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Citi Premier® Card
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- Earn 60,000 bonus ThankYou® Points after you spend $4,000 in purchases within the first 3 months of account opening;
- NEW! Earn 3 Points at Restaurants and Supermarkets;
- Earn 3 Points at Gas Stations, Air Travel and Hotels.
No one likes to pay an annual fee for a credit card, but the fact of the matter is, the best travel rewards credit cards often have annual fees – and many of them are worth it.
Case in point? Citi, a Credit-Land.com advertising partner, offers the Citi Premier® Card, which gives points for the miles you fly as well as the purchases you make, has no foreign transaction fees, no limit to the points you can earn, and rewards that never expire. Let’s dig a little deeper into this travel rewards card from the Citi ThankYou network – one of the most popular credit card rewards programs out there.
Fees First – Getting the Bad News Out of the Way
Most reviews focus on rewards, then hit you with the bad news about fees at the end, so let’s just get this out of the way first thing, so we can talk about the rewards – which are pretty amazing.The Citi Premier® Card has an annual fee of $95. Is that a lot for a rewards credit card? With rewards cards annual fees running from $50 to $450, it’s not the lowest, but it’s not the highest either. The travel rewards can easily make the fee worthwhile – so read on.
The ongoing APR on this card will be 15.99% - 23.99% (Variable). The easy way to make this fee beside the point is to never carry a balance – not always the easiest thing to do, but if you’re careful and responsible, you won’t pay a penny of interest. Just remember that credit cards aren’t free money, and don’t spend more than you can afford, and you’ll be fine.
Earning Points
You will earn 60,000 bonus ThankYou® Points after you spend $4,000 in purchases within the first 3 months of account opening. These points are redeemable for $600 in airfare on any airline, anytime with no blackout dates when booked through the ThankYou® Travel Center, or $600 in gift cards when redeemed at thankyou.com.
You will also earn different number of points on purchases in different spending categories on a regular basis. Thus, air travel and hotels, as well as restaurants, supermarkets, and gas stations will bring you 3 points, plus you will earn 1 point per dollar spent on all other purchases. You’ll also get bonus points by shopping through the ThankYou Bonus Center, Citi’s online shopping mall of over 600 retailers.
Points never expire, and the sky’s the limit to how many points you can earn, so you can save them up as long as you like.
Redeeming Points
The special thing about this card is that you can squeeze extra value from your Points by redeeming them for airfare through the ThankYou Travel Center. This lets you book travel on any airline, with no restrictions like blackout dates, and gives you 20 percent more value for your points than other redemption options.
An airline ticket that costs $300 would normally require 30,000 ThankYou Points, but with this card, it only takes 25,000 points. That’s the best ThankYou Points value available, since points are usually worth about one cent each.
Another way to spend your ThankYou Points is to shop online at the Amazon or BestBuy websites. However, if you’re using your rewards for something other than travel, the best redemption value is gift cards. Redeem ThankYou Points for a gift card, available from hundreds of retailers like Barnes & Noble, Best Buy®, GAP, iTunes, Sephora and Target. This can be a great option at the holidays, letting you do all your holiday gift shopping with your Citi ThankYou Points.
At the Citi ThankYou mall, most gift cards are available in $25, $50, and $100 increments, and the exchange rate is one cent per point, so 2,500 points will get you a $25 gift card, and 10,000 will get you a $100 gift card. Again, gift cards offer the highest redemption value, besides travel – and with such a wide variety of merchants to choose from, it’s very likely you’ll find a redemption option you like.
Travel Rewards
- $100 Annual Hotel Savings Benefit. You can enjoy $100 off a single hotel stay of $500 or more, excluding taxes and fees, through the ThankYou Rewards portal, once per calendar year.
- Points transfer gets you flights faster or you can enjoy longer stays at hotels. You can transfer ThankYou points to the partners’ loyalty programs including TrueBlue®, Virgin Atlantic Flying Club, Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer or Flying Blue.
- No foreign transaction fees, saving you an average of three percent on all overseas purchases.
Wrapping Up the Rewards
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With the travel rewards and benefits, and purchase perks, the Citi Premier® Card has a lot to offer the right customer. Just remember that to get the most from this card, you should plan to do plenty of traveling, pay off your balance in full each month, and remember that the rewards outweigh the annual fee, if you make sure to use the card to its fullest potential.
