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A few months ago, news came out about 2 offers where you could get either 50,000 ThankYou points or 50,000 American AAdvantage miles for opening up a Citigold checking account and meeting a few minimal requirements.

If you hadn’t heard about it or haven’t yet completed it, it does seem to still be ongoing. Miles to Memories has a great walkthrough of how to open up your Citigold checking account.  The relevant codes are

  • 50,000 AAdvantage miles – 42ERCWNQU6
  • 50,000 ThankYou points  – 42ERCZ42PY

But the real bonus is that in ADDITION to the 50,000 miles or points, Citibank will let you initially fund your checking account with a credit card!

Drama trying to even OPEN my Citigold checking account

Going to the Citi website, you’re prompted to pick your state

citigold-checking-account-error

When I put in my state (Ohio), I kept getting this error

citigold-checking-account-error-2

I’m not sure why that was, or why it one day finally started to work, but eventually they let me in and I was able to open the account.  The important thing is that you do NOT want to try and fund it online – just choose to do that later.

I did that, but when my account was still not set up the next day, I called back in (1-800-745-1534), and the phone rep told me that somehow the application did not go through, so I applied (again).

dramaTrying to fund my account, take 1

My first try was with my Chase Freedom card, because it has the largest credit line.  I called in to Chase and let them know that I would be making a large “purchase” and was on the phone for what seemed like 100 years as they notated my account.  I verified that it would show as a purchase rather than a cash advance, and asked them to lower my cash advance limit to $0, just in case.

Then I called in to Citibank checking and gave them my Chase Freedom card information.  The lady told me that it would attempt to fund the next morning at 5:30 a.m.

The next morning, I get an email from Chase:

chase-fraud-notice

Guys!  I thought we covered this!

A few more hours on the phone and it turned out that

  • Chase processed it as a Cash Advance anyways
  • They did NOT lower my cash advance limit to $0
  • But the cash advance limit was set to $7500, so this transaction was declined
  • Calling in to alert the bank to a large purchase seems to do nothing

In the end it was good that it was declined, since the cash advance fees on $36,000 would have been way more than I would want to pay

Trying to fund my Citigold checking account, take 2

Reviewing the list of which banks count checking account funding as a purchase vs. cash advance, I decided to go with my Bank of America Alaska Airlines card.  Reading the Miles to Memories post about combining Bank of America credit limits, I took my 3 Alaska Airlines cards and put all the credit limit on to one of them.  It was a very painless phone call – quite easy to do.

Citibank’s new checking account funding department is closed on the weekends, so I will give it a try again on Monday.

Wish me luck out there!


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