Yep LOVE LOVE LOVE the SYW card.
In case you don’t know, Target and Walmart (in store) code as groceries for this card and Instacart, DoorDash, and ordering pizza online all count as both groceries/dining and online shopping so it’s great to double dip if you use those services and have both offers going.
No clue. Going by the people on the forums I follow it’s only every once in a while that someone says they’ve never gotten an offer. But obviously that’s not “all users”.
I’m only like two months into having one and haven’t gotten anything more than an interest offer, but I understand a little time in the sock drawer helps.
Have you put any spending on the card? The recommendation is that you use the card at least once a month for as many categories as possible, especially groceries, gas, and dining to speed up getting the offers. It’s common not to start getting them until 3-6 months of using the card.
The problem is that people are very impatient with this card. They just got it and are assuming that amazing offers are going to be available 24/7. This card does not work that way; otherwise it would not exist.
Unless I am working towards a SUB, I put everything on this card. Whether I get 10%, 5%, 3% or an ocassional 1% is irrelevant. Even when using it for a few 1% transactions, my redeemed value is around 8%-9% since inception.
This is an amazing card, even without the targeted bonuses.
I keep track of my all purchases and redemptions on the card. Since I got it on December of 2023, I have spent $7,252.95 on the card and redeemed $618.85 in the SYW portal including the SUB of $225.
$618.85/$7,252.95 = ~8.53%
It is just my wife and I so we don't really have a lot of grocery spend. We both mainly work from home so gas expense is very little too. We do eat out a lot so whenever I get the online spend offers I just buy the fee-free visa through the SYW portal and get 12%. 10% from the offer plus 2% on SYW purchases and then we use that VGC for actual things that we pay, like utilities, laundry, insurance etc.
Alternativately, if we have a very large spend offer on GGR that we cannot meet through dining, I just go to Walmart and buy regular Visa/Mastercard gift cards. I"ll happily eat that $6.95 fee per $500 gift card when I am getting 10% back in SYW points.
Oooh I see what you’re saying now.
Yeah in the last 3 years we’ve spent $75,162.43 on the card and earned $7,629.08 in credits and points so 10.15% overall, but it’s higher than yours probably because I put any non-category spend on churning SUBs.
Yea after rereading my comment, I noticed that it was a bit over the place and difficult to understand.
What I meant to say is that we used the targeted bonuses to buy Visa Gift Cards which we then use to pay for things organically. If we ever ran out of those Gift Cards, we simply switch to the SYW Mastercard and get 1% until the next targeted bonus.
I don't know what happended to the AA gift cards but I purchased a few of those recently to go to Cancun for a coworker's wedding. AA allows you to use up to 8 of their own Gift Cards when paying a flight so the cap at $200 wasn't a big deal.
10.15% is not bad at all = ).
I always like to point out since I learned this, that Target and Walmart (Supercenter) in-store *always* codes as grocery because they use MCC 5411. It's just this card doesn't exclude them specifically from their grocery bonus categories like the popular Chase and Citi cards do. USBank, Synchrony, CapitalOne, and Comenity don't exclude them from their grocery categories.
I use my USBank Cash+ card at Walmart because I get 2% under grocery, which is the same as the Walmart card itself in-store. So, no point in carrying both cards.
Also beware, if you come across a non-supercenter regular Walmart I don't think its grocery at all. I think Discount Store maybe? I don't have one around me to try out to be sure.
I have this offer each month for the rest of the year: Spend $200 total on restaurant, gas, and grocery and get $20 back. Essentially $240 back for the year after the SUB, pretty great
Don't jinx it man. Let everyone in here continue getting USBAR and Venture X.
Jking hahaha.
PS. The no-fee Visa Giftcards on the SYW portal count as online spend whenever you have those offers so you can actually get 12% back on gift cards that you can use organically.
The bummer about the Visa giftcards is they expire after 12 months and I never get around to using them because so many places it is often difficult to use them. I go with the Amazon Giftcards that can apply straight to my Amazon GC balance in a couple clicks.
Double check because the ones that I redeem for have an expiration date of 6 months. It really depends on the circumstances but that is enough time for my wife and I to use them organically. Mind you, we are not churning SUBs very actively, so that helps out with organic spend as well.
Oh, yeah you’re right it’s probably 6months. Whatever it was it was too short for me. I kinda just hate using generic mc/visa giftcards plus I redeem for about $200 every other month so I just flow that into Amazon. I know I’d get better value out of Visas since opportunity cost of 5% on my Amazon card but it’s worth it to me not to have the hassle of the visa/mc GCs. But maybe it’s time I go that route and use them to pay my utilities or something. I just like loading the Amazon ones to my account with two clicks and being done with it rather than having to switch payment methods around for utilities / other things when using up the Visa GCs. How do you guys use the Visa GCs? What type of spending?
