(Or Not) Don’t Cancel Your Citi Hilton Card – Convert Instead! (Not Working)

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Update: enough data points coming in that this is not working. Oh well, can’t win if you don’t try. Most likely this will not change though I see no reason to rush to cancel a Citi Hilton card. See if anything changes or any offers come your way.

Big news of a new line-up of Amex Hilton cards. Frequent Miler has 5 things you need to know about the the new Hilton credit cards.

I’m focused initially on the Citi Hilton cards which will transition to Amex Hilton.

I am seeing entirely too many knee-jerk reactions of people closing the cards to avoid converion to Amex. Stop!

Citi Hilton Conversion

If are not in the habit of converting unused Citi cards to other, more useful cards this is a great chance to start. The Amex conversion will not happen until January 30, 2018 which is enough time to initiate and complete a Citi product conversion.

Citi conversions typically take 51 days. You’ll be send a letter with the official date. To be safe, don’t dawdle in making your request.

You can generally convert to any Citi card, including still some useful ones no longer available for new applicants or that typically have poor sign-up bonuses. When you call, you may need to tell the first agent you want to cancel to get transferred to a retention specialist more familiar with conversions. Citi will be happy to keep your business!

You should still be able to convert to:

  • Citi Dividend for its quarterly 5% cash back categories (up to $300 cash back per year, can be earned even in just one quarter)
  • AT&T Access More/Access for 3x/2x ThankYou points for online purchases
  • Costco Anywhere Visa
  • Expedia cards for whatever they offer
  • ThankYou Preferred to use for future targeted spend offers and rentention offers (this will reset your ThankYou family 24-month clock, so only consider it if you are already resetting it)
  • Citi Double Cash
  • Even AA cards though not much point in that

Nick from Frequent Miler wrote me with to point out the possibility that Citi already closed off Hilton conversions last month, though we don’t have data points if it has reopened or will reopen. I don’t have a card to try, so you’ll have to and report back.

Our most recent conversion to a Dividend was in September.

You can have multiple Dividends by the way. I have 6. Drugstores were good to me this year.

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RewardFlying
RewardFlying
6 years ago

Ditto the no product conversion, however agent stated if I held the card (it’s the no fee version) through the AMEX transfer I would receive 5,000 Hilton points. Not sure that’s worth keeping the card but it’s something.

Ryan Flanigan
Ryan Flanigan
6 years ago

Can’t convert Hilton cards anymore.. I tried today, no good.

02nz
02nz
6 years ago

A bit of research would have prevented a posting that gives – right in the headline – wrong advice. I read elsewhere a few weeks ago that conversions from this card were no longer possible, and I confirmed that with a call to Citi, so I ended up canceling my card. I think the reasoning is that Amex wants certainty on how many accounts they’re taking over (buying) from Citi, so they probably wrote into the terms of their deal to have conversions ended well before the portfolio is sold to Amex.

Stefan @ Rapid Travel Chai
Reply to  02nz

Winning in this hobby is try and try again and not take reports as gospel, that was a few weeks ago, now the announcements have fully come out and things could have changed or could change later, pulling the trigger so early eliminated that chance for you.

Caulk Face
Caulk Face
6 years ago

I just tried calling Citi to do exactly that, they said they were blocked from doing any product conversions on the Reserve card. Said that my only hope was to hope I was one of the accounts that couldn’t be transferred to AMEX for whatever reason. (She didn’t know what the possible reasons would be.) Otherwise only option was to cancel the card.

Stefan @ Rapid Travel Chai
Reply to  Caulk Face

I have updated the post with this and the message from Nick, I don’t have a card to try to so relying on reports from others if it works or not, too bad that it sounds like not.

WR
WR
6 years ago
Reply to  Caulk Face

I just called too, and they also told me they can’t PC to anything. She did indicate that I could cancel, and that if I did then I would get a prorated AF refund. She also believed that if I did cancel now then a new Amex Ascend card would not be opened (I wasn’t sure if Amex already has the list and might open an account even if I canceled).

Stefan @ Rapid Travel Chai
Reply to  WR

I don’t see how Amex could open an account after you closed the Citi, enough data points seem discouraging of any hope Citi will change and it probably was written in the contract, if I still had a Citi Hilton card I would probably hang on to it and try again in a few weeks just to see if I get lucky, still plenty of time to cancel.

ABC
ABC
6 years ago

How many CCs does Citi allow? Or is it related to total CL? => reduce CL to $2k?

Stefan @ Rapid Travel Chai
Reply to  ABC

A free for app loosely tied to total credit limit, when they want to approve you they proactively offer to move credit around.