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Citi Product Change Rules: How and Why To Switch Credit Cards Citi Product Change Rules: How and Why To Switch Credit Cards

Citi Product Change Rules: How and Why To Switch Credit Cards

Ian Snyder
by Ian Snyder
November 8, 2023
13
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Credit card product changes are a common part of account management for many people. Not getting the value you hoped out of a card? Downgrading it to a no-annual-fee card is sometimes preferable to closing the account. In other instances, product changing to a premium travel rewards card can be an excellent move. Some issuers even incentivize product changes.

Typically, you need to stay within a “family” of credit cards. Citi breaks this mold, though. The unique Citi product change rules provide tons of flexibility to obtain another desirable card, including cards that you can no longer apply for directly.

Let's dig into the details of Citi product changes and why you may want to switch one of your Citi credit cards to a different one.

Citi Product Change Rules

Here are the rules and restrictions for a Citi credit card product change:

  • Your account must have been open for at least 12 months to be eligible for a product change.
  • You cannot product change a business card to a personal card, or vice versa.
  • You cannot product change within business cards; product changes apply only to Citi's personal cards.

Some things to be aware of before you request a Citi product change:

  • You will not be eligible for a welcome bonus on the new card.
  • Product changes may take up to 51 days. If the conversion is within a given family, conversions tend to be much quicker — sometimes nearly instantaneous.
  • As soon as you see the new card in the online account management, the new card terms are in effect — including the earning rates.
  • If your card number has remained the same, you can continue to use the old card until you receive the new one. As an example, when converting a Citi Strata Premier℠ Card to a Citi Custom Cash® Card, the phone rep informed me that the new earning rates and benefits would apply immediately.
  • Citi's welcome offer eligibility typically counts 48 months on the same card; since you aren't earning a welcome bonus during the product change, this shouldn't affect your eligibility for sign-up bonuses. However, other rules for bonuses still might be at play.
  • Citi will charge you a pro-rated annual fee and offer a pro-rated refund of your old card's annual fee, based on the conversion date and annual fees of the cards involved.
  • Note that if you convert your card away from a card that earns ThankYou® Points to one that doesn't, a couple of important items come into play:
    • If you don't have any other card that earns ThankYou® Points, you'll lose access to the points on that card after 90 days.
    • If you do have another ThankYou® Points-earning card, points on your other card(s) are unaffected, and you should move your points from the closed card to an active account before you lose them.
    • You can transfer your points to another Citi user. Transferred points are valid for 90 days from the date of the transfer, but points from a canceled card may still expire at the 90-day mark from account closure, even if that's earlier than 90 days from the transfer.
2 friends use a laptop together while considering a Citi product change
Credit: Brooke Cagle/Unsplash

What makes the Citi product change rules unique?

With most other issuers, you have a small family of cards within which product changes are permitted. But Citi allows product conversions to most cards, even if they don't earn the same type of rewards.

For example, American Express allows product changes between its personal Hilton credit cards. With Chase, you can upgrade from a Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card (Rates & Fees) to the Chase Sapphire Reserve® (Rates & Fees); additionally, you could downgrade to a Chase Freedom Flex℠. That's because all of these earn Ultimate Rewards points.

What you cannot do is convert a Hilton card to a Delta card (with American Express) or a Sapphire card to a United credit card (with Chase). That's because these cards aren't in the same families.

Citi allows “out of family” conversions for many of its cards, making the product change rules the most flexible of any major bank. You might find yourself no longer in need of a card that earns American Airlines miles, such as the Citi® / AAdvantage® Platinum Select® World Elite Mastercard®, but you might be happy to convert this to an AT&T Access Card from Citi. Citi allows this.

Why convert from one Citi card to another?

Several Citi cards are attractive from a points-earning perspective but lack a sign-up bonus. The Citi Double Cash® Card is a great example. The card typically does not carry a sign-up / welcome bonus. Applying for another product, earning a bonus, and then product changing a year later becomes an attractive option.

Another reason to product change to a different Citi card is to give yourself additional earning potential. The Citi Custom Cash® Card is a great example. The card earns 5% cash back on the first $500 in purchases in the bonus category where you spend the most. If you have another Citi credit card you no longer need, you can product change to the Citi Custom Cash, giving yourself 5% spending potential to complement your earnings on other cards.

Yet another reason is to upgrade a Citi credit card. Say you have the  Citi® / AAdvantage® Platinum Select® World Elite Mastercard® but have a lot of travel coming up. Maybe the Citi® / AAdvantage® Executive World Elite Mastercard® makes more sense for the lounge access it provides. While you won't earn a sign-up bonus, you can still do a Citi card upgrade to the AA Executive Card and enjoy its perks.

The final reason to product change a Citi card is to obtain one of the issuer's discontinued cards, although there are fewer where this makes sense than in previous years.

a couple reads credit card information about a Citi product change on a smart phone
Credit: Kampus Production/Pexels

List of Product Change-Eligible Citi Credit Cards

Here are the personal credit cards you can product change to or from:

Here is a list of discontinued cards that you can no longer product change to:

After being closed to new applicants for years, the Citi Prestige® Card was sadly removed from product changes in 2021. Unfortunately, you can no longer obtain the product. It was an excellent card in its time.

Another thing to note is that to convert to Citi Costco Visa, you must have a Costco account. This is a requirement of opening the card, as well. As long as you maintain a Costco membership, there is no annual fee on the Citi Costco Visa card.

Related: Build a Winning Combo of Citi ThankYou Rewards Cards

How To Product Change or Upgrade a Citi Card

Call the number on the back of your card to request a product change. Once you've verified your identity with the Citi representative, you can request a product change or to “convert” your card to another Citi card.

You may have to convince the Citi rep that your card is indeed eligible for a product change. In some cases, employees may not be aware that you can product change a card that earns American Airlines AAdvantage miles to a card that earns ThankYou® Points, but this is indeed possible based on people's experiences. Hang up and call again, if needed.

At one point, I'd understood that you could complete a product change via chat with a Citi rep. However, when I tried this, the agent I was connected to directed me to call Citi to complete the change and provided the phone number for Citi account specialists: 800-950-5114. I was not aware of this change. It might just be recent, or maybe I got a bad representative.

Make sure you ask if the card number will change! I can recall the rep clearly stating that the card number would remain the same during my last Citi product change, so this question was answered before I even had to ask. If your card number changes, you won't be able to use that account until the new card comes in the mail and you activate it.

Related: Tips for Managing Your Credit Score

Final Thoughts

The Citi product change rules are the most flexible of any major bank. Many people have taken great advantage of Citi's broad rules, converting cards to discontinued products like the ThankYou Preferred.

Using the product change rules from Citi may be the only way to get some cards. It's awesome that Citi still offers this option — even for some products that no longer accept new applications.

Were you aware of these product change rules from Citi? If not, how do you plan to use these rules to aid your credit card strategy? Let us know in the comments.

For rates and fees of the cards mentioned in this post, please visit the following links: Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card (Rates & Fees), and Chase Sapphire Reserve® (Rates & Fees)

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