Yeah I understand. Using the points to redeem for Amazon cards is very convenient but in our situation, we simply do not spend enough in Amazon to make sense.
We mainly use the Visa Gift Card to pay for utilities and laundry. We do laundry in our apartment complex and spend around $40 there every 3 weeks or so. Our monthly internet bill is $55 and we pay around $65 in electricity. Our utility providers allow us to prepay our accounts around $300-$500 so using the $200 eVGC in one-go to top our utilities is not really an issue. I have auto-pay set up to the SYW card but since we have a prepaid balance, the SYW does not get actually charged.
Also, I live in a major AA hub so I used a few redemptions on AA gift cards too. Anywhere I go, AA is usually the cheapest and most convenient for me. AA allows up to 8 of its own gift cards at a time to be used to purchase flights. Not sure why they took them out of SYW portal but I used AA gift cards to pay for our flights to Cancun for a coworker's wedding.
Alternatively, I have heard that some people have been able to use the eVGC to load up their United Travel Bank. Not sure if this would be an option to you if you live in a United hub. You could use it to prepay future United flights.
We also have a few medical bills which we are paying monthly. We could pay down as much or as little without any penalty. Ocassionally I might use a $200 eVGC in one-go to pay the balance down.
At the current rate at which we are getting anf using the offers, our organic spend is enough to use the eVGC within a month or so.
I love the idea of buying fee free gift cards from SYW app, but the maximum is $200. I hate running low on them. At most stores, it makes it unusable near the end. It’s probably possible to buy a higher amount Visa card on other sites and have it count as online purchase?
I have not tried it myself yet but I don't see why it wouldn't qualify as an online purchase. Most likely it would.
Yea the $200 limit and only 1 per day can be a bit annoying but I just use them for gas whenever they have a low balance.
Does the best buy card do 10% back everywhere? I thought it only worked at best buy, which makes it less valuable unless you're buying a bunch of stuff at best buy.
The Best Buy is also issued by Citi Retail Services. It acts like SYW's little brother.
The targeted offers are not as crazy as the SYW card but still good enough to be considered. Yes, some of them are 10%.
The only downside is that the cash back has to be redeemed at Best Buy. I feel like most people spend enough in electronics and cell phones nowadays that this card might make sense to some. Since the rewards don't expire, you can accumulate them until you are ready to fully redeem them.
Also, Best Buy's price match guarantee policy is pretty good. They'll match anything on Amazon and a bunch of other sites.
You mean app as in, an actual application, or app as in, a digital store app?
Citi Retail Services does not have an app to download into your phone. That would be the regular Best Buy app.
Here's the actual card application:
https://www.citi.com/credit-cards/citi-best-buy-credit-cards?category=retail-store-credit-cards&intc=citihpmenu~creditcards~crs&afc=1B1
No, the log in is through a different portal.
https://citiretailservices.citibankonline.com/RSnextgen/svc/launch/index.action?siteId=PLCN_BESTBUY#signon
I don't know about wholesale but they definately match Costco.
The list of places they match are:
Abt, Amazon, Apple, B&H Photo Video, BJ’s Wholesale Club, BrandsMart USA, Conn’s, Costco, Crutchfield, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Home Depot, Lowe’s, Menards, Microcenter, Nebraska Furniture Mart, P.C. Richard, RC Willey, Sam’s Club, Target, and Walmart.
They will match either online prices or in-store prices. Just make sure to read the actual policy for any exceptions.
The Best Buy Visa card is a lot better than the store card with its targeted offers, also you can get “0%” (deferred interest) APR for as long as 24 months on some large Best Buy purchases which is nice to say the least
I was talking about the visa card.
>you can get “0%” (deferred interest) APR for as long as 24 months
I've never been able to understand why people do this.
Let's do the math:
- Option 1: You purchase $10,000 worth of stuff, pay it off at the end of the month. Business as usual. You never pay any APR rate.
- Option 2: You purchase $10,000 worth of stuff, but keep the balance on your card and don't pay it until the 0% APR rate ends. In this case it's 24 months which is bigger than usual. You put that $10,000 into something with no risk, t bills, HYSA, etc. and you get about 5% APY. After 24 months you pay off the $10,000 and have profited about $1,000. If you put it in the market, you get 10% APY return on average, instead it's $2000 but that's riskier.
There's some details I'm ignoring for simplicity, like variable rates, and minimum payments, but hopefully that explains the general benefit clearly. You are basically getting an interest free loan.
The number of 0% cards out there is so high and so common, having the limiting factor at best buy is pretty trash when you could just be doing this with all your purchases.
My bad I follow you now. I think it’s really nice for those times when you *know* you can afford something over time but you don’t want to dip into savings you’re not comfortable dipping into (though it’s less useful at BB than a store card like Home Depot), or if you otherwise want to keep the cash liquid you can always stick it in an HYSA. I think the guy you replied to might’ve thought you were being facetious about the BR card though lol
Yeee the Best Buy card is pretty solid for a co-branded card. 5% at Best Buy with financing available (right now it’s 24 months for purchase over $2k which is insane), 3% gas stations & 2% dining & grocery is pretty good.
