Citi Double Cash

Most of the cards I present on this blog are Chase and Amex cards.  There are two other major credit card issuers whose credit cards earn transferrable points: Citi and Capital One.  For this post, I’ll be going over one of the best cards out there for everyday spending: the Citi Double Cash.  In many circumstances, this card is better than its competitors from Chase (the Freedom Unlimited) and Amex (the Blue Cash Everyday and the EveryDay).  Like the other cards, the Double Cash card has no annual fee and (effectively) earns cashback.

Welcome Offer

At the time of posting, the Citi Double Cash has no welcome bonus, which seems to be the usual case when I’ve looked at this card.

Earnings

This card’s basic earning structure is pretty simple: it earns 1% cashback when you make a purchase and 1% cashback when you pay off the card.  Assuming you pay off your card, it earns a flat 2% cashback on everything for no annual fee.  The cashback is earned in the form of Citi ThankYou points, which can be redeemed at a rate of 1 ¢/pt for cashback.

Benefits

This card has no annual fee and no benefits beyond the points/cashback it earns.

How to use the points

There are two primary ways to use ThankYou Points.  The first way is to redeem them for cashback at a rate of 1 pt = 1¢.  Redeeming the points this way is definitely the simplest method and gives a good, guaranteed return of 2% on all spending.

The second way is to transfer them to a partner to redeem them for reward travel.  To unlock the transfer option, you have to have another Citi card, like the Citi Premier card, for example.  If you have this card, you can potentially unlock substantially more value out of the points than their face value.  Citi’s transfer partners are a bit more niche than Chase or Amex.  That is to say, although the three major airline alliances are represented, the only US-based airline on the chart is JetBlue. 

Examples of using the card

Spend per month

For consistency with the other card pages, the second category instead of points earned is ‘cents earned’.

	Example A		Example B		Example C		Example D
Groceries (2x)	$300	600	$200	480	$600	1 200	$400	800
Gas (2x)	$0	0	$100	120	$200	400	$100	200
Airfare (2x)	$700	1 400	$200	240	$0	0	$400	800
Hotels (2x)	$1 000	2 000	$200	400	$0	0	$300	600
Gen Travel (2x)	$400	800	$0	0	$300	600	$100	200
Dining (2x)	$600	1 20	$300	600	$300	600	$0	0
General (2x)	$1 000	2 000	$500	1 000	$500	1 000	$400	800
Total	$4 000	5 160	$1 500	2 040	$1 700	3 000	$1 700	2 440
Average cashback/$		2		2		2		2

The whole point of this card is that it earns a flat 2% on everything, so there is no variability in the earnings.

Specific examples

Card	World Traveller ($750)  (% return)	Marriott Hotel night ($230/night)	Points values (WT/Hotel)
No rewards card	2 728 (4.9%)	2 200 MP (7.3%)	$37.10 / $17.60
Amex Blue Cash Everyday	2 728 + $7.50 (5.9%)	2 200 MP + $2.30 (8.3%)	$44.60 / $19.90
Citi Double Cash	2 728 + $15.00 (6.9%)	2 200 MP + $4.60 (9.3%)	$52.10 / $22.20
Chase Freedom Unlimited	2 728 Avios + 1 125 UR (7.2%)	2 200 MP + 345 UR (9.6%)	$53.98 / $22.78

Is this credit card right for you?

I think it’s pretty hard to go wrong with this card.  A flat 2% back on everything is excellent and incredibly simple.  I think for anyone that’s not interested in playing games with credit cards, this is probably their ideal card.