Citi Custom Cash Intro Bonus: Earn 20,000 ThankYou Points, 5 Points Per Dollar In Your Top Spending Category, And 0% APR On Balance Transfers And Purchases!

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Signup bonus:

You can earn 20,000 Citi ThankYou points for opening the brand new Citi Custom Cash Card and spending $750 in 3 months. The card is marketed as $200 cash back, but you’ll actually get 20,000 points. Those points are worth a minimum of $200 cash back as they can be cashed out at one cent each, but they can be worth much more as shown below.

That’s a strong bonus compared to Citi’s other no annual fee cards like Citi Double Cash Card (no bonus) and Citi Rewards+ Card (20K points for spending $1,500 in 3 months).

Annual fee: 

None. Additional user cards are also free.

Signup bonus terms: 

• Everyone is currently eligible for this bonus. You can receive a bonus on a Custom Cash card once every 48 months.
• Only one Custom Cash card will be issued per person.

Card earnings: 

• 5 points per dollar on up to $500 in purchases in your top eligible spending category each billing cycle.
  • This is marketed as 5% cash back, but will actually come in the form of 5 ThankYou points per dollar spent!
  • Eligible categories include Restaurants, Gas Stations, Grocery Stores, Select Travel, Select Transit, Select Streaming Services, Drugstores, Home Improvement Stores, Fitness Clubs, and Live Entertainment.
• 1 point per dollar on all other spending.

You don’t need to enroll in any categories, you’ll automatically earn 5 points per dollar in your top spending category on up to $500 of monthly purchases. That’s a potential 2,500 points per month or 30,000 points annually per cardholder.

That means if a family spends $500/month on groceries and $500/month on gas, 2 spouses can each have a Custom Cash card and use one for gas and one for groceries to rack up 60,000 points annually. You can also each have additional user cards for free, just be sure to mark which card is for gas and which card is for groceries!

You can check how a merchant’s category is coded on this site. 

• Restaurants
  • Includes purchases at cafes, bars, lounges and fast food restaurants. Excludes purchases at bakeries, caterers, restaurants located inside another business (such as hotels, stores, stadiums, grocery stores, or warehouse clubs) and third party dining delivery services.
• Gas Stations
  • Excludes gasoline purchases at warehouse clubs, discount stores, convenience stores or other merchants if they do not use the gas station merchant category code.
• Grocery Stores
  • Includes purchases at supermarkets, meat/seafood stores, dairy stores, bakeries, and miscellaneous food/convenience stores. Excludes purchases at general merchandise/discount superstores; wholesale/warehouse clubs; candy, nut and confectionery stores. Purchases made at online supermarkets or with grocery delivery services also do not qualify if the merchant does not classify itself as a supermarket by using the supermarket merchant category code.
• Select Travel
  • Includes airline, hotel, cruise line and travel agency purchases. Excludes timeshares, boat leases and rentals, campgrounds and trailer parks, and real estate agencies.
• Select Transit
  • Includes car rentals, ferries, commuter railways, subways, taxis/limousines/car services, passenger railways, bridge and road tolls, parking lots/garages, bus lines, and motor home and recreational vehicle rentals. Excludes bike/scooter rentals, auto clubs and insurance companies.
• Select Streaming Services
  • Includes the following cable, satellite, and streaming providers: Amazon Prime Video, Amazon Music, Apple Music, CBS All Access, Disney+, AT&T TV NOW, ESPN+, fuboTV, HBO Max, NBA League Pass, Netflix, Pandora, Showtime, Sling TV, Spotify, Starz, SiriusXM, Vudu, YouTube Red, YouTube TV, and Tidal.
• Drugstores
  • Includes purchases made at pharmacies in grocery stores, general merchandise/discount superstores, and wholesale/warehouse clubs if those merchants submit purchases made in their pharmacy with the drug store and pharmacy merchant category code.
• Home Improvement Stores
  • Includes purchases at home supply warehouse stores, lumber and building materials stores, paint and wallpaper stores, hardware stores, nurseries – lawn and garden supply stores and paints, varnishes and supplies stores. Excludes florists and florists’ supply stores; nursery stock; wholesale construction stores; and glass stores.
• Fitness Clubs
  • Includes membership fee and other purchases at athletic, sports and recreation facilities requiring membership such as health, tennis, and swimming clubs. Excludes fees associated with virtual services for home exercise equipment, personal monitoring devices, or fitness streaming classes.
• Live Entertainment
  • Includes ticket purchases for live entertainment, including: concerts, live sporting events, live theatrical productions, amusement parks, and orchestras. Excludes: charitable organizations that provide live entertainment (benefits), sporting camps, sports complexes where you participate in the sport, public and private golf courses, country clubs (including membership fees), bowling alleys, movie theaters, tourist attractions, museums and art galleries.

Virtual card numbers:

While Citi co-branded cards like their AA cards no longer offer virtual card numbers, their ThankYou cards still do.

With a virtual card number you can set a dollar limit and/or expiration date to generate a one-time use credit card number so that you don’t keep getting charged for subscriptions or have your real card number stolen, among myriad other potential uses.