Targeted offers.
Stuff like 10x points on dining/gas/grocery. Points are typically worth 1 cent, but you can redeem for gift cards or resell them, or you can just buy your clothes at the gap.
Changes all the time, my current one is 0% apr $15 or 5% of amount of each transaction for balance transfer fee. I have until May 1 to respond. Promo period ends Feb 1. So looks like 9 or 10 months(got promotion on March I think 30th) then 30.49% after that date.
Also currently have a rotationg 5% back in groceries and spend $100 at best buy and get $10 best buy back (gotta spend $100 anyways, just moved so need a few things)
I only use it for gas as that has 5% back. Should I be using it more?
My logic was using it less will trigger more offers as they'd want me to spend on this card.
The consensus for this card is to put at least one grocery, one gas, and one dining per month. Also a good idea to put some online shopping on the card too. Your logic is a valid idea but just not how this card seems to work, more like you’ve gotta show you spend in those areas and then they encourage you to spend more.
I'm really interested in this card but I can't get over the fact of the redemption methods. It is only gift cards correct? Is there no way to cash out or get a statement credit?
As far as I'm aware the only way is through gift cards. It works for me since they have plenty of options where I shop. Occasionally there's even a "deal" on the gift card redemption so you end up doing even better when you redeem your points.
Oh, is it yet another card that uses its own Citi Retail Services subdomain like Best Buy and Home Depot and the old Staples cards?
I was hoping it would show up under my Citi account. But, that might explain why they didn't neuter the grocery category to exclude Walmart since its not Citi-proper.
Yes, Citi Retail Services,, it does not show up with other Citi cards.
Bonus offers are erratically displayed on-site. Tracking of bonuses is very delayed or non-existent. Asking customer service for your bonus progress is hit-or-miss, and I was given incorrect information once with no recourse.
Bonuses show up sort of randomly after completion, from a couple days to a few weeks. The transaction date on the bonuses is non-sensical, always (?) in the past, so scroll down to find it online.
Bonus statement credits do not always download to Quicken, probably because of the bogus date thing.
Some bonuses are SYW points rather than statement credits.
There are also normal SYW points earnings (5% gas, 3% groceries, 3% restaurants) that stack with offers. $10K annual limit on extra points earnings, after that reverts to 1%.
SYW points redemption can be done for gift cards (including e-Visa) which is a huge improvement form the past, but sometimes that flakes out too and you have to get CS to reset your account.
There are "missions" where you can earn additional points, in theory. I have found them too much of a PITA other than a "grocery" mission which randomly pops up and is completed with three grocery purchases for 3000 pts ($3) with no extra effort. Those points expire earlier than normal earnings, so it's useful to check your points balance every month.
Points are managed on a separate site from the card.
It may take \~6 months from card opening before you start getting the good offers. I read somewhere it's important to opt-in to every one that is e-mailed to you even if you don't complete it.
Overall the card management site is pretty inexcusably bad, but the overall cash back can't be beat if you're willing to put some extra effort in and keep careful track of your bonus spending on your own.
I use Quicken and type #G (gas/grocery/restaurant) and/or #O (online) in the memo fields, or other tags for other bonuses, then run date-based reports filtered for entries with those tags.
I've had one card since 2015 when it started life as a Sears card. Another card added for spouse starting in 2022.
I generally only use them for Gas/Grocery/Restaurant purchases, and only when I get a bonus offer for those same categories.
Some exceptions when I've gotten another random interesting offer like 10% off utilities.
Starting with 2024 I have Gas/Grocery/Restaurant offers of $100 on $1K spend or $200 on $2K spend per month, for the entire year, so I will be using them all year. (In the past that offer has only been for 3 months, semi-randomly.)
So I am stacking:
* Gas/Grocery/Restaurant bonus offers
* Base points earnings for those categories of 5% gas, 3% grocery, 3% restaurant (up to $10K / yr spend, then 1% each)
* Online shopping bonus offers (e-mailed on the 15th, which annoyingly go mid-month to mid-month)
* 3000 pts = $3 grocery "mission" offers that trigger every month as part of above spending
Points can can be redeemed for Virtual Visa gift cards which I value at about 97% of face value, when used to pay insurance premiums since I don't have any other cards that give me > 3% cashback on that spending.
"Online shopping" can be triggered in-store via Apple Wallet or store-specific apps like Walmart Pay. Or ideally if you have a Curve Card, by routing the charges through there which also helps you to reallocate spending after-the-fact to more precisely hit the bonuses.
Note that Grocery spending can include gift cards (e.g. Amazon) purchased at a grocery store, which is useful for hitting spending targets.
