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I’ve had a number of targeted offers set to me by Citi in recent months and the last offer I used (targeted to my now closed Prestige Card) even worked for purchases outside of the US. Now Citi is back with another round of offers which, if you’ve been targeted in the past, you may well recognize.
Here’s the offer I’ve been emailed and which has been targeted to my Citi ThankYou Preferred Card (no longer open to new applicants) but I have also seen similar offers sent to Citi Prestige and Citi Premier cardholders:
- Use your card to earn 5 ThankYou Points per $1 spent, up to 2,500 points, through 05/31/2020 on eligible purchases1 you make at:
- Grocery Stores
- Gas Stations
- Drugstores
- Mass Transit & Commuter Transportation Vendors
- Activate by 15 April 2020
Full terms and conditions have been reproduced at the end of this post
If you hold a Citi ThankYou card and you haven’t seen an email from Citi targeting you for this offer I suggest you sech your email accounts and spam folders for a subject line that starts with your first name and the phrase “Use Your Citi Card to Earn Bonus ThankYou® Points on Eligible Purchases“.
Thoughts
This is an identical offer to one that was targeted to my Prestige Card back in January only this time the headline info is a little misleading…but it works in my favor.
If you take a look at the information I’ve posted above (which comes directly from the email I received from Citi) you could be forgiven for believing that the total number of points I can earn in this promotion (including bonus points) is 2,500.
It’s not. It’s 3,125.
The full terms and conditions (reproduced below) actually say the following:
“Bonus points awarded with this offer are subject to a maximum of 2,500 additional points”
- The Citi ThankYou Preferred card only earns 1 point/dollar in the categories eligible for this offer so there are 4 bonus points/dollar on offer in this promotion.
- To earn the maximum 2,500 bonus points I would have to spend $625 across the eligible spending categories.
- $625 of eligible spending will earn 1 base point/dollar = 625 points
- 2,500 bonus points + 625 base points = 3,125 points in total.
That’s not bad at all…especially when you consider that I can buy gift cards for dozens of retailers and service providers at grocery stores, gas stations, and drugstores so it will be very easy to max out this deal.
The key element to this being a good deal is the fact that the bonus multipliers on offer here are so good that no other credit card I hold can match them (let alone beat them) so, by using my targeted Citi card in this promotion, I’m not giving up a better return on my spending elsewhere….and this will be the case for a lot of other people who have been targeted for this deal.
Here’s what I mean:
While popular cards like the Amex Gold Card and the Amex EveryDay Preferred card offer good bonuses for spending at US supermarkets (up to 4 points/dollar and 4.5 points per dollar respectively) they can’t match the 5 points/dollar that on offering in this promotion.
Likewise, you find that cards like the Chase Ink Business Cash, the Blue Cash Preferred Card from American Express and the Amex EveryDay Preferred card all offer good bonuses for gas station spending, but none of them comes close to matching the 5 points/dollar on offer in this promotion.
The story is much the same with Drugstores (where most mainstream credit cards will generally do no better than 2 points/dollar or 2% cashback) and with Mass Transit spending (where earnings are generally no better than 3 points/dollar when you use cards like the Chase Sapphire Reserve card or the American Express Green card).
With 5 points/dollar on offer across all these categories, this is a promotion that genuinely offers good value.
Bottom Line
There are 2,500 very easy bonus points on offer here and as I’m not about to look a gift horse in the mouth I’ll be collecting every single one of those through a mixture of everyday spending and gift card purchases.
What offer did Citi target you for?
Full Terms & Conditions Per Citi
This offer starts upon enrollment and will end on 05/31/2020. Earnings associated with this program will equal 4 bonus ThankYou® Point(s) per $1 spent on eligible purchases and may overlap with other special offers in which you are currently enrolled. Bonus points awarded with this offer are subject to a maximum of 2,500 additional points.
This offer excludes purchases made at discount stores.
Grocery Stores, including supermarkets, are classified as merchants that provide a complete line of food merchandise for home consumption. This offer includes convenience stores which are classified as merchants who sell a limited variety of food items. Gas Stations are classified as merchants that primarily sell vehicle fuel for consumer use. Drugstores are classified as merchants that sell prescription and proprietary drugs and nonprescription (over-the-counter) medicines. Mass Transit & Commuter Transportation Vendors are classified as merchants that provide mass passenger transportation including railways and buses, bridge and tunnel fees and temporary parking, but does not include the purchase of Amtrak tickets.
Merchants are assigned a merchant category code (”MCC”), which is determined in accordance with Visa/Mastercard/American Express procedures based on the kinds of products and services the merchants primarily sell. We don’t control the assignment of these codes and are not responsible for the codes used by merchants. When you use your card to make a purchase, we’re provided an MCC for that purchase. We group similar merchant codes into categories for purposes of making rewards offers. Sometimes you may expect a purchase to fit within a rewards category, but if the code assigned to the merchant wasn’t grouped into that category, your purchase will not qualify for additional rewards. Please also note – purchases made through mobile/wireless technology may not earn additional rewards depending on how the technology is set up to process the purchase. We reserve the exclusive right to determine which purchases qualify for additional rewards. All purchases must be made during the promotional period.
Balance transfers, cash advances, checks that access your Card Account, items returned for credit, unauthorized charges, interest and account fees, traveler’s checks, foreign currency purchases, money orders, wire transfers (and similar cash-like transactions), lottery tickets, gaming chips (and similar betting transactions), Citi Flex Loans and the creation of Citi Flex Pays, are not purchases.
ThankYou Points earned will be posted to the primary cardmember’s account in 1-2 billing cycles.
In order to qualify for this offer, the account must be open and current at all times. If your account is closed for any reason, including if you convert to another card product, you may no longer be eligible for this offer.
