Editor’s note: This is a recurring post, regularly updated with new information. Citi is a TPG advertising partner.
Citi closed applications for its premium ThankYou Rewards card, the Citi Prestige® Card, in July 2021. However, some cardmembers, myself included, have kept the card and continued paying its $495 annual fee because of its valuable benefits.
Our Citi Prestige Card review explains all the benefits and why you should consider keeping the card if you already have it. But in this guide, I’ll discuss just one of the card’s unique perks: its complimentary fourth-night hotel benefit. This benefit, more commonly known as the Citi Prestige fourth-night free, gives you a fourth night free on up to two stays per calendar year. Here’s what you need to know.
The information for the Citi Prestige has been collected independently by The Points Guy. The card details on this page have not been reviewed or provided by the card issuer.
What is the Citi Prestige fourth-night free benefit?
The complimentary fourth-night hotel benefit is a perk available to Citi Prestige cardmembers. This perk gives you a fourth night free on up to two hotel stays each calendar year.
To enjoy a complimentary fourth night, you must:
- Book a minimum of a four-consecutive-night hotel stay through the Citi Travel site or by calling 1-833-737-1288.
- Pay for your stay with your Citi Prestige Card, Citi ThankYou points or a combination of ThankYou points and your Citi Prestige Card.
Citi bases the fourth night benefit on your stay’s average nightly rate, excluding taxes and fees. The price you pay during booking includes the fourth-night benefit savings. Additionally, the fourth-night benefit has the following restrictions and requirements:
- Bookings can only be made in the primary cardmember’s or authorized user‘s name.
- Only one complimentary night is possible per stay. Citi considers back-to-back stays to be one stay, so you can’t use two fourth-night benefits on back-to-back reservations at the same property.
- For group reservations or other reservations consisting of multiple rooms, only one room will qualify for a complimentary night.
- Reservations made through any party or channel other than the Citi Travel site or 1-833-737-1288 are not eligible for the fourth-night benefit.
- Discount rates such as corporate codes, loyalty program member rates, government rates and AAA rates can’t be used. You can only book rates that are available through the Citi Travel website.
Finally, the fourth-night benefit doesn’t apply to some stay types. For example, it excludes yachts, riverboats, cruises, campgrounds, castles, safaris, villas, apartments and any properties not bookable through the Citi Travel website.
Related: What you need to know about direct versus third-party travel bookings
How to book a complimentary fourth-night stay
You can book a complimentary fourth-night stay in two ways: online through the Citi Travel site or by calling 1-833-737-1288. Since Citi removed the ability to book hotels that didn’t appear on the Citi Travel website over the phone on Oct. 1, 2021, now there’s no benefit to booking over the phone. So, here’s the process for booking a fourth-night stay online through the Citi Travel site.
Enter dates and destination
After you log in to your Citi account and navigate to the Citi Travel portal, select “Hotels” and enter your destination, dates and the number of guests before clicking “Search.”
Select a hotel
The next page should return a list of available properties near your destination. You can filter the results by property type, collection type, star rating, neighborhood, room offers, payment options, property facilities, guest rating and more.
Choose your room and rate
Once you select a hotel, you’ll usually see multiple room types available for booking.
Pay for your stay
On the next page, you can decide whether to use your complimentary fourth-night hotel benefit. For this stay, doing so would drop the four-night cost from $1,847 to $1,531.
Once you confirm your guest details, click “Continue to payment.” On this page, you can choose how many points (if any) you’d like to redeem.
You can apply points to hotel bookings at a rate of one cent per point. But this is far below TPG’s October 2024 valuation of Citi ThankYou points at 1.8 cents each. So I don’t recommend redeeming Citi ThankYou points for hotel bookings through Citi Travel.
Related: Citi’s Hotel Collection and Luxury Collection: Get free breakfast and premium perks
Elite earnings and benefits
Unfortunately, stays booked through Citi Travel usually won’t be eligible for points earning and elite benefits through hotel loyalty programs. The frequently asked questions section of the Citi Prestige card benefits notes, “Frequent traveler accounts cannot be used when booking via ThankYou.com or when calling the ThankYou travel center.”
This being said, you can always ask the hotel to add your loyalty number at check-in. Most hotels won’t offer elite benefits and earnings when you book through an online travel agency such as the Citi Travel portal. But even if you don’t earn points and stay credit, the individual property could decide to offer you some on-site elite benefits.
Are Citi Travel portal rates competitive?
The lowest rates available through the Citi Travel website are often higher than the member rates available when booking directly with the hotel loyalty program. Plus, you usually won’t get elite benefits and earnings when booking through Citi Travel.
However, in some cases, you’ll find that Citi Travel offers rates similar to booking directly. For instance, booking the example stay discussed above directly with Atlantis would actually cost me a few cents more than booking through Citi Travel without the fourth-night benefit (and $317 more than booking through Citi Travel with the fourth-night benefit).
Likewise, booking a flexible member rate at The Coral through Marriott Bonvoy would cost $1,808 — $39 less than through Citi Travel without a fourth night free but $277 more than through Citi Travel with a fourth night free. However, I’d get Marriott Bonvoy earnings on my room rate if I booked my stay through Marriott.
In general, you’ll get better value from the complimentary fourth-night benefit when you use it at luxury hotels and hotels that don’t participate in major loyalty programs. However, I recommend considering the net cost — the out-of-pocket cost minus elite earnings and credit card earnings — of each of your favorite booking methods when deciding how to book a stay.
Related: Incognito mode and third-party apps: Do travel booking hacks actually work?
Bottom line
Longtime cardholders will lament how the Citi Prestige fourth-night-free benefit is not nearly as valuable as it once was. Indeed, this perk was once one of the best Citi Prestige benefits, whereas now I don’t even use it once most years since I value getting hotel elite status benefits and earnings on my stays. However, the perk can still provide value, especially if you carefully consider when and how to use your two free-night benefits each year.
If you’re interested in other ways to get a free night on an upcoming hotel stay, remember Marriott provides a fifth night free on all award stays, Hilton provides a fifth night free to elite members on award stays and IHG offers a complimentary fourth night on award stays to select IHG cardholders. Additionally, some Fine Hotels + Resorts properties offer a third or fourth night free.