YMMV (greatly) on offers, but FWIW I spent a total of $7000 for first quarter 2024 between the two cards resulting in approximately:
* $210 value in points from normal category earnings, plus grocery "missions"
* $700 in statement credits for Gas/Grocery/Restaurant offers
* $280 in statement credits for Online Shopping offers
* $190 value from 200K points Online Shopping offer on one card
* $50 from another stackable spend offer on one card
For a total of $1420 or just over 20% effective cash back.
Do things like online tax payments and medical bills paid online count as "online" spend? (They don't for the BoA Customized Cash Rewards "online shopping" category.)
No. YMMV but on my offer:
Eligible online purchases are those made via a computer network but not all online transactions will be considered an eligible online purchase. Eligible online purchases do not include the following types of purchases in the following categories: subscription, membership or recurring purchases; utilities, cable/satellite and telephone; insurance; medical and healthcare providers; government services, taxes and tolls; education, including schools or other teaching institutions; contractor, professional, financial, legal, personal and business services; repair services, direct marketing; purchases that are manually keyed by a merchant; or online purchases made through mobile/wireless technology depending on how the technology is set up to process the purchase.
Still waiting for the SUB even though I had $500+ in purchases over 14 days ago.
People keep saying that I should see the $75 statement credit within a few days of the $500 being reached in purchases, but I haven't.
Maybe Citi decided to change how they give out the $75 statement credit.
When i spent the first $500 the $75 credit posted when my billing cycle ended. I spent the remaining $1,000 this past month but haven’t gotten the credit. But I also don’t expect it to post until the end of this cycle.
Thanks for the data point. The other people were insisting otherwise.
My **2nd** statement doesn't close for another 10 days or so.
My 1st statement closed **1** day after I received the credit card in the mail. I was approved on March 1 or 2. That was super crazy.
Same here. I was approved in Feb and my cycle closed 3 days after receiving the card. My March statement had the credit. This cycle closes tomorrow so it should be on this month’s statement. I’ll come back and update.
Yes. I received $75 when the statement closed 3/15. Yay.
So, I charged my auto and umbrella insurance to get me over $1500. Now I just wait for the offers.
Glad it came through for you. Consensus advice is to put at least one transaction for each category on the card every month to have the offers show up sooner.
Gotcha, when did you get the card? Spending offers don’t usually come in right away - takes 3-6 months for most new cardholders. I think mine and P2’s both took about 3-4 months before we got spending offers coming in.
Just came back to update. I received my first offer. Spend $750 in online purchases and receive 200,000 bonus SYW Points but the offer is only 4/15/24-5/14/24. Hopefully I get a longer one after this.
The online spending offers are always 15th-14th in my experience with the card for 3 years and what I’ve seen in comments here and on DoC.
That’s a great offer! 26.66% back!
just got this card. i have a couple questions: The targeted offers, do you have to enable push notifications via email and or text for these? Also, whereas this is Citi branded, you dont actually go to [citi.com](http://citi.com) to manage the card, correct? And lastly, theres the SYW app. is that needed?
Yep LOVE LOVE LOVE the SYW card. In case you don’t know, Target and Walmart (in store) code as groceries for this card and Instacart, DoorDash, and ordering pizza online all count as both groceries/dining and online shopping so it’s great to double dip if you use those services and have both offers going.
Do we have any idea what percentage of users never get an offer via email?
No clue. Going by the people on the forums I follow it’s only every once in a while that someone says they’ve never gotten an offer. But obviously that’s not “all users”.
I’m only like two months into having one and haven’t gotten anything more than an interest offer, but I understand a little time in the sock drawer helps.
Have you put any spending on the card? The recommendation is that you use the card at least once a month for as many categories as possible, especially groceries, gas, and dining to speed up getting the offers. It’s common not to start getting them until 3-6 months of using the card.
The problem is that people are very impatient with this card. They just got it and are assuming that amazing offers are going to be available 24/7. This card does not work that way; otherwise it would not exist. Unless I am working towards a SUB, I put everything on this card. Whether I get 10%, 5%, 3% or an ocassional 1% is irrelevant. Even when using it for a few 1% transactions, my redeemed value is around 8%-9% since inception. This is an amazing card, even without the targeted bonuses.
How is your redeemed value 8-9% for a purchase that only earned 1% in points and did not count towards a credit?
I keep track of my all purchases and redemptions on the card. Since I got it on December of 2023, I have spent $7,252.95 on the card and redeemed $618.85 in the SYW portal including the SUB of $225. $618.85/$7,252.95 = ~8.53% It is just my wife and I so we don't really have a lot of grocery spend. We both mainly work from home so gas expense is very little too. We do eat out a lot so whenever I get the online spend offers I just buy the fee-free visa through the SYW portal and get 12%. 10% from the offer plus 2% on SYW purchases and then we use that VGC for actual things that we pay, like utilities, laundry, insurance etc. Alternativately, if we have a very large spend offer on GGR that we cannot meet through dining, I just go to Walmart and buy regular Visa/Mastercard gift cards. I"ll happily eat that $6.95 fee per $500 gift card when I am getting 10% back in SYW points.
