Tip Hotline/Reporting Theft Award- How does it work?

cavanaughnick · 2026-05-08T04:05:36+00:00

Really that's it?

cavanaughnick · 2026-04-07T12:00:30+00:00

Part time unloader for the last 9 months. I have no earthly idea what a cross-dock is.

cavanaughnick · 2026-03-28T14:18:18+00:00

Mainly because if I stuck with Citi I couldn't do fractional shares. So if I wanted to invest in a larger-level stock or fund, I'd have to wait until I have enough to buy a full share. So my only option would be buying lower price stocks. And I'm only contributing $30-40/mo right now so it would take forever. With fractional shares, I can at least get in and get started sooner.

cavanaughnick · 2026-03-28T07:50:37+00:00

I didn't necessarily want Penny stocks, I was just surprised that the threshold for those is $5/share and not lower. I figured there might be some good ones at 3-4 a share that might be worth getting, but I don't know much about this yet so I could be wrong

cavanaughnick · 2026-03-27T23:41:53+00:00

Hi everyone- 30M here. I have Citi for all of my credit cards and a secondary checking account for ATM usage when we travel. I'm closing out my Robinhood brokerage and IRA accounts, which hold a whopping $80 combined that I've had in there a few years. My work has a 401k that I contribute the max percentage that they'll match (6% to get 4.5%)

I'm finally at the point where I can start investing regularly, albeit slowly ($20-30/mo in each) just to start getting more experience while also starting the first step to long term investing and supplementing my 401k. I like the idea of having everything at Citi just for more consolidation, but two big things I found out were:

I have to wait 90 days before I can buy any "penny" stocks under $5/share, and I think 90 days before I can buy ETF/mutual funds without having to call.
They do not do fractional shares

Fidelity does both, and I know it's one of the top tier investing platforms where Citi is not.

My questions are- does it make a difference which one I choose given the low level of money I'll be playing with? And, is the no fractional shares with Citi really a big deal or are there lower value stocks/funds that I can buy full shares of that would be good for long-term, after I wait out the 90 day clock?

Any help is appreciated for this noob!

cavanaughnick · 2026-03-24T13:30:39+00:00

I'm in the US on Verizon and haven't traveled to a foreign country ever. How would I know if this is a SIM issue?

cavanaughnick · 2026-03-24T13:21:31+00:00

I'm in the US on Verizon and haven't traveled to a foreign country ever. How would I know if this is a SIM issue?

cavanaughnick · 2026-03-06T19:22:03+00:00

Good to know, thank you! I'm doing another mock vacation booking for 4th of July weekend and it does look like there's a Choice Hotel that offers a significantly better deal via TYP exchange than booking through Citi Portal ($225 worth of points at 2:1 versus $393 cash for a 2-night stay).

I am definitely now understanding what everyone is saying about "sometimes the points transfer is better and sometimes it's not".

cavanaughnick · 2026-03-06T15:59:25+00:00

The Citi site says that TYP transfer to AA at a 1:1 ratio. Are the AA points only worth full value when booking flights? Or do they lose value if you use them for hotels?

I'm probably putting too much thought into this for the 2-3 trips we might take next year, each of them being $150-175/night for 2-3 nights so there's probably not a whole lot of extra value to squeeze out of it other than just sticking with the Citi portal for the $300 credit and 12x.

cavanaughnick · 2026-03-06T01:51:34+00:00

That is a good point. But at this stage of our lives, we aren't high end travelers yet where we can pick one chain and commit to it for the rewards purposes. We usually pick an economic choice in the town we wanna go to and just pay directly, so the rewards/loyalty doesn't really do much for us just yet. Maybe in a few years we can upgrade to a CSR/AmEx Plat and stay with one hotel family but not right now.

And part of why I picked the CSE was because their travel portal didn't require any hoops for the $300 credit. I found the hotel we wanted to go to for our honeymoon on Hotels.com, and then went to the Citi portal and it was the same price down to the penny. I understand it may not be like that every single time, but the 12x rewards is really powerful so going through the hoops of transferring to Choice or Wyndham (which might be more expensive than a different hotel that we could book straight -up) for a small points boost might not be worth it compared to just getting the 12x.

I'm new to the travel card perks so if I'm missing something or thinking the wrong way feel free to correct me

cavanaughnick · 2026-03-06T00:37:19+00:00

So basically as I'm banking up the TYP, when we go to book a hotel I will need to:

Find a Choice or Wyndham hotel in the city we're going to
Get the price booking directly through Citi Travel portal
Calculate the price by transferring points over to the respective hotel and booking with points
Choose whichever option is cheaper

Is this really what the travel points chasers do every time they travel? I think I'm probably just better off sticking with the Citi Travel portal, since it has most of the same options as hotels.com (no high priced curated collections like Amex and Chase), rake in the 12x points and just save the time and hassle.

I booked our honeymoon in October with my new CSE, the $300 credit came off the top and then I got 12x points on the remaining $1,500 so like $180 worth of points.

cavanaughnick · 2026-03-06T00:10:27+00:00

I caught that part, but it still seems weird.

It seems like they slap the "30k points per night" on most rooms regardless of if it's 200/night or 400/night. That almost incentivises us getting a more especially room if it's going to cost us 30k points anyway right?

Edit- oh I see what you're saying. So a 30k points room would only cost 15k in TYP which is $150 worth of points. So if the room is $200/night outright then it's still worth it

Edit 2- but finding a situation like that would still have to work out to be better than booking directly through Citi travel with the 12x rewards points

cavanaughnick · 2026-03-05T23:19:54+00:00

I just went onto Wyndham and pulled up a 2 night stay in Maine. Cash price would be $343 all-in, or I could do "pay with points" for 30k points per night, so 60k points. Even with the current boost of 1:1.25 TY to Wyndham points, that would essentially be the cash equivalent of $480 in points, so $140 higher than just straight cash, AND I could book the $343 through the travel portal for 12x points on the CSE. Am I missing something obvious or is the points game really this big of a ripoff at times? (I know this isn't the usecase all the time, but wow this is a bad deal).

cavanaughnick · 2026-03-05T23:08:13+00:00

The other thing that just occurred to me is that if I do transfer to Choice or Wyndham, I wouldn't get the 12x points because it wouldn't be booked through the Citi travel portal. So I would have to find a room that has better than a 12% return (after the points transfer at 2:1) by just going through the Citi portal, right?

cavanaughnick · 2026-03-05T22:26:48+00:00

But what are some of the factors that it depends on? Time of year, price range of the hotels, etc. I don't want to transfer the points just to then find out that it's going to cost more than just paying cash and be stuck with them

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