Costco Visa Caution

[gmarine]

I cannot log into the Costco Amex account at all--for two days! That is odd. So Amex just directs me to several Amex credit card choices, each time I try to log into our account.

I wonder if Amex will send only paper statements for this last billing? I so, I am going to be leaving town tomorrow afternoon, and our payment should be due before we get back. I am concerned I can never log into my account again.

My Costco Amex card is no longer listed in my Amex card profile. My other Amex cards are there but not the Costco card. I think as of June 20th they must have auto canceled all the Costco Amex cards and with that online access to the account is gone.

 

[davidvel]

The letter that went out from Amex said your account would be deactivated June 20 and to download any statements/records you wanted before then. Spiteful.

 

[dioxide45]

I cannot log into the Costco Amex account at all--for two days! That is odd. So Amex just directs me to several Amex credit card choices, each time I try to log into our account.

I wonder if Amex will send only paper statements for this last billing? I so, I am going to be leaving town tomorrow afternoon, and our payment should be due before we get back. I am concerned I can never log into my account again.

I think all balances transferred to Citi, so Citi will pick up the next billing which will include any pre 6/20 charged that weren't yet billed. Credit cards have to provide at least 20 days between your statement date and the due date, will you be gone longer than that? If you have the card already, you can probably sign up for the new online access at Citi and check your balances and billings there.

 

[rhonda]

I cannot log into the Costco Amex account at all--for two days! That is odd. So Amex just directs me to several Amex credit card choices, each time I try to log into our account.

I wonder if Amex will send only paper statements for this last billing? I so, I am going to be leaving town tomorrow afternoon, and our payment should be due before we get back. I am concerned I can never log into my account again.

Your balance has been transferred to the new Citi card. The due date should remain the same. You should be able to log in on the Citi website to pay the current cycle from there?

FWIW, when I finally broke down and registered my (unwanted, unloved) Costco Citi card, I was prompted to create my weblogin immediately. Yes, the Costco Amex disappeared from my Amex web login sometime before midnight (local, PDT) on Sunday. Gladly, I had already set up my payment of the current bill cycle prior to the Amex>Citi cutover.

 

[rhonda]

I think all balances transferred to Citi, so Citi will pick up the next billing which will include any pre 6/20 charged that weren't yet billed. Credit cards have to provide at least 20 days between your statement date and the due date, will you be gone longer than that? If you have the card already, you can probably sign up for the new online access at Citi and check your balances and billings there.

I believe the transferred balanced is effective w/in the same billing cycle -- so no "next billing cycle grace period." If one's June payment was due between 6/21-6/30 it will be necessary to quickly acclimate to Citi's payment processing!

I paid my account in full a few billing days early through the Amex website and have just completed linking Citi to my checking account w/ a safety net instruction to auto pay the minimum. Their "auto pay" function said it would start drawing minimum payments every month starting 6/23 (tomorrow) which was the end of my current billing cycle.

Recap: The May bill from Amex was either already paid to/through Amex or is now paid to Citi on the same due date.

 

[klpca]

Yes it was spiteful of them to not even provide read-only access after June 20. I had already downloaded the info (because I went through this same thing when the Hawaiian card went from B of A to Barclay's a few years ago) but I wanted to look at one thing but it disappeared on Sunday night. I believe that you can request paper copies of your statements from Citi for the past few months.

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

 

[gmarine]

I went online to my Amex account to pay my latest bill in full which is due July 6th and couldnt even pay the bill. I have to either send a check by mail or set up bill pay from my bank account for the one payment.

 

[dioxide45]

I went online to my Amex account to pay my latest bill in full which is due July 6th and couldnt even pay the bill. I have to either send a check by mail or set up bill pay from my bank account for the one payment.

How else would you pay the bill? They have to take it from somewhere. We have the AAdvantage Card from Citi and have it setup to pay the bill online. You setup your bank information once and then can go in any time and pay it.

 

[Kal]

All the AMEX charges/payments are now listed on the Citi-Costco account.

My problem is instead of having two cards showing up on a single AX account statement, now there are two different account numbers. Each account now has its own listing and are not combined. Will have to see if I have to pay separately on each account. The annual discount totals show up on the Citi account at the same value as previously with the AX statement.

The payment for charges incurred before 6/20 will be paid to Citi and not to AX.

 

[gmarine]

How else would you pay the bill? They have to take it from somewhere. We have the AAdvantage Card from Citi and have it setup to pay the bill online. You setup your bank information once and then can go in any time and pay it.

Really ? You mean I still have to pay the bill ?

I wasnt clear in my post. I went online to Amex to pay the bill and the card is deleted from my Amex account. I cannot pay the bill directly to Amex. I have to set up a one time bill pay via another bank account or send a check. No big deal but I was surprised they deleted the card along with the ability to pay the current bill.

 

[dioxide45]

Really ? You mean I still have to pay the bill ?

I wasnt clear in my post. I went online to Amex to pay the bill and the card is deleted from my Amex account. I cannot pay the bill directly to Amex. I have to set up a one time bill pay via another bank account or send a check. No big deal but I was surprised they deleted the card along with the ability to pay the current bill.

Okay, gotcha. Yeah, it seems like you won't pay your bill to Amex. Set it up on the Citi website to pay Citi since the full balance would have transferred to Citi.