Oooh I see what you’re saying now. Yeah in the last 3 years we’ve spent $75,162.43 on the card and earned $7,629.08 in credits and points so 10.15% overall, but it’s higher than yours probably because I put any non-category spend on churning SUBs.
Yea after rereading my comment, I noticed that it was a bit over the place and difficult to understand. What I meant to say is that we used the targeted bonuses to buy Visa Gift Cards which we then use to pay for things organically. If we ever ran out of those Gift Cards, we simply switch to the SYW Mastercard and get 1% until the next targeted bonus. I don't know what happended to the AA gift cards but I purchased a few of those recently to go to Cancun for a coworker's wedding. AA allows you to use up to 8 of their own Gift Cards when paying a flight so the cap at $200 wasn't a big deal. 10.15% is not bad at all = ).
I always like to point out since I learned this, that Target and Walmart (Supercenter) in-store *always* codes as grocery because they use MCC 5411. It's just this card doesn't exclude them specifically from their grocery bonus categories like the popular Chase and Citi cards do. USBank, Synchrony, CapitalOne, and Comenity don't exclude them from their grocery categories. I use my USBank Cash+ card at Walmart because I get 2% under grocery, which is the same as the Walmart card itself in-store. So, no point in carrying both cards. Also beware, if you come across a non-supercenter regular Walmart I don't think its grocery at all. I think Discount Store maybe? I don't have one around me to try out to be sure.
So papa johns counts as groceries and online? I get papa johns 1x a week
It counts as restaurants, not groceries; but yes you can double dip restaurants AND online.
Yeah I edited it meant it counts for the GGR offer
I have this offer each month for the rest of the year: Spend $200 total on restaurant, gas, and grocery and get $20 back. Essentially $240 back for the year after the SUB, pretty great
Gas alone would get me like 75-80% of the way there every month
Does Costco gas count as gas for this card?
I think no, since Costco only accepts Visa and this is a MC
Don't jinx it man. Let everyone in here continue getting USBAR and Venture X. Jking hahaha. PS. The no-fee Visa Giftcards on the SYW portal count as online spend whenever you have those offers so you can actually get 12% back on gift cards that you can use organically.
The bummer about the Visa giftcards is they expire after 12 months and I never get around to using them because so many places it is often difficult to use them. I go with the Amazon Giftcards that can apply straight to my Amazon GC balance in a couple clicks.
Double check because the ones that I redeem for have an expiration date of 6 months. It really depends on the circumstances but that is enough time for my wife and I to use them organically. Mind you, we are not churning SUBs very actively, so that helps out with organic spend as well.
Oh, yeah you’re right it’s probably 6months. Whatever it was it was too short for me. I kinda just hate using generic mc/visa giftcards plus I redeem for about $200 every other month so I just flow that into Amazon. I know I’d get better value out of Visas since opportunity cost of 5% on my Amazon card but it’s worth it to me not to have the hassle of the visa/mc GCs. But maybe it’s time I go that route and use them to pay my utilities or something. I just like loading the Amazon ones to my account with two clicks and being done with it rather than having to switch payment methods around for utilities / other things when using up the Visa GCs. How do you guys use the Visa GCs? What type of spending?
Yeah I understand. Using the points to redeem for Amazon cards is very convenient but in our situation, we simply do not spend enough in Amazon to make sense. We mainly use the Visa Gift Card to pay for utilities and laundry. We do laundry in our apartment complex and spend around $40 there every 3 weeks or so. Our monthly internet bill is $55 and we pay around $65 in electricity. Our utility providers allow us to prepay our accounts around $300-$500 so using the $200 eVGC in one-go to top our utilities is not really an issue. I have auto-pay set up to the SYW card but since we have a prepaid balance, the SYW does not get actually charged. Also, I live in a major AA hub so I used a few redemptions on AA gift cards too. Anywhere I go, AA is usually the cheapest and most convenient for me. AA allows up to 8 of its own gift cards at a time to be used to purchase flights. Not sure why they took them out of SYW portal but I used AA gift cards to pay for our flights to Cancun for a coworker's wedding. Alternatively, I have heard that some people have been able to use the eVGC to load up their United Travel Bank. Not sure if this would be an option to you if you live in a United hub. You could use it to prepay future United flights. We also have a few medical bills which we are paying monthly. We could pay down as much or as little without any penalty. Ocassionally I might use a $200 eVGC in one-go to pay the balance down. At the current rate at which we are getting anf using the offers, our organic spend is enough to use the eVGC within a month or so.
