Citi Is Offering 5x Points On Its ThankYou Preferred Credit Card [Targeted]

By
Ziggy
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a hand holding a credit card
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UPDATE: The Citi ThankYou Preferred Credit Card Is No Longer Open To New Applicants

Citi is in a lot of people’s bad books right now after it announced that it would be removing a large number of benefits from cards across its portfolio at the beginning of last week.

Personally speaking, I’m disappointed with the path Citi has decided to go down (once again I find myself questioning the value of the Citi Prestige card) but I’m pretty happy with the latest promotion the bank has sent my way.

a child sticking out her tongue
Offer Expired

Citi is in the process of emailing holders of the Citi ThankYou Preferred card (which is no longer open to new applicants) with the following bonus offer (OFFER EXPIRED):

Earn 5 ThankYou Points for every dollar spent on eligible purchases made in the following categories:

  • Grocery Stores
  • Gas Stations
  • Drugstores
  • Mass Transit & Commuter Transportation Vendors

Important Terms & Conditions:

  • Registration is required and must be completed by 15 August 2019
  • The promotion starts from the moment you register
  • The promotion ends on 30 September 2019
  • A maximum of 2,500 points can be earned in this promotion
  • Discount stores are excluded from this promotion

Full terms and conditions can be found on the promotion registration page but, because it may be a murky area, I’ll reproduce what Citi says about the “Mass Transit & Commuter Transportation Vendors” category:

“Mass Transit & Commuter Transportation Vendors are classified as merchants that provide mass passenger transportation including railways, buses, bridge and tunnel fees, and temporary parking, but does not include the purchase of Amtrak tickets.”

a train at a train station

Note that spending on things like taxis, car rentals, Uber (even Uber Pool) will not earn bonus points.

Thoughts

Let’s get the obvious out of the way first:

  • The maximum you can earn here is only 2,500 points (which I value at $37.50)
  • The reality is that it’s only really 2,000 bonus points that are on offer as the Citi ThankYou Preferred card would ordinarily earn 1 point per dollar in all these categories anyway.

It would be easy to dismiss this promotion out of hand and say that it’s not worth much, but I actually like it. I like it a lot.

With grocery stores, drugstores and gas stations all included in this offer it should be incredibly easy to earn the full 2,500 points in the 3 months being given (it will require just $500 of spending).

a grocery store with shelves of vegetables and fruits

Also, this promotion comes at a time when the Chase Freedom 5% bonus categories are looking somewhat woeful so it’s nice to have an alternative promotion in which to rack up some points.

If you have the Citi ThankYou Preferred credit card and haven’t seen an email about this promotion it may be worth checking your email/spam folders to see if you’ve somehow missed it (search for the subject line “[Name], Use Your Citi Card to Earn Bonus ThankYou Points on Eligible Purchases: It’s So Simple To Activate”.

If you can’t find the email it may be worth calling the number at the back of your card to see if you can have the promotion added to your card.

Bottom Line

Ideally it would have been nice to be offered this promotion and also have Chase offer us better bonus categories on the Freedom Card but, as that’s not the reality we’re facing, I’m grateful to have been offered this promotion in which just about everyone who has been targeted should be able to max out the points on offer with ease.

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6 COMMENTS

  1. Believe or not, I received a better offer on one of TY cards. Yes, 10 TY points instead of 5 TY points. only on 1 card. Other cards got 5 TY/$1. I did not put any spend on this card this year. wonder why it got the 10 TY/$ offer?

    Use your card to earn 10 ThankYou Points per $1 spent, up to 2,500 points, through 09/30/2019 on eligible purchases¹ like:

    • Shopping
    • Groceries
    • Gas
    • Travel and more!

    • That’s a really great offer – very good news for you! (I may call Citi and demand they match it đŸ™‚ )

  2. I was targeted for 5X on my Rewards+ on:
    • Clothing Stores
    • Computer & Electronics Stores
    • Department Stores
    • Toy Stores

    My wife was targeted for 5% back on her Diamond Preferred on online purchases.

    Neither card gets used much; we both use my Premier and her Rewards+. Her Diamond Preferred is an old account, and there’s nothing of value to PC to; my Rewards+ is a PC from a Diamond Preferred that I did to get the 10% rebate on redeemed points.

    • That’s interesting. Looks like Citi is not only offering different earning rates but also offering the bonus points for purchases in a wide variety of categories.

      Thanks for the data points.

  3. The bad thing about thank you points is you cannot get the actual cash value they make you take half the value if you want cash unlike Chase’s freedom points which you can get the whole cash value I am surprised no one is mentioning that . am I wrong?

Comments are closed.