Citibank has introduced the new Citi Double Cash Card that offers you 2% cash back on all of your purchases with no annual fee, as you’ll earn 1% when you buy and another 1% when you pay.
The Citi Double Cash Card will give you unlimited 1% cash back on all of your purchases, and you’ll earn an additional 1% unlimited cash back as you pay for those purchases, whether you pay in full or over time.
You just have to make sure that you pay at least the minimum amount due each billing period in order to qualify for the extra 1% rebate.
You don’t actually have to wait until you’ve paid off an entire purchase to earn cash back on each payment, because you’ll earn the additional 1% cash back on whatever amount you pay each statement period.
You can redeem your cash rewards as soon as your balance totals $25 or more either online at www.citi.com or by calling 1-855-473-4583.
You can choose to redeem your cash rewards as a check, statement credit, or gift card from the available merchants.
There are no limits on the amount of cash back that you can earn, but your cash rewards balance will expire if you have not earned any cash back from purchases or payments for 12 months.
The Citi Double Cash Card has no annual fee.
You’ll also get a 0% introductory APR on purchases and balance transfers for the first 15 months, so it’s a good card to make large purchases on if you want to avoid interest charges.
I do find it funny that their own marketing copy for this card says “Unlike many other cards, Citi Double Cash has no restrictive categories,” as they could very well be referencing their own Citi Dividend Platinum Select Card, although they surely are trying to disparage other card issuers.
This new Citi Double Cash Card doesn’t have many other features to offer at this time, so it seems to be a single-concept card.
However, if you always pay your credit card bill off in full, then this could be a good way to ensure that you’ll receive a full 2% cask back on all of your purchases.
On the other hand, Citibank is not offering any type of sign-up bonus for this card at this time, so you might want to hold off on applying until a better new-applicant offer comes along, and they at least give a $100 bonus to new members, which is pretty much the standard for popular cash rebate cards like the Chase Freedom and Discover It cards.
I tried asking Citibank for the $200 bonus via online secure messaging but was refused. I got the following message: We received your request to apply the new account offer to your existing account. Unfortunately, the special offer you mentioned is for solicited accounts only. Therefore, we are unable to apply this offer to your account. Please be assured we value you as a customer and continually evaluate how to best meet the needs of our customers. We periodically create special offers for our products and programs and will notify you in the future if you qualify for such an offer.
I wrote back with the following message: Thank you for your prompt reply. I am disappointed to hear of your response given that Citi has responded positively to other customers who have requested the bonus despite not having been in the targeted soliticited communcation. See: http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Credit-Cards/Citi-double-cash-sign-up-bonus-secure-message/td-p/3416413 Jared made the same request as I did and received the following response from Citi: Dear Jared, As of 09/07/2014, your account is enrolled in a special offer to earn $200 cash back when you spend $1000 within three months. This offer expires on 12/21/2014. Please let us know if we can be of further assistance. If you can offer it to some and not to others does not seem to be a sound and equitable policy. Please reconsider. Thank you.
Citibank again refused me: Thank you for your inquiry. We are unable to comment on or provide information regarding decisions made on other people’s accounts. As stated in our previous message, this offer was by solicitation only and we are unable to add it to your account.
Morale of the story: Don’t get your hopes up…they don’t treat all requests equally.
I got the same response from Citi. They wouldn’t budge. I am annoyed because I have been a Citi checking and savings customer for over 10 years now.
will I receive double points by paying some bills with my citi card