Consumer complaint received 2024-07-08
Product: Credit card — General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Advertising and marketing, including promotional offers — Didn't receive advertised or promotional terms
Company: CITIBANK, N.A. (VA)

This complaint is for the Citi XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX. 

When looking to purchase a flight on XXXX XXXX ( today, XX/XX/year> ), there is an advertisement that shows " New Cardmember Offer ''. It says you can earn up to {$200.00} statement credit + XXXX bonus miles after getting the card. The most concerning, and in particular, is that they highlight that today you pay for the flight ticket, they subtract the stated statement credit, and show you the total after the statement credit. This implies that someone would be able to use their card, for the exact flight they were looking at, and would receive a statement credit for doing so. 

Now here 's where things go awry. Once I applied for the card, I was instantly approved. Upon approval, there was an option that said " get instant access to spending ''. I clicked it, received a confirmation code via text, and submitted it. It said it had gone through and that I'd be able to access XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX credit line instantly ( enough to pay for the flight and start earning rewards ). However, the page timed out, and I was unable to access my instant spend ability. I gave customer service a call the same day, they said I'd receive an email with the details -- I never did. I got re-routed to a supervisor, they said there's nothing they could do, that they could not provide the details of instant spend over the phone for security purposes ( despite it being fine for me to provide them my social security over the phone ). Additionally, they said I could not get access to instant spend, and that I'd have to wait for my card to arrive. 

Overall, the issue is as followings : ( XXXX ) their advertisement implies instant spend ability ( and does not honor it ) ( XXXX ) I was given instant spend ability, but their website faced an error ( that they were unable to resolve ) ( XXXX ) I never got the ability to instantly spend, and take advantage of earning rewards on my spend ( as advertised / promised ) ( XXXX ) No one was able to help resolve the issue, and supervisors kept trying to say that the terms and conditions say exclusions apply. However, if you read the terms and conditions, my situation indicates Citi is breaching their terms. Their terms say " If instantly authorized, credit cardmembers will receive temporary account information and a temporary minimum credit limit. This temporary account information can be used during payment for the current eligible XXXX XXXX purchases at time of checkout to receive the statement credit. '' -- - they key part is " If instantly authorized '' and I was instantly authorized, and never given the ability to do what they promise. 

Overall, I'd recommend Citi remove their deceptive marketing practices since I believe a majority of consumers are not getting the ability to instantly spend, and thus are being fooled into a false promise of being able to earn rewards on the current flight they are purchasing when all they are left with is waiting XXXX business days for the card to arrive in the mail. This is a classic bait-and-switch type of situation that Citi is engaged in XXXX and I'd love to see the % of customers that get to use the offer as promised ( my guess is XXXX % XXXX ). 

This marketing is deceptive, unfair, and hurts consumers by forcing them to either ( XXXX ) not get what is promised or ( XXXX ) to get what is somewhat advertised 10 days later -- they'd either have to wait XXXX business days to receive their card and face the high probability event that flight prices increase, or pay for their flight today and earn the card rewards later.