"Opt out" and "no-preset" ... food for thought... in my observations, I have seen people report new credit cards on this FG site and they put no-preset for the CL. I know for a fact the card(s) they are referring to do NOT have no-preset so I suspect folks get confused, don't understand or are not reporting the facts. There are not a lot of "no-preset" cards out there other than what you mentioned and AX has a few.

3 cards lmao.....The majority of people i read were told they could not opt out(like yourself) but a few posted they were opted out so i take their comments with a grain of salt because as told this was for all carriers of the card.I believe these banks are making moves like these just to get around the credit card act somehow and forcing you to accept the change is bad business as far as I'm concern.

Well, the higher level the card (standard, gold, platinium, World) the higher the fee the card issuer collects from the merchants that we use our cards at. It isn't just Citibank. A lot of the major banks (especially Chase) that offer rewards are increasingly upgrading accounts to World MasterCard and Visa Signature because the higher interchange fee helps offset the cost of the reward. So I see why they are doing it. And yeah, because of CARD Act the banks cannot make as much money on fees like they used to, so they are scrambling to get income from wherever they can. I also think that maybe they truely are trying to get some people to close their accounts, especially "deadbeats" like me that use the account and pay in full each month to get the reward.

As for the people that are posting that they have been able to opt out yet keep the account as a Platinum Select Dividend and keep it open: it is possible that their credit does not warrant the World card? Maybe it would be risky to give some people the World with it's "no preset spending limit" so they allow them to stay at Platinum. But I doubt it, I think they might be fibbing. But why would anybody lie about something like that? Oy vey.

I read that on another board as well. Someone claimed to have three, yes three, Dividend cards (I have to wonder, in order to get the maximum reward, you would have to spend a lot on just one card, why three-unless they are skating the yearly maximum of $300 per year?) and they said that they were able to opt out of World. I do not know what to believe because I already called and spoke to a "supervisor" and so did my friend and we were both told no. I suppose I can try again to see what happens. I was told the only way to opt out was to close the account-which I may do anyway.

3 cards lmao.....The majority of people i read were told they could not opt out(like yourself) but a few posted they were opted out so i take their comments with a grain of salt because as told this was for all carriers of the card.I believe these banks are making moves like these just to get around the credit card act somehow and forcing you to accept the change is bad business as far as I'm concern.

I do not know if this is true or not but I've read that people asked for a supervisor and was approved for the op-out of the conversion.

I read that on another board as well. Someone claimed to have three, yes three, Dividend cards (I have to wonder, in order to get the maximum reward, you would have to spend a lot on just one card, why three-unless they are skating the yearly maximum of $300 per year?) and they said that they were able to opt out of World. I do not know what to believe because I already called and spoke to a "supervisor" and so did my friend and we were both told no. I suppose I can try again to see what happens. I was told the only way to opt out was to close the account-which I may do anyway.

I do not know if this is true or not but I've read that people asked for a supervisor and was approved for the op-out of the conversion.

Yes... It's still a Dividend Platinum Select card and I've been reading recently that people with the card is being converted to a World Mastercard or World Elite Mastercard with rotating rewards like Discover.if or when i get the letter i will declined the change because its being reported as a signature line card i believe.

Yup, last weekend I received a letter stating that the 2% on gas/groceries/drug stores/utilities is going away but they will have rotating extra rewards. July through September it is restaurants and car rentals.....well I didn't read towards the bottom of the letter. Then my friend (that I referred the card to) told me that the cards are being upgraded to World. Looked at my letter and I'll be darned, she was right. Yeah, the World doesn't report a limit, but unlike other creditors, Citibank doesn't even report the high balance-they report a zero.
I called today to see if I could opt out of the "upgrade." Nope, I was told that I could not participate in the Dividend program without being at the World level. I asked if they could change the MasterCard into a Visa Dividend or an Amex Dividend (the Visa is actively promoted to college students and they used to market the Amex version a few years ago). Citibank used to be really good about changing products at the drop of a dime and one time they asked me if I wanted my AT&T MasterCard changed to a Visa. After being transfered to a rep in the US (because I could not understand the rep that I got from India) he told me that due to the CARD Act they are no longer able to change card types.
I know why they are doing it, the higher level the card, the more money Citibank gets from the merchants that I use the card at. This helps pay for the reward. The paranoid part of me thinks that they are just trying to get people to close the cards because the program is costing them too much. Credit unions, credit unions!!!