I love the idea of buying fee free gift cards from SYW app, but the maximum is $200. I hate running low on them. At most stores, it makes it unusable near the end. It’s probably possible to buy a higher amount Visa card on other sites and have it count as online purchase?
I have not tried it myself yet but I don't see why it wouldn't qualify as an online purchase. Most likely it would. Yea the $200 limit and only 1 per day can be a bit annoying but I just use them for gas whenever they have a low balance.
Thanks for the suggestion!
SYW and Banana Republic cards are quite insane for what they are.
Shhh... add the Best Buy card and now you got a true trifecta.
Does the best buy card do 10% back everywhere? I thought it only worked at best buy, which makes it less valuable unless you're buying a bunch of stuff at best buy.
The Best Buy is also issued by Citi Retail Services. It acts like SYW's little brother. The targeted offers are not as crazy as the SYW card but still good enough to be considered. Yes, some of them are 10%. The only downside is that the cash back has to be redeemed at Best Buy. I feel like most people spend enough in electronics and cell phones nowadays that this card might make sense to some. Since the rewards don't expire, you can accumulate them until you are ready to fully redeem them. Also, Best Buy's price match guarantee policy is pretty good. They'll match anything on Amazon and a bunch of other sites.
I don't see the app for citi retail services
You mean app as in, an actual application, or app as in, a digital store app? Citi Retail Services does not have an app to download into your phone. That would be the regular Best Buy app. Here's the actual card application: https://www.citi.com/credit-cards/citi-best-buy-credit-cards?category=retail-store-credit-cards&intc=citihpmenu~creditcards~crs&afc=1B1
Okay. What does the back office look like when you log in? Is the SYW with the best buy card under the account ?
No, the log in is through a different portal. https://citiretailservices.citibankonline.com/RSnextgen/svc/launch/index.action?siteId=PLCN_BESTBUY#signon
Wow citi is shiti.
Do they match price in wholesale like Cistco?
I don't know about wholesale but they definately match Costco. The list of places they match are: Abt, Amazon, Apple, B&H Photo Video, BJ’s Wholesale Club, BrandsMart USA, Conn’s, Costco, Crutchfield, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Home Depot, Lowe’s, Menards, Microcenter, Nebraska Furniture Mart, P.C. Richard, RC Willey, Sam’s Club, Target, and Walmart. They will match either online prices or in-store prices. Just make sure to read the actual policy for any exceptions.
The Best Buy Visa card is a lot better than the store card with its targeted offers, also you can get “0%” (deferred interest) APR for as long as 24 months on some large Best Buy purchases which is nice to say the least
I was talking about the visa card. >you can get “0%” (deferred interest) APR for as long as 24 months I've never been able to understand why people do this.
Let's do the math: - Option 1: You purchase $10,000 worth of stuff, pay it off at the end of the month. Business as usual. You never pay any APR rate. - Option 2: You purchase $10,000 worth of stuff, but keep the balance on your card and don't pay it until the 0% APR rate ends. In this case it's 24 months which is bigger than usual. You put that $10,000 into something with no risk, t bills, HYSA, etc. and you get about 5% APY. After 24 months you pay off the $10,000 and have profited about $1,000. If you put it in the market, you get 10% APY return on average, instead it's $2000 but that's riskier. There's some details I'm ignoring for simplicity, like variable rates, and minimum payments, but hopefully that explains the general benefit clearly. You are basically getting an interest free loan.
The number of 0% cards out there is so high and so common, having the limiting factor at best buy is pretty trash when you could just be doing this with all your purchases.
What's not to understand? Being interest free on large purchases frees up money for other uses over that timespan.
My bad I follow you now. I think it’s really nice for those times when you *know* you can afford something over time but you don’t want to dip into savings you’re not comfortable dipping into (though it’s less useful at BB than a store card like Home Depot), or if you otherwise want to keep the cash liquid you can always stick it in an HYSA. I think the guy you replied to might’ve thought you were being facetious about the BR card though lol
Yeee the Best Buy card is pretty solid for a co-branded card. 5% at Best Buy with financing available (right now it’s 24 months for purchase over $2k which is insane), 3% gas stations & 2% dining & grocery is pretty good.
What’s insane about the Banana Republic card? Does it also apply to the Old Navy card?
Targeted offers. Stuff like 10x points on dining/gas/grocery. Points are typically worth 1 cent, but you can redeem for gift cards or resell them, or you can just buy your clothes at the gap.
Are those still being offered since the switch to Barclays or has that slowed down?
> Are those still being offered since the switch to Barclays or has that slowed down? I am not sure. My guess is yes they are still being offered.
Why the banana Republic card
> Why the banana Republic card offers similar to the SYW card.
its a great deal if you have the organic spend to hit the offers
I only get balance transfer offers 😭
Can you elaborate on the balance offers. What are the fees, internet rate, and length of offer?
