Citi launches today the Citi Custom Cash card which earns 5x cashback/Thankyou points on up to $500 in spend per month in your top spend category and has no annual fee. Card has $200/20,000 points signup bonus.
Citi Custom Cash signup link | Another Link | Press Release
Signup Bonus
- Signup bonus of $200 after you spend $750 within the first 3 months.
Bonus is not available if you received one for opening a new Citi Custom Cash Card account in the past 48 months.
Card Details
- No annual fee
- Card earns 5% cash back/points on your top spend category of the month, up to $500 in spend ($25 cashback) per month. Categories include things like Grocery, Dining, or Travel and more. Category adjust automatically to your top category each month – no need to enroll or to select your top category. You’ll be able to see your top category in the Citibank mobile app.
- The top eligible spend categories of the Custom Cash Card are: restaurants, gas stations, grocery stores, select streaming services, select travel, select transit, home improvement stores, fitness clubs, live entertainment and drugstores.
- Card earns 1% cash back on all other purchases.
- Cash back is earned in the form of ThankYou Points, which can be redeemed for cash back as a direct deposit, check or statement credit. Or cardmembers can choose other ways to redeem points, including redeeming for gift cards, charitable donations, travel, Shop with Points at Amazon.com, and more. (I assume these points will function like standard ThankYou points which can be transferred to partners.)
- Low introductory rate on purchases and balance transfers for 15 months.
- Foreign transaction fee is 3% of the U.S. dollar amount of each purchase.
- Only one Citi Custom Cash Card account per customer.
Our Verdict
This sounds like an upgraded version of the old Citi Dividend card. Similar total cashback amount of $500 per month versus the Dividend’s $1,500 per 3 months, but the Custom Cash is much better since it allows you to customize the categories for popular places like groceries or drugstores. Another major advantage is the fact that it earns ThankYou points and gives the option of either cashing out your points or using them toward travel, similar to the DoubleCash card which offers both options.
Could be a useful card to apply for and max out the monthly category. Also interesting as a downgrade option when getting rid of a card that has an annual fee (assuming they allow that).
