I know some of you use thank you points to redeem for student loan rebates. I just called today and found out that as of 6/5/2009 the required points for student loan rebates are increasing. I could only find out that the $50 rebate is increasing from 5,000 pts to 7,300 pts. The friendly CSR who offered this information on her own accord also informed me that they aren't required to send advance notice. I'd suggest anyone who wants to use their points for student loan rebates do so ASAP.

Any remaining reason to stick with Citi is now gone. Here I come Schwab!

is this only for $50 or there are changes for $100 and above as well?

Glad I cashed in a week ago

It's all TripleB's fault.

Thank you for the heads up.

5x points on various categories still kicks the crap out of an overall 2% CashBack if redeemed for flights or gift cards. But that may not be true, say, next year.

Thanks for the heads up. I called to redeem my points and the lady said the change would take effect July 5th. I repeated this and she confirmed July 5th. The new point requirements are.....

$100 - 14,500
$75 - 10,900
$50 - 7,300
$25 - 3,800

She said they haven't disclosed the higher amount point requirements yet.

EDIT: Looks like everyone else that talks to a CSR gets the June 5th date. Maybe my CSR doesn't know that the 6th month is June not July.

lame... Just cashed out 25000 points...

This takes the Citi Plat AMEX from a 3% to a 2.1% card. The Citi Forward goes from a 4% to a 2.8% card.

I totally discount the value of gift cards considering the inflated price factor, and the low resale value.

edit, I guess the mortgage rebate rates are better (as of now). Do they work the same way?

Agreed on Staples - easy to turn $100 of Staples into some cheap crap and $100 rebate checks to go with it, or with the right coupon, $125 of rebate checks/vista debit cards =)

this still ticks me off - I just checked my purchase history and i've gotten $3,350 of student loan rebate checks made out to Sallie Mae since 8/06 - and this is just my account, we've put about $1800 of them through my fiance's also made out directly to Aunt Sallie, so we were using it for the real purpose of them

Good thing my 3 points/$1 is almost up on the citi AMEX anyways, just wish this change didn't happen until after my final payments were due for the wedding

bbr said:Thanks for the heads up. I called to redeem my points and the lady said the change would take effect July 5th. I repeated this and she confirmed July 5th. The new point requirements are.....

$100 - 14,500
$75 - 10,900
$50 - 7,300
$25 - 3,800

She said they haven't disclosed the higher amount point requirements yet.

I hope it's JULY not JUNE. My wife needs 4 stinkin' points to get another $25 back (she redeemed 15,000 already this morning after seeing this post), but the her statement won't post until the 7th. So, if it's JULY, that's good. If not

Thank you very much OP for the heads-up.