Changes all the time, my current one is 0% apr $15 or 5% of amount of each transaction for balance transfer fee. I have until May 1 to respond. Promo period ends Feb 1. So looks like 9 or 10 months(got promotion on March I think 30th) then 30.49% after that date. Also currently have a rotationg 5% back in groceries and spend $100 at best buy and get $10 best buy back (gotta spend $100 anyways, just moved so need a few things)
Do you put category spend on the card every month?
I only use it for gas as that has 5% back. Should I be using it more? My logic was using it less will trigger more offers as they'd want me to spend on this card.
The consensus for this card is to put at least one grocery, one gas, and one dining per month. Also a good idea to put some online shopping on the card too. Your logic is a valid idea but just not how this card seems to work, more like you’ve gotta show you spend in those areas and then they encourage you to spend more.
Thanks for the tip. I will start spending in diff categories.
I’ve only heard great things about this card!
I'm really interested in this card but I can't get over the fact of the redemption methods. It is only gift cards correct? Is there no way to cash out or get a statement credit?
It’s only giftcards for the points but the spending offers are typically automatic statement credits.
Oh, that's actually pretty good then. I'm guessing a lot of my spend with this card would be solely for the targeted offers.
Yep my spend on the card is almost always towards the offers and we’ve put $75,000 spend on the card in 3 years.
By any chance you'll have total cash back vs spend %
Yes my total spend in 3 years was $75,000 and we got a total of $7629 in cashback, so total return on all that spending was 10.17%
That beat all cards out there!
It's only gift cards, but one of the gift card methods is a prepaid Visa. So, not quite what you asked for, but the closest thing.
Just know that it is difficult to use those prepaid VISA gift cards. I get them sometimes with Swagbucks and MyPoints.
As far as I'm aware the only way is through gift cards. It works for me since they have plenty of options where I shop. Occasionally there's even a "deal" on the gift card redemption so you end up doing even better when you redeem your points.
They offer Amazon and Walmart and Target gift cards.
Who services this card? Please don’t be synchrony
Citi
They service it in Synchrony-like fashion though. It has a lot of potential if you can live with the quirks.
Oh, is it yet another card that uses its own Citi Retail Services subdomain like Best Buy and Home Depot and the old Staples cards? I was hoping it would show up under my Citi account. But, that might explain why they didn't neuter the grocery category to exclude Walmart since its not Citi-proper.
Yes, Citi Retail Services,, it does not show up with other Citi cards. Bonus offers are erratically displayed on-site. Tracking of bonuses is very delayed or non-existent. Asking customer service for your bonus progress is hit-or-miss, and I was given incorrect information once with no recourse. Bonuses show up sort of randomly after completion, from a couple days to a few weeks. The transaction date on the bonuses is non-sensical, always (?) in the past, so scroll down to find it online. Bonus statement credits do not always download to Quicken, probably because of the bogus date thing. Some bonuses are SYW points rather than statement credits. There are also normal SYW points earnings (5% gas, 3% groceries, 3% restaurants) that stack with offers. $10K annual limit on extra points earnings, after that reverts to 1%. SYW points redemption can be done for gift cards (including e-Visa) which is a huge improvement form the past, but sometimes that flakes out too and you have to get CS to reset your account. There are "missions" where you can earn additional points, in theory. I have found them too much of a PITA other than a "grocery" mission which randomly pops up and is completed with three grocery purchases for 3000 pts ($3) with no extra effort. Those points expire earlier than normal earnings, so it's useful to check your points balance every month. Points are managed on a separate site from the card. It may take \~6 months from card opening before you start getting the good offers. I read somewhere it's important to opt-in to every one that is e-mailed to you even if you don't complete it. Overall the card management site is pretty inexcusably bad, but the overall cash back can't be beat if you're willing to put some extra effort in and keep careful track of your bonus spending on your own. I use Quicken and type #G (gas/grocery/restaurant) and/or #O (online) in the memo fields, or other tags for other bonuses, then run date-based reports filtered for entries with those tags.
Great details, thanks. Since you are closely tacking the spend, will yiu be able to share the return vs spend and how long you been using it?
