I applied for this card from the moneysupermarket website although it now appears that it is no longer available via that route - but keep your eyes open they pereiodically re-open their offers!
There have been a lot of messages on the web about people applying for this particular product and not getting it and I would say that most of that confusion is due to Citibank themselves - maybe that's why it's no longer available because of all the problems that people have had....
The Application process The application was made through a link on the moneysupermarket website. At the time they say they can usually approve you online but for me they had to go away and think about it. About a 2 or 3 weeks later a credit agreement popped through the post and I was granted a reasonable limit (not as high as the limits offered by MBNA or IF for example). I carefully read the terms and conditions and was concerned to see that there was no mention of the cashback terms so called them up to clarify before sending the form back.
Having received a positive confirmation as regards the cashback I duly signed the form and sent it back and heard nothing for another two weeks. After two weeks a card was sent I am now happily using it. I would have to say that this is probably the slowest credit card company I have ever dealt with - if Egg can get a new card to you from scratch inside of a week why does Citibank take so long? In addition the lack of Ts &Cs for the cashback indicates either poor communications with customers or a disorganised dispatch operation... Not very good.
Communcations As I've said I had to call them up a few times to clarify that I was on the right product. The key is call during working hours so that you get someone in the UK answering. If you call outside working hours your call will get directed to an Indian call centre which found to be a bit lacking.
Servicing you account Amazingly on-line servicing has online just become available apparently and can be reached through http://www.citicards.co.uk. There's a fairly tortuous registration procedure - specific user names and passwords have to be chosen (they have to be mixed case and contain a number). Once set up the on-line service is fairly striaght forward and offers pretty good services. You login by providing your user name and password and also differing combinations of digits from a memorable date. After logging in you can see your latest transactions, recent statements, change address, see the amount of cashback you have earned, etc.
The Cashback product I was one of the lucky ones to get the 1% product - some people applied and didn't get it - Citibank even denied that it was available at the time of application despite some people having printouts of the web page!
As I said the Ts & Cs didn't mention cashback but I twice called Customer Services to confirm that I was getting it before signing the agreement. Strangely some who applied did get the appropriate Ts & Cs! I was heartend to see after registering my card for on-line servicing that the 'My Rewards' tab showed the amount of cashback that I had earned. This was later confirmed when I received my monthly statement. Cashback is paid annually though without the Ts & Cs I don't know when......
If the 1% product reappears then go for it - it probably worth the hassle. If not then there are plenty of better companies out there supplying similar vanilla cards and providing a better/faster service.
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Advantages: free £500 overdraft, able to draw money from all ATMs without charge,free internet banking Disadvantages: no high street presence apart from London
sivam 08.04.2001 ·
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Jun 1st, 2005
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