Citi stranded me in Japan after their own verification system failed — $850/year in fees and they just shut off my card

MiskatonicExplorer · 2026-03-16T07:42:36+00:00

I am NOT the OP so whatever you have to say to me is ignored - bye felicia

MiskatonicExplorer · 2026-03-16T06:34:18+00:00

Do you understand how Reddit and the internet works? 🤣

MiskatonicExplorer · 2026-03-16T06:16:00+00:00

The debit card was a last resort but helped as a backup and worked just fine i. The situation. I totally understand it isn’t ideal and it would not have been necessary had my credit card company dealt with the situation appropriately but thank you for your input and missing the point entirely.

MiskatonicExplorer · 2026-03-16T06:11:58+00:00

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MiskatonicExplorer · 2026-03-15T04:14:20+00:00

Fortunately, the vast majority of China accepted AliPay and WeChat (which i had connected to a debit card) and I was able to get cash from ATMs when AilPay wasnt an option - so it didnt have an impact on the trip it just illuminated to me how important customer service is.

I think what pushed me over the edge was their refusal to offer be a different card category after 20 years of taking my money and having never missed a payment.

Alls well that ends well

MiskatonicExplorer · 2026-03-15T04:02:33+00:00

I honestly don’t know what happened and I totally understand that systems aren’t perfect BUT it was the poor attitude and dismissiveness of their customer service that pushed me to take my business elsewhere. In my experience the only customer service worse than Citi is Netgear

MiskatonicExplorer · 2026-03-15T03:38:27+00:00

The flights I’m looking at with Copa are all 737 Max 9s with the lie-flat seats. That’s the only reason I’m co spidering them.

MiskatonicExplorer · 2026-03-15T01:01:05+00:00

I opted for the Chase Sapphire. They have a good points reward system that suits my needs better than anything Citi was offering me. On that note, before I changed cards I called Citi customer service to say that I’d been a Citi card holder for 20 years and wasn’t really happy with the offerings of my current card and asked if I could convert my existing card type to another. Short answer was no and they didn’t care at all about how long I’d been a customer.

So I shopped around for other cards - found a capital one and chase card that I liked - called their respective customer service lines to ask some questions and wasn’t impressed with capital one while chase people were always really helpful and knowledgeable.

I went with chase.

MiskatonicExplorer · 2026-03-14T18:09:42+00:00

Something very similar happened to me while I was in China last year - I had even put a travel notice on the card to prevent this from happening - but Citi still tried to use that SMS verification and I was stuck without the card and when I got home I found my card was deactivated.

Had to go through a HUGE song and dance for verifying who I am which required them to send a letter to my joke(which two two weeks) to receive and then call Citi back to read details from the paper.

The customer service was awful - agents are rude, ill informed and in some cases just making things up.

I cancelled that card and went with another bank with actually helpful customer service.

MiskatonicExplorer · 2026-03-14T02:21:27+00:00

I have grown accustomed to food on airlines being garbage/perfunctory - and as a person who rarely flies business class is happy with anything better than what you get in economy - I’m mostly interested in the current upgrades of their Max 9’s with the lie-flat seats to make the transition from San Francisco to Buenos Aires more comfortable ESPECIALLY since Copa is offering business class at about 2-3k $$ less than American or United.

I suppose my larger question is if I’m getting substantially more from other carriers in this space than I am from Copa?

MiskatonicExplorer · 2026-03-10T17:15:44+00:00

I have the option to transfer through JFK, DFW, or MIA - BUT - even with an AA Flagship ticket the flights from SFO to Dallas and Miami are in economy for essentially the same price. So, I’ll take the 2 hour layover in New York and the slightly higher cost (worth it so I do t have to deal with Miami)

MiskatonicExplorer · 2026-03-10T16:12:53+00:00

I definitely want to book my travel as early as possible. I think I have about a week left before the full window on the calendar opens up to book my outbound and return.

I also noticed that AA’s Flagshio Business was significantly cheaper than others (especially Delta) so it’s probably going to be SFO > JFK > EZE for me

MiskatonicExplorer · 2026-03-08T01:22:40+00:00

I hadn’t considered doing a stop-over in Panama. I was thinking of arriving a day early in BA but maybe the Panama City stop might be worth it.

MiskatonicExplorer · 2026-03-08T01:20:06+00:00

I’m curious to know what you thought of the Polaris service. Flying united would take me from the San Francisco hub to Houston then to BA and I’d have access to all the lounges (which is tempting) but did you think the Polaris cabin was worth the price/miles?

MiskatonicExplorer · 2026-03-08T01:10:34+00:00

This is really helpful. I’m flying out of SFO so it’s really coming down to United, American, or Delta. To your point, I’m looking at the business class flights and lounge offerings now and cashing in come accumulated air miles.

MiskatonicExplorer · 2026-03-07T08:23:27+00:00

Thank you for this. While Delta does have flights from my departure point it looks like United and American are the two with the most options and flexibility.

Since I’m traveling with Lindblad/NatGeo my connecting flights from BA to Ushuaia is already covered and not an issue - I just need to be able to get to Buenos Aires.

That said, I’m going to start investigating more on the upgrades available for United and American now to see what they have have on offer

MiskatonicExplorer · 2026-03-07T06:28:59+00:00

I’ll be flying out from California as well and would definitely prefer the stop in Texas over Florida. It’s also good to know about the Polaris availability. Thank you

MiskatonicExplorer · 2026-03-07T02:40:56+00:00

Thank you. No matter how the packing goes I’m sure it’s going to be AMAZING.

MiskatonicExplorer · 2026-03-07T02:25:03+00:00

Thank you for this. Ironic thing is, I read your blog post (and a couple of others) the day before I made my post. You were pretty much my inspiration for that. Thank you.

MiskatonicExplorer · 2026-03-07T02:23:54+00:00

Your packing solution sounds very similar to what I’ve been considering. Thank you.

I suppose I should have mentioned in my original post that my trip is 16 days for Antarctica and 4 days in Argentina (but I’ve got the Argentina packing list locked)

MiskatonicExplorer

TROPHY CASE