 

[VacationForever]

I had autopay (pull) set up for the Amex Costco. Thank goodness I just logged into the Citi account, it shows the due date of today. Phew!

 

[rapmarks]

my billing cycle is at the end of the month. I assumed I would get a final bill from Amex; I do not have the citi card, it was sent back because they do not forward. Does anyone have the customer service umber for the new card?

 

[ThreeLittleBirds]

I got a couple warning emails and messages from Amex at log in that I would have zero access to my account as of June 20th.

I was pleasantly surprised to see all of my current transactions on the citi site.

I don't have the number if you didn't get the card but you might find it here: https://creditcards.citicards.com/usc/Costco/Dual/2016/June/PS/default.htm?BT_SC=J.PB.Bm*.vy.HuY.cZU.jLy.A.EGO&BT_TRF=180121&m=6SGO111111W&cmp=KNC~01~110901~CRDACQXX~Google&BT_MKWD=Test%2C+s3WUdcRi9%7Cdc_pcrid_103687328765_pmt_b_pkw_citigroup+visa+card+costco_slid_&ProspectID=CDE6C078107046788FB43BB0645436C7

 

[rapmarks]

the number if you did not receive your card is 855 378 6467 and i am on a long wait for next available operator

 

[PigsDad]

Costco, Citi Deluged by Complaints in Rocky Credit-Card Rollout

Kurt

 

[beejaybee]

No Interest

Due to the huge snafus caused by the switchover, there is a message on the Citicard Costco phone line indicating that no interest will be charged on outstanding balances until 7/31.

I tried to pay my Costco Amex online today for its 6/28 due date and of course could not. Already am registered with Citicards for another card but could not figure out how to add the Costco VISA. I had to speak to a Costco citicard rep who helped me through the process and it is now setup.

Citicards are on my bad list, so we plan on using one of our other VISA cards in the future.

 

[rhonda]

Due to the huge snafus caused by the switchover, there is a message on the Citicard Costco phone line indicating that no interest will be charged on outstanding balances until 7/31.

Ah, good on them for that move!

Citicards are on my bad list, so we plan on using one of our other VISA cards in the future.

Yes, they are on my "ugh, don't prefer to use this card!" list, also. Instead, we plan to use it as a gas card for the 4% but charge store purchases to Chase Visa which currently offers 5% on Warehouse Store purchases (excluding gas).

From the Bloomberg article, linked by Kurt, "Citigroup, the world’s biggest credit-card lender, ranked second-to-last out of 10 companies in a J.D. Power credit-card customer satisfaction ranking last year." Personally, I'd put them second-to-last out of 50 cards ...

 

[dioxide45]

I wonder if a lot of the snafus are because of people moving since they last received their Amex Costco card or they no longer have the phone number that was associated with their Amex card? That would make registration difficult. With the tens of millions of cards sent out, even a 100,000 customers with problems would be a small percentage, but the phone lines simply can't handle it.

 

[PigsDad]

Somebody at Amex is probably chuckling a bit right now...

Kurt

 

[rickandcindy23]

The buzz on Flyertalk was the opposite. Supposedly, Costco's switch to Citibank really hurt Amex. They had a lot of customers through Costco.

There aren't a lot of Amex cards worth having. I was thinking of the Amex Platinum card for a while. Not sure if I could recover enough benefits from the high fee. I cannot make sense of the benefits, including the airport lounge access. I also don't know why credit card companies cannot get into their thick skulls that points are a random currency, if one is not familiar with that system. It takes a lot of digging to figure it all out.

 

[Ken555]

The buzz on Flyertalk was the opposite. Supposedly, Costco's switch to Citibank really hurt Amex. They had a lot of customers through Costco.

Apparently Costco made up 10% of AMEX cardholders.

 

[PigsDad]

Apparently Costco made up 10% of AMEX cardholders.

True, but because of the great deal Costco negotiated with Amex (lower transaction fees, higher benefits), Amex was making very little money off of those cardholders. It may have hurt Amex to lose those cardholders in the short term, but I think it was probably a good thing for them in the long term.

Kurt

 

[Ken555]

True, but because of the great deal Costco negotiated with Amex, Amex was making very little money off of those cardholders. I think it hurt Amex in the short term, but I think it was probably a good thing for them in the long term.



Kurt

I'm sure we will eventually know the truth. I've read this opinion (here) previously and it sounds like spin to me.

 

[DaveNV]

The word I'm hearing from my spouse, the senior Refund Cashier in the Membership Department of our Costco, is:

The biggest reason people haven't received their cards is because the address on file isn't where the people are living. The cards can't be forwarded, so are returned to Citi.

They then stand in line at the Membership Desk and ask for the Costco person to make them a new card, (can't do that - it comes from Citi), or that they CALL CITI FOR THEM and tell them to fix the issue. Uh, no. You need to call them yourself...

The second biggest complaint I'm hearing is about the dozens of whiny people bitching about why they can't use their Amex card at Costco - "just for today. Puhleeease???" It laughable.

And the third biggest complaint: Some are claiming they never heard a word about the changeover. "What do you mean my Amex card isn't any good anymore???" The conversation goes downhill from there.

All I can say is I'm really, really glad I don't work for Costco.

Dave