was nothing they could do. Undeterred I asked to speak to someone higher up. While that person agreed with me, they also said that there was nothing they could do.
My main frustration was that Citi sent no reminders or notices that my Thank You points account was closing.
I had over 100000 points and was offered 5000 American Advantage Miles, which I felt was not enough.
I have now written to their “Presidential Committee” So now I wait.
I certainly hope that the have changed the rules.
Raj – was the Prestige your only Citibank TYP earning card? If so, you might be out of luck
Dan,
I have two other Citibank cards.
I just lost about 55k points due to Citibank closing my account. They did not even bother to notify me they canceled my card back in June (due to inactivity)… i still carried the card in case of emergency (which doesnt expire until 2019) because i had no clue.
The account manager said that there was absolutely nothing they could do to give me back my points even though i have other credit cards with Citi as well as a checkings and savings account. I pointed out that i had done my research online and knew that it was indeed possible since i saw a similar story on another website and the person got their points back.
I find it unfair that after all the worthless crap i get in the mail from Citi the ONE TIME i should have gotten some sort of notice i received NONE. I’ve never been late on any payments and my credit score is above 800 and this is the Thank You Reward (trademark) i get. I cant believe they would risk losing valuable customers over a something like this. I legitimately feel robbed.
Any advice?
Hang up call again?
I tried again and they give me the same story about how its impossible to reverse this. Was there a specific phone number you called, the 1-800-842-6596 number seems to be filled with workers who are unwilling to help unfortunately. After being a loyal customer for such a long time its truly disappointing, especially when the representative themselves say “thank you for your loyalty”… well you can thank me by giving me the points i rightfully earned over so many years.
I just called. They explained their policy was only to recover expired points from the previous year. I only received around 5000 points but I had over 60,000 in total.
Is there a specific # for Citibank that one can call to get a better outcome? I have tried the usual x5114 number two times now and both times I was told that there was nothing they could do to help.
I’m facing a similar situation. I have a Citi Dividend Mastercard and I forgot to use the card for 12 months so my dividend dollars expired (had around $650!). My card is still active but Citi has a new rule that you have to use it at least once a year. I chatted with customer service and they said the dividend dollars cannot be restored. Tomorrow, I plan to call them up and talk to a supervisor. I believe someone had suggested that if that doesn’t work, we should try to contact a someone in a senior position. Any advice or tips on what to do?
I closed my Prestige card on March 28 thinking the points would be pooled into my Premier card. Just checked my account yesterday and saw ~80K points gone! Called Citi this morning and it didn’t help. Ended up closing my Premier account as well….
I had the double cashback citi card and they closed my account without notifying me. I called right away to redeem my 98k points but they said because of the reason they closed account my points are forfeited right away.
I never missed payment. So frustrating that they’re stealing money for people just because they decide not to business with me anymore. Ive been calling and every people telling me different stories everytime. Please if anyone has an idea how I can get those back anything will be helpful