Eugene, were you the one that was approved for a Citibank Dividend MasterCard recently? Is yours a World MasterCard or a Platinum Select MasterCard?

Yes... It's still a Dividend Platinum Select card and I've been reading recently that people with the card is being converted to a World Mastercard or World Elite Mastercard with rotating rewards like Discover.if or when i get the letter i will declined the change because its being reported as a signature line card i believe.

I was reading about the history of Citi and boy did they ever try to create a conglomerate business model in the 90's that got out of hand in recent years.

Eugene, were you the one that was approved for a Citibank Dividend MasterCard recently? Is yours a World MasterCard or a Platinum Select MasterCard?

Citigroup announced today they would close 330 branches in their consumer finance organization (Citi Financial) as part of their ongoing bank restructuring. The name CitiFinancial would go away and a new name would be forth coming.

They got way too big with that illfated Travelers merger. They had said last year that they were going to split into a "good" bank and a "bad" bank with the bad assets. The good back was to again be called Citicorp. Very interesting....

I was reading about the history of Citi and boy did they ever try to create a conglomerate business model in the 90's that got out of hand in recent years.

Citigroup announced today they would close 330 branches in their consumer finance organization (Citi Financial) as part of their ongoing bank restructuring. The name CitiFinancial would go away and a new name would be forth coming.

Citi Bank & Group's Yard Sale just keeps on rolling (the reconstruct of the "big boy" banks is in the process) :

By MATTHIAS RIEKER Wall Street Journal 06-01-10

NEW YORK— Citigroup Inc. is positioning its CitiFinancial consumer lending unit to grow—and thus to be sold more easily.

Citi said it plans to split its mainly subprime consumer-lending unit in the U.S. into two segments, and to rename it later this year.

One segment will hold the branches that make most of its loans. The other segment will service loans in markets where demand may remain low and certain loans whose borrowers may need assistance, including loan modification or restructuring.

The restructuring of CitiFinancial is designed to help Citi to offload the unit, one of the largest of the businesses Citi has marked for divestiture. The segment holding most of the branches will be CitiFinancial's growth driver and, Citi hopes, illustrate how attractive CitiFinancial can be to its future owner. The loan-servicing segment, with 35% of CitiFinancial's customers and 182 of its 1,833 U.S. branches, might not find investors as interested, said Mary McDowell, the Chief Executive of CitiFinancial North America.

CitFinancial will close 320 branches.

When a sale of CitiFinancial will occur is unclear. "We've had a lot of interest," Ms. McDowell said. She wouldn't elaborate which potential buyers expressed interest.

"We looked into the future and felt if we continue" to simply close branches to adjust for falling loan demand "you wouldn't provide" investors with a clear picture about CitiFinancial's future, Ms. McDowell said.

How will banking look in the future ?

Today while passing Dallas Cowboys stadium(huge) i noticed a Citibank banking center nearby and thought that couldn't be right but there it was because i was born and raised in the DFW area and I've never seen anything of Citibank around here but i guess they are making there presence here slowly...it's great thought because it seems like there is a Chase and Boa on every corner here.

Citibank recently entered into the DFW area. They also have a lot of offices down there for mortgages and car loans (Citifinancial). We have a ton of Chase here in Denver but no BofA. I have no idea why BofA has not entered into our market especially with the hundreds of thousands of Californians that have moved here.

Today while passing Dallas Cowboys stadium(huge) i noticed a Citibank banking center nearby and thought that couldn't be right but there it was because i was born and raised in the DFW area and I've never seen anything of Citibank around here but i guess they are making there presence here slowly...it's great thought because it seems like there is a Chase and Boa on every corner here.

You know Travelers was a good company with the red umbrella and I always liked them as a stand alone. Citi took a big kick from their sub-prime Citi Financial. It is biting them big time now. The article didn't mention that one.