Citi Cuts Travel Card Benefits Including Rental Car, Trip Insurance

A nationally recognized reporter, writer, and consumer advocate, Ed Perkins focuses on how travelers can find the best deals and avoid scams.

He is the author of "Online Travel" (2000) and "Business Travel: When It's Your Money" (2004), the first step-by-step guide specifically written for small business and self-employed professional travelers. He was also the co-author of the annual "Best Travel Deals" series from Consumers Union.

Perkins' advice for business travelers is featured on MyBusinessTravel.com, a website devoted to helping small business and self-employed professional travelers find the best value for their travel dollars.

Perkins was founding editor of Consumer Reports Travel Letter, one of the country's most influential travel publications, from which he retired in 1998. He has also written for Business Traveller magazine (London).

Perkins' travel expertise has led to frequent television appearances, including ABC's "Good Morning America" and "This Week with David Brinkley," "The CBS Evening News with Dan Rather," CNN, and numerous local TV and radio stations.

Before editing Consumer Reports Travel Letter, Perkins spent 25 years in travel research and consulting with assignments ranging from national tourism development strategies to the design of computer-based tourism models.

Born in Evanston, Illinois, Perkins lives in Ashland, Oregon with his wife.

See recent posts by Ed Perkins

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Do you rely on a Citi travel card for perks like insurance and lost baggage protection? You might want to take a look at your card’s newly updated benefits: Citibank is sharply reducing the travel add-ons, dropping a slew of protection benefits on all the cards that previously offered them.

As of September 22, 2019, buying with most Citi cards will no longer cover car rental insurance, trip cancellation insurance, worldwide accident insurance, delay protection, baggage delay protection, and medical evacuation assistance, along with several other non-travel benefits.

Dropped Citi Travel Card Perks

You can see what’s currently still covered here, and here’s the full list of what’s changing:

Worldwide Car Rental Insurance
Trip Cancellation & Interruption Protection
Worldwide Travel Accident Insurance
Trip Delay Protection
Baggage Delay Protection
Lost Baggage Protection
Citi Price Rewind
90 Day Return Protection
Roadside Assistance Dispatch Service
Travel & Emergency Assistance

These cuts are obvious game-changers for many travelers, who will undoubtedly change their pattern of credit card use in return. Travel experts are speculating that the move is due to the high costs Citi incurred by recently obtaining a lucrative Costo partnership. Maybe so, maybe not, but the reason for the change is really not relevant to travelers: If you no longer get the benefits you need, switch to one of the many cards that still offer them.

The big question is whether any other card issuers will follow Citi’s lead. I’ve often noted that nothing spreads faster in the travel industry than a bad idea; isn’t that how Basic Economy came to be?

There’s no way of predicting how the other giant card issuers might respond—by copying Citi? Or perhaps instead they’ll poach frustrated Citi customers instead. In any event, if you regularly rely on your credit card for rental-car protection and other travel benefits, keep a sharp eye out for possible changes.

Below is Citi’s official statement on the changes.

More from SmarterTravel:

Consumer advocate Ed Perkins has been writing about travel for more than three decades. The founding editor of the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, he continues to inform travelers and fight consumer abuse every day at SmarterTravel.

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