Also see: 

• Just Booked: Martinique $317 Round-Trip and Non-Stop on Norwegian
• I’m Prestigious! Getting Citi Prestige and First Impressions of the Card

I’ve been getting to know the ins and outs of my new Citi Prestige card, including the perk I was most excited about: the 4th night free benefit.

Here’s how it all worked with getting the 4th night free in Martinique, where I plan to visit in February thanks to Norwegian’s new non-stop service from JFK (and Boston and BWI!).

Finding the hotel

Martinique isn’t exactly a hot spot for chain hotels, so that meant a local, non-chain hotel. I looked on the Carlson Wagonlit website to see what was available.

About 10 hotels popped up, none of them chain hotels.

I searched all of them on TripAdvisor and narrowed it down to the Hotel La Pagerie.

Then I called Citi Travel Concierge to see what they could do.

Some observations

First of all, I wanted to stay 5 nights. But even still, the 4th night is always free. They break the rate down night-by-night.

I got lucky, because the 5th night was actually the cheapest.

And second, the Citi/Carlson Wagonlit/MasterCard travel agent told me that while lots of hotels are searchable on the Carlson Wagonlit site, not all of them are listed. So it’s still worth it to ask them to find every option just in case.

After I called, I got a price breakdown from Citi Prestige Concierge in about 12 hours.

I noticed the amount they had for the 4th night free credit was actually wrong (see image above). When I called back to book, the agent was able to fix it. It sounded like they just manually type in the amount – it’s not automated.

I paid $1,205 for 5 nights, but will get $244 (the price of the 4th night) back as a credit.

That’s $961, or an average of ~$192 a night for 5 nights in Martinique! Not bad!

Plus, I’m splitting it with Jay, so that brings it to ~$96 per person per night – even better.

Did I get the best deal?

I was worried (perhaps paranoid) that Citi wouldn’t give me the best prices.

And they didn’t. But they weren’t that far off the mark, and the 4th night free benefit more than made up for it.

I found the same dates on the hotel’s site for ~$1,179 – a $26 difference.

Then I checked Travelocity.

They had the same dates for $78 less!

The Chase Travel Portal showed the price as more expensive – ~$1,287, or an extra $82.

Then, last one I promise – this is how crazy I was about shopping for the best deal – I checked Kayak.com because they typically have great search tools.

I saw the dates available for $207 a night, or $1,035. A significant savings above all the others from Easy Click Travel.

But that company had terrible Yelp reviews, and it actually wasn’t that much less than booking the nights directly with the hotel, which is usually preferable anyway, because the Kayak prices didn’t include taxes and fees.

In the end, I’ll pay $961 by booking through Citi. I could’ve saved $26 or $78 by booking elsewhere, but the $244 I’ll get back more than covers that.

Plus, I’ll get 3X Citi ThankYou points for the full amount of the reservation, including the 4th night which will be credited back to the card.

The extra 732 Citi ThankYou points I’ll earn on $244 is worth ~$12 toward American Airlines flights in the Citi Travel Center. It’s not a lot, but it really does all add up!

Bottom line

A bit of a funky experience in that you have to call, get the hotel priced, then call back again to book.

But, that said, it’s not like I was on hold for long, and they got the quotes back overnight. (I called in the evening and had a quote the following morning).

In the end, I got the best deal on a local hotel in a place where there aren’t any chain hotels.

I’m excited to keep using and maximizing this benefit for all it’s worth!

I’ve added this to my Citi Prestige by the Numbers page where I’ll track all the fees and credits for the 1st year to see how much this card actually saves me. There’s not much there yet, but keep an eye on it, because I’ll track everything. 

If you want to apply for this card, thank you thank you for using my links to click through and sign up.

Overall, the benefit is easy to use. Just keep an eye out to make sure they apply the correct amount as a credit since it seems to be manually entered. And keep in mind that while the Carlson Wagonlit website has most options, not everything is included there.

Still, most hotels are and it’s usually enough to give you an idea of what to expect. This benefit is unlimited, and you can apply discounts, earn points, and have your elite status recognized.

Final verdict: I’m in love.

Let me know if you’ve had a different (or similar) experience getting the 4th night free!

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