Citi AT&T Access More Credit Card Review (Discontinued)

citi-att

AT&T Access More Card from Citi (Citi ATT) Review

2018.12 Update: It seems these days you can’t get it via product change any more, and this card is completely discontinued.

2018.7 Update: It seems it is still possible to get this card via product change.

Application Link

  • This card no longer accepts new applications. If you are lucky to have this legacy credit card, you can still enjoy its original benefits.

Benefits

  1. $650 sign-up bonus! In order to get the bonus, you must:
    1. Spend $2,000 in first three months.
    2. When you add this card to your Citi online account, you will see a special link (see screenshot) which you can use to buy a new phone from AT&T. You will see this link either within or after 3 months. This requirement does not have a time limit.
    3. Activate and maintain a postpaid service with AT&T for 15 days. It doesn’t matter whether you create an AT&T plan first or you apply for this card first.

    Then you will get $650! Since you can buy a contract-free iPhone at around $649, this sign-up bonus is basically equivalent to a free iPhone!

  2. There’s no time limit for you to use the phone offer theoretically, so you can apply first and then buy the phone later. To be safe, I recommend you use the phone offer within a year. It doesn’t matter whether you finish the $2000 spending requirement first or buy the phone first. If you decide to buy a phone within the first 3 months, the purchase DOES count towards the $2000 spending requirement.
  3. Earn 3 ThankYou Points per $1 spent at AT&T and “online purchases at retail and travel websites”, 1 ThankYou Point per $1 spent on other purchases.
  4. According to FlyerTalk and other forums, “Online purchases at retail and travel websites” includes, but not limited to the following stores: Amazon, Ebay, Mileage Plus X (MPX); does NOT include Apple.
  5. We estimate that ThankYou Points (TYP) are worth about 1.3 cents/point, see below for a brief introduction.
  6. Earn 10,000 ThankYou Points after spending $10,000 in prior card membership year (the membership year begins the date you become an AT&T Access More Cardmember and resets each year on that date).

Disadvantages

  1. $95 annual fee, NOT waived for the first year.
  2. It has foreign transaction fee, so it's not a good choice outside the US.

Introduction to TYP

  • You can earn TYP with Citi Premier, Citi Rewards+, Citi Custom Cash, Citi Double Cash, etc.
  • You can add all these cards into the same thankyou.com account, and points that are about to expire will be redeemed first in the order in which they expire automatically.
  • In most cases, TYP never expire. But closing account, product change, or receiving points from other people may cause TYP on that account to expire.
  • If you have Citi Prestige or Citi Premier, TYP can be transferred to some airline miles. The best way to use TYP is to 1:1 transfer them to Asia Miles (Oneworld) or Avianca (AV) miles (Star Alliance). Other good options are: Singapore Airlines (SQ) (Star Alliance), Flying Blue (SkyTeam), Virgin Atlantic (VS) (Non-alliance), etc. If you use TYP in this way, the value is about 1.6 cents/point.
  • If you have Citi Prestige, you can redeem your TYP at a fixed rate 1.25 cents/point towards air tickets on thankyou.com. This is a common way to use TYP. Points+cash is available when redeeming for air tickets, so no need to worry if you do not have enough TYP.
  • If you have Citi Prestige or Citi Premier or Citi Custom Cash or Citi Double Cash, you can redeem your TYP at a fixed rate 1 cents/point towards cash.
  • If you have Citi Rewards+, you can get 10% back when redeeming TYP, up to 100k TYP per year. This feature further boosts the value of TYP.
  • In summary, we estimate that TYP are worth about 1.6 cents/point.
  • For more information about TYP, see Maximize the Credit Card Points Values (overview), and Introduction to TYP: How to Earn & Introduction to TYP: How to Use (very detailed).

Recommended Application Time

  1. [1/24 Rule] Bonus ThankYou Points not available if you have had any AT&T Access card or AT&T Access More card opened or closed in the past 24 months.
  2. [8/65 Rule] You can apply for at most 1 Citi cards every 8 days, and at most 2 Citi cards every 65 days, no matter approved or not.
  3. Citi values the number of recent hard pulls a lot, we recommend you apply when there’s less than 6 hard pulls in the past 6 months.
  4. We recommend you apply for this card after you have a credit history of at least one year.

Summary

The first highlight of this card is the $650 sign-up bonus. For existing AT&T postpaid mobile service customers, getting a free iPhone could be very attractive. For customers using other mobile services, it would be better to think rationally about if switching to AT&T is worth it. The second highlight of is the 3x TYP on AT&T and on retail and travel websites. According to current datapoints, it includes quite a lot of websites, which could be useful for many people. It would be worthwhile to keep this card if you spend a lot on those bonus categories, otherwise you may consider downgrading it to some cards with no annual fee.

Recommended Downgrade Options

We recommend you downgrade this card to these no annual fee cards that can earn TYP, because you can keep your TYP if so. If you downgrade this card to DC/Dividend, the TYP you earned from this card will expire in 60 days.

Historical Offers Chart

This card stopped accepting new applications in 2016.7, and people were able to get it via product change until the end of 2018 when it was completely discontinued.

Application Link

  • This card no longer accepts new applications. If you are lucky to have this legacy credit card, you can still enjoy its original benefits.

If you like this post, don't forget to give it a 5 star rating!

[Total: 1   Average: 5/5]
Disclaimer: The responses below are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.