Link: Apply now for the Citi Premier® Card
The Citi Premier® Card (review) is currently offering a two-part welcome bonus, which is quite lucrative. The card is offering a bonus of 60,000 ThankYou points after spending $4,000 within the first three months. On top of that, for a limited time, you can earn 10x ThankYou points per dollar spent on hotels, rental cars, and attractions (excluding air travel) booked on the Citi Travel portal through June 30, 2024.
There are many reasons to get this rewards card, from the 3x points bonus categories, to the $100 annual hotel credit, to the overall value of the Citi ThankYou ecosystem.
Understandably there’s often some confusion about eligibility for the Citi Premier Card, so I wanted to address that in this post, in hopes of maximizing odds of people getting approved.
In this post:
Citi Premier Card eligibility requirements
There are often questions about what it takes to get approved for the Citi Premier Card, so in this post, I wanted to share the three main things to consider before applying for the card, to try and figure out if you’re eligible. Credit card issuers have all kinds of rules when it comes to approving people for cards, so let’s go over some of those.
Are you under Citi’s 8/65 limit?
Citi will generally approve cardmembers for at most one Citi card every eight days, and at most two Citi cards every 65 days. This is a rolling limit, so just make sure you observe that. This is specific to Citi cards — applying for cards with other issuers won’t count toward that limit.
Are you eligible for the welcome bonus (48-month rule)?
The welcome bonus on the Citi Premier Card isn’t available to you if you’ve received a welcome bonus on this exact card within the past 48 months:
- Eligibility for the bonus is unrelated to having received a bonus on any other Citi card
- The 48 months is based on when you received the bonus on a card, rather than based on when you opened the card
So as you can see, you are potentially eligible for the bonus on the card even if you’ve received a bonus on the card in the past.
What credit score do you need for the Citi Premier Card?
There’s not a consistent rule as to what credit score you need in order to be approved for the Citi Premier Card, as credit score is one of only many considerations when being approved for a card. In general, I’d recommend having a credit score in the “good” to “excellent” category if you’re going to apply for this card.
Personally, I probably wouldn’t apply if my credit score were under 700, and ideally, I’d hope to have a credit score of 740 or higher. That being said, people with scores lower than that have been approved, and conversely, people with scores higher than that have been rejected. There are lots of factors that go into approval — your income, your credit history, how much credit Citi has already extended you, etc.
Citi Premier Card approval FAQs
To answer a few more of the frequently asked questions when it comes to Citi Premier Card approval…
Is it hard to get approved for the Citi Premier?
Among mid-range credit cards, I find the Citi Premier to be one of the easier cards to be approved for. Of course this assumes you have good credit, including a good amount of credit history, and meet the eligibility requirements. But anecdotally I’ve found that people have better luck getting approved for this card than the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card (review), for example.
How long does it take to get approved for the Citi Premier?
Approvals on Citi credit cards can be instant, and you’ll often find that to be the case. However, in some situations a manual review may be needed, so don’t worry if you get a message stating that your application requires further processing time — it doesn’t mean you’ll be rejected. You can generally expect that you’ll get a final decision within a week or so of applying.
Which credit bureau does Citi pull from?
If you apply for the Citi Premier, there’s not a single credit bureau that Citi always pulls from. It could be Equifax, Experian, or Transunion, depending on a variety of factors.
Is it bad for your credit score if you get denied for the Citi Premier?
What are the negative impacts of applying for a credit card and getting denied? The only downside is that there’s a new inquiry on your credit file, which could temporarily ding your score by a few points. While everyone’s situation is different, personally, I wouldn’t consider that to be a big issue, as losing a few points temporarily shouldn’t have major implications.
Meanwhile getting approved for the card and using it responsibly could have a very positive impact on your credit score, by improving your total available credit, history of on-time payments, credit utilization, etc.
If you get denied for the Citi Premier, can you apply again?
Yes, you can. If you’ve been denied for the Citi Premier in the past, you could apply again. Just because you get denied once doesn’t mean you’ll be denied again, especially if aspects of your credit worthiness have improved (for example, if your credit score went up, the number of cards you opened in the past two years went down, etc.).
However, I’d wait six months (or so) between applications, and make sure that something has changed (for the better) about your credit situation.
Bottom line
The Citi Premier Card is offering a great welcome bonus of 60,000 ThankYou points upon completing minimum spending. This is an excellent bonus, and anyone who is eligible should seriously consider applying, in my opinion.
Fortunately the Citi Premier Card shouldn’t be too tough to get approved for — just make sure you have a good credit score and are familiar with Citi’s eligibility requirements.
If you’ve applied for the Citi Premier Card, what was your experience like?
So, why should anyone apply for this card rather than other cards? It would have been nice to see a review of the card's benefits in this article here.
This is the only credit card I've ever been rejected for ... twice! I recall in their letter something about having too many un- or under- utilized credit cards.
This post needs to be updated. About 2 years ago this card became much much more difficult to get an approval, particularly if you have been in the points/miles hobby for any length of time. I was denied in 2021 for too much unused credit. They supposedly are also strict about credit checks & new accounts. So I waited until late 2022, made sure I had at least 3% of credit used, no new cards...
This post needs to be updated. About 2 years ago this card became much much more difficult to get an approval, particularly if you have been in the points/miles hobby for any length of time. I was denied in 2021 for too much unused credit. They supposedly are also strict about credit checks & new accounts. So I waited until late 2022, made sure I had at least 3% of credit used, no new cards in the last year and no credit pulls in 6 months, and was denied again, this time because I had used too much of the credit line on one particular account.
In April Ben wrote about being denied for a Citi AA card because of too much unused credit. He called it an unusual reason for denial, though for Citi this has been a very common reason cited over the past couple years.
This is helpful information, thank you.
24 months or 48 months?