Review of the Citi Thank You Preferred Card
Last Reviewed: 1/2/2012
While the Citi Thank You Preferred credit card is normally positioned as the no-fee (and thus, fewer rewards) version of the Citi Thankyou Premier Card, we’ve uncovered a hidden offer that gives you the same sign-up bonus as the fancy-schmancy Premier card, but with no annual fee (compared to the $125 annual fee on the premier version). As Saka of Airbender fame would say, “we’ve got your back.”
While we present details on both the standard offer and the hidden offer, given that the hidden offer far outperforms the standard version, we’ll dedicated most of this post to the hidden offer.
| Citi ThankYou Preferred Hidden Gem Offer | Citi ThankYou Preferred (Standard Offer) | |
|---|---|---|
| GENERAL | ||
| Rewards Program | ThankYou Rewards | ThankYou Rewards |
| Credit Level Required | Excellent | Excellent |
| Network | Visa | Mastercard |
| EARNING REWARDS | ||
| Base Rewards | 1 ThankYou Point per dollar of spend | 1 ThankYou Point per dollar of spend |
| Bonus Spend Categories | None | None |
| Sign Up Bonus | None | None |
| Spend Target Bonus | Earn 50K points:
|
Earn 25K points when you spend $2,000 in 3 months of account opening |
| Other Bonuses |
|
|
| Earning Caps | None | None |
| Points Expiration | Points don’t expire | Points don’t expire |
| REDEEMING REWARDS | ||
| Redemption Methods | Cash back, travel, merchandise, gift cards, more. | Cash back, travel, merchandise, gift cards, more. |
| Recommended Redemption Method |
|
|
| FEES | ||
| Annual Fee | None | None |
| Foreign Transaction Fee | 3% after converting to USD | 3% after converting to USD |
| Balance Transfer Fee | 3% or $5, whichever is greater. | 3% or $5, whichever is greater. |
Earning Rewards with the Citi Thank You Preferred Credit Card
The real story here is the voluptuous sign-up bonus. You can earn 2 bonuses of 25K points each; you’ll earn the first 25K if you spend $5K within 6 months of card ownership, and you’ll get the 2nd 25K after you spend another $5K in the 2nd 6 months of the first year of card ownership. This seems within the realm of achievability for many folks.
The actual points you earn on daily purchases are as skimpy as this gal’s outfit—-1 point per dollar of spend. Therefore, we recommend this card primarily for its sign-up bonus, and not as a daily use card (except for the fact that you’ve got to use it quite a bit that first year to earn the bonus).
A Quick Note on the Citi Preferred Anniversary Bonus
The Citi Preferred credit card gives you an annual bonus which increases each year you own the card, maxing out at 3%. It’s fairly straightforward: at the end of year 1, Citi adds up all the TY points you earned from purchases (your spend target bonus is not included) and then gives you 1% more points on top of that total. In year 2, the bonus goes up to 2%, and by year 3 you’ve reached the peak bonus of 3%, which then continues on each year ad infinitum.
While this one may look nice on paper, the fact is this bonus isn’t worth that much to most people. If you earn 60,000 Thank You points during the year (which is $5,000 of spend each month on your Preferred Card), you’d get at most 1,800 bonus points (assuming you’ve had the card for 3 years or more). Those 1,800 points are worth roughly $18. Nice? Sure…Life changing? I hope not.
Your Best Strategy For Redeeming Thank You Points Earned with the Citi Preferred Credit Card
The folks at PlasticIQ value Citi ThankYou points anywhere from abou $0.006 to around $0.01, depending on what you redeem them for.
While you can read an in-depth article on the value of Citi ThankYou points here, the long and short of it is that you should redeem your points for either airline travel, or (if you have one of these loans) student loan rebates or mortgage rebates. For any of these redemption methods, your Citi TY points will redeem at $0.01 per point.
PlasticIQ’s Closing Thoughts on the Citi ThankYou Preferred Credit Card
The hidden offer is simply a monster of a sign-up bonus card—-the only downside being you need to hold onto it for a full year to realize the full 50K bonus. But with no annual fee, there’s not a huge downside to that. We can’t recommend it, though, as a daily use card since there are no spending categories where you can earn bonus points, and a 1 point-per-dollar-of-spend reward is very ho-hum.
You can apply for the Citi ThankYou Preferred hidden gem offer, or, if you’re feeling like you want to underachieve, you can go for the Citi Preferred Standard Offer.