0% APR:

You will receive 0% APR on purchases and balance transfers for 15 months! Then 14.24% – 24.24% (Variable).

Citi Quadfecta:

Citi now has 3 excellent no annual fee cards that pair perfectly with a Citi Premier Card.

The Citi Premier Card allows you to transfer all of your ThankYou points into miles with many valuable programs.

The no annual fee Citi Double Cash Card you earn 2% cash back everywhere, which can be converted into 2 ThankYou points.

The no annual fee Citi Rewards+ Card automatically rounds up rewards earned on every purchase to the nearest 10 points, meaning you will earn 10 points on a $0.50 Amazon balance reload, which is equal to earning 20 points per dollar spent! You will also get 0% APR on purchases and balance transfers for 15 months. Then 13.74% – 23.74% (Variable).

Having a Citi Rewards+ Card also gets you a 10% points rebate when you redeem points, up to a 10K points rebate per year. While the Rewards+ card doesn’t transfer points into most airline miles, if you have a Citi Premier card and a Rewards+ card you’ll even get a 10% rebate on mileage transfers!

And the Citi Custom Cash Card allows you to earn 5 points per dollar on your top monthly spending category.

Citi allows applications for 1 card every 8 days and 2 cards every 2 months.

You can freely convert between all 4 of these card products, as well as to most other Citi cards!

Mileage transfers:

While this card won’t transfer miles directly to most airlines, if you have a Citi Premier card, you can transfer all ThankYou points from all Citi credit card into miles.

You can also share up to 100,000 points annually with another ThankYou member.

Citi mileage transfer partners now include:

• • Aeromexico (Skyteam): 1K:1K
  • Air France/KLM Flying Blue (Skyteam): 1K:1K
  • Avianca Lifemiles (Star Alliance): 1K:1K
  • Cathay Pacific Asia Miles (OneWorld): 1K:1K
  • Emirates: 1K:1K
  • Etihad: 1K:1K
  • EVA (Star Alliance): 1K:1K
  • Garuda Indonesia (Skyteam): 1K:1K
  • Intermiles: 1K:1K
  • JetBlue: 1K:1K
  • Malaysia (OneWorld): 1K:1K
  • Qantas (OneWorld): 1K:1K
  • Qatar (OneWorld): 1K:1K
  • Singapore (Star Alliance): 1K:1K
  • Thai (Star Alliance): 1K:1K
  • Turkish (Star Alliance): 1K:1K
  • Virgin Atlantic: 1K:1K

Don’t want to transfer miles? You can also redeem for any paid travel at a value of 1 cent per point.

You can also transfer points between any Citi cardholders to transfer points into miles.

Sample mileage uses:

Turkish Airlines:

As I’ve written about before, Turkish Airlines has a ridiculously generous Star Alliance award chart.

And they don’t charge any fuel surcharges for United flights.

Here is the North America version of the chart with one-way award pricing:

As part of the Star Alliance, Turkish can book award travel on airlines like United and Air Canada.

You can open a Turkish Airlines mileage account online (Hint: Your password must be exactly 6 numbers or else it will give an error).

And you can book Star Alliance awards with Turkish miles here (Login and then click this link again). You can’t search for partner awards from their home page. Search for one-way at a time for best results.

For example you can transfer miles to Turkish Airlines to fly from the US to Tel Aviv on United for just 32K points, or 28.8K points in coach after the 10% rebate with a Rewards+ card:

Or 47K points in Polaris business class (42.3K after the 10% rebate with a Rewards+ card):

There are lots of other bargains, all of which will be 10% less with a Rewards+ card:

• Fly one-way anywhere in the US, including Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and USVI, for just 7.5K miles in coach or 12.5K in business class on United with no fuel surcharges.
• Fly one-way anywhere to Canada or Mexico for just 10K miles in coach or 15K in business class on United with no fuel surcharges.
• Fly one-way to Europe for 45K in business class on United with no fuel surcharges.

Avianca Lifemiles: Awards on United start at just 6.5K miles and as low as 5.2K miles with frequent 25% transfer bonuses.

Flying Blue: Fly between the US and Israel for 25K miles or pay under 20K miles with promo awards from rotating cities. Fly nonstop on Delta to Israel for 29K miles.

Emirates: Fly in shower class with newly lowered fuel surcharges.

 

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Qantas:

With Qantas miles you can redeem for El Al award tickets without any fuel surcharges! You read more about this option here. Plus there have been transfer bonuses in the past.

• A one-way coach ticket from NYC to Tel Aviv is 37.8K Qantas miles and there are no fuel surcharges.
• A one-way premium economy ticket from NYC to Tel Aviv is 70.8K Qantas miles and there are no fuel surcharges.
• A one-way business class ticket from NYC to Tel Aviv is 90K Qantas miles and there are no fuel surcharges.

JetBlue: All awards now have free cancellations!

Cathay Pacific: Avoid and lower fuel surcharges on partner airlines like AA and BA.

Singapore: Book highly rated premium cabin or suites on Singapore flights that are blocked with partner miles.

Virgin Atlantic: Bargains on ANA First Class suites and on Delta flights. You can now even book one-way awards.

Will you signup for a Citi Custom Cash Card?