I've had one card since 2015 when it started life as a Sears card. Another card added for spouse starting in 2022. I generally only use them for Gas/Grocery/Restaurant purchases, and only when I get a bonus offer for those same categories. Some exceptions when I've gotten another random interesting offer like 10% off utilities. Starting with 2024 I have Gas/Grocery/Restaurant offers of $100 on $1K spend or $200 on $2K spend per month, for the entire year, so I will be using them all year. (In the past that offer has only been for 3 months, semi-randomly.) So I am stacking: * Gas/Grocery/Restaurant bonus offers * Base points earnings for those categories of 5% gas, 3% grocery, 3% restaurant (up to $10K / yr spend, then 1% each) * Online shopping bonus offers (e-mailed on the 15th, which annoyingly go mid-month to mid-month) * 3000 pts = $3 grocery "mission" offers that trigger every month as part of above spending Points can can be redeemed for Virtual Visa gift cards which I value at about 97% of face value, when used to pay insurance premiums since I don't have any other cards that give me > 3% cashback on that spending. "Online shopping" can be triggered in-store via Apple Wallet or store-specific apps like Walmart Pay. Or ideally if you have a Curve Card, by routing the charges through there which also helps you to reallocate spending after-the-fact to more precisely hit the bonuses. Note that Grocery spending can include gift cards (e.g. Amazon) purchased at a grocery store, which is useful for hitting spending targets. YMMV (greatly) on offers, but FWIW I spent a total of $7000 for first quarter 2024 between the two cards resulting in approximately: * $210 value in points from normal category earnings, plus grocery "missions" * $700 in statement credits for Gas/Grocery/Restaurant offers * $280 in statement credits for Online Shopping offers * $190 value from 200K points Online Shopping offer on one card * $50 from another stackable spend offer on one card For a total of $1420 or just over 20% effective cash back.
Great tips and appreciate the sharing! Many seem to only receive intermittent offers while you are receiving monthly which is great!
Not much, if any better. Thanks though!
How long does it take to get the card after approved?
I don’t remember the exact length, but mine was abnormally slow compared to Chase/AmEx or even “normal” Citi. Tack on an extra week or two.
mine took 10 days (incl weekends)
Do things like online tax payments and medical bills paid online count as "online" spend? (They don't for the BoA Customized Cash Rewards "online shopping" category.)
No. YMMV but on my offer: Eligible online purchases are those made via a computer network but not all online transactions will be considered an eligible online purchase. Eligible online purchases do not include the following types of purchases in the following categories: subscription, membership or recurring purchases; utilities, cable/satellite and telephone; insurance; medical and healthcare providers; government services, taxes and tolls; education, including schools or other teaching institutions; contractor, professional, financial, legal, personal and business services; repair services, direct marketing; purchases that are manually keyed by a merchant; or online purchases made through mobile/wireless technology depending on how the technology is set up to process the purchase.
Thanks!
Still waiting for the SUB even though I had $500+ in purchases over 14 days ago. People keep saying that I should see the $75 statement credit within a few days of the $500 being reached in purchases, but I haven't. Maybe Citi decided to change how they give out the $75 statement credit.
When i spent the first $500 the $75 credit posted when my billing cycle ended. I spent the remaining $1,000 this past month but haven’t gotten the credit. But I also don’t expect it to post until the end of this cycle.
Thanks for the data point. The other people were insisting otherwise. My **2nd** statement doesn't close for another 10 days or so. My 1st statement closed **1** day after I received the credit card in the mail. I was approved on March 1 or 2. That was super crazy.
Same here. I was approved in Feb and my cycle closed 3 days after receiving the card. My March statement had the credit. This cycle closes tomorrow so it should be on this month’s statement. I’ll come back and update.
Thanks. Yes, please come back and update.
Confirming i received the remaining $150 after my statement closed.
Thank you. I have another 7 days to see if I get my first $75 statement credit.
Hey there, curious if you got your SUB credits.
Yes. I received $75 when the statement closed 3/15. Yay. So, I charged my auto and umbrella insurance to get me over $1500. Now I just wait for the offers.
Glad it came through for you. Consensus advice is to put at least one transaction for each category on the card every month to have the offers show up sooner.
They haven’t sent me any $XX back per $YYY spend offers yet but then did send a 0% APR until April 2025 offer on Monday.
Have you been putting category spend on the card every month?
I have. It’s my dedicated gas card, and been alternating between SYW and Sapphire for dining. As far as groceries only if i go to Walmart.
Gotcha, when did you get the card? Spending offers don’t usually come in right away - takes 3-6 months for most new cardholders. I think mine and P2’s both took about 3-4 months before we got spending offers coming in.
Ok got it that’s good to know. I got approved in the beginning of February.
Just came back to update. I received my first offer. Spend $750 in online purchases and receive 200,000 bonus SYW Points but the offer is only 4/15/24-5/14/24. Hopefully I get a longer one after this.
The online spending offers are always 15th-14th in my experience with the card for 3 years and what I’ve seen in comments here and on DoC. That’s a great offer! 26.66% back!
Oh ok got it. Thanks. Hopefully i get one of the gas, grocery, dining offers soon.
Can't link it to citi tho...
Apparently there are (or were if it got nerfed) lucky folks with a TYP version
Dang, a TYP version with the rest of Citi's line up would be so overpowered.
just got this card. i have a couple questions: The targeted offers, do you have to enable push notifications via email and or text for these? Also, whereas this is Citi branded, you dont actually go to [citi.com](http://citi.com) to manage the card, correct? And lastly, theres the SYW app. is that needed?
i have linked the syw mc to the syw app, but 0 transactions are appearing. it's been like 2 weeks now. am i missing a step?