MOST LIKELY DEAD! Citi CashReturns MasterCard - UNLIMITED 5% cash back for 3 months

mountainview posted this little gem here, but I felt it deserved its own thread.

OLD LINK. Don't use, see below.

"Automatic Cash.Back on purchases. Who wouldn’t like that? With the Citi CashReturnsSM MasterCard®, you’ll earn 5% Cash.Back on all purchases for 3 months and 1% thereafter. It’s smart, it’s simple, it’s automatic. Receive your Cash.Back redemption check automatically after you earn 50 CitiDollarsSM. Plus, there's no limit to the amount of Cash.Back you can earn."

No limit? Even for the first 3 months? I see no mention of any caps for Cash.Back during the promotional period.

Update 4/24

Citi's latest version of CashReturns is useless, but this link still has the original offer:

https://www.citicards.com/cards/wv/copy.do?screenID=1381

Be careful to take snapshots of the offer page and T&C in case Citi neglects to give you the correct version.

Update 5/17

The screenID=1381 link no longer works. Use the link below.

https://www.citicards.com/cards/wv/copy.do?screenID=1388

Update 6/3

ScreenID=1388 appears dead. The link below is through a third party. YMMV.

OLD bridgetrack version - DEAD

Update 9/3

Original bridgetrack link is dead. The one below looks promising. [insert obligatory disclaimer here.]

Latest bridgetrack version - DEAD 9/4

Update 9/4

9/3 link is dead. Could be game over.

Important advice from MikeR397...PLEASE READ:

MikeR397 said: Don't tell Citi the web address you applied to. All it takes is for a CSR to report that to a manager, who then says "wait, that promo should have already been shut down," and then take adverse action to our little hidden gem.

For those of you who are worried that the bridgetrack link's T&C page says nothing about 5% cash.back, you can be reasonably sure you will get the full 5% if the APR on purchases says 7.74% (i.e., prime + 2.24%.)

The crappy 1.2% version of CashReturns carries an APR of 9.99%.

Wow, where was this when I bought my boat a few months back... this would be great for anyone planning a very large CC purchase.

awesome, this one beats the keybank capped card.

but sheesh, this is one ugly card.

ewww

Intersting. Very interesting. Time to start haggling those car salesman to allow max CC charge. Or buy a bunch of bonds? Hope this card sticks around until November...

Kind of no easy way to get the most out from this card...no 0% APR on purchase and no cap on BT fee. Good, if u charge a lot of $$$$$.

what are the fees to paypal money to yourself?

what's wrong with Experian?

Also another question - do you have to pay a balance transfer fee for the initial balance transfer?

Is it possible to convert another citi card to this in order to take advantage of the 5% Cash Back?

I think if you try to Paypal a huge amount of money, they will probably lock the account due to activity out of character

u2head8 said: Kind of no easy way to get the most out from this card...no 0% APR on purchase and no cap on BT fee. Good, if u charge a lot of $$$$$.

does it have to be easy for you too? NO ONE WOULD WANT TO DO A BT ON THIS CARD ANYWAYS, THATS NOT WHAT ANY 5% CARD I HAVE EVER SEEN SHOULD BE USED FOR.

Drogean said: how easy is it to close this card after the 3 months of 5%?
and are there any fees?

because i think most of us will do just that as soon as the 5% runs out.
Most FW'ers would never close a card. For me at least I would just wait for the next CITI deal and then close and reallocate to it. I like just keeping one open card from every issuer, Makes it easy to get new ones and CL's have become large this way

MegaKimcheeLove said:

One important thing to note: you can only make up to 4 payments per payment period towards your balance. So if you don't get a high CL or can't reallocate, remember that you can only "cycle" your payments 4 times.

So, only 4 PayPal payments a month for you!
What's Paypal? And I am not worried about getting a large CL

MegaKimcheeLove said: igorthesmall said: what are the fees to paypal money to yourself?

Approximately 2.9% if you don't have any type of regular payments going through PayPal (they give discounts based on prior month $ volume). So this would be 2.1% "return".

I agree strongly that you should be *very* careful if you try this PayPal rinse and repeat - no telling what could happen

I do this all the time already, it's no big deal. they take about 2.9% , but wats up with the 4 transactions a month?. never heard dat one before.

if u really are limited to 4 transactions, can add obopay into it, they take 1.5% but i think they limit you to a certain $ amount a month.

elleve said:

I do this all the time already, it's no big deal. they take about 2.9% , but wats up with the 4 transactions a month?. never heard dat one before.

if u really are limited to 4 transactions, can add obopay into it, they take 1.5% but i think they limit you to a certain $ amount a month.

Sorry - should be clearer. You can make as many transactions as you want in a month, but the T&C states that you can only make 4 PAYMENTS to your credit card balance in a billing cycle.

So if your CL is $5,000, you can't keep charging and paying it off unlimited times in a month. You can only post 4 payments against your balance in a month

scott1961 said: scott1961 said:
I just applied for the no cap, Anyone know who they pull from, Please don't be Experian
Just checked and of course the pull was from Experian, Why the heck can't I get any pulls from EQ or TU?You could always use the address of your summer home

DO NOT , I REPEAT DO NOT FUNNEL MONEY THROUGH PAYPAL UNLESS YOU WANT FUNDS FROZEN.

The last thing this forum needs is more "I did something stupid HELP NEEDED" posts

Is the 5% really worth it for 3 months??? Not for me. I already get 5% on groceries,drugstores and fuel with my AMEX Blue Cash and 1.5% on everything else. The extra 3.5% on non-EDP which I'd get for 3 months on this Citi card wouldn't even pay my phone bill.....

I saw this as well...I like where you're going here...

I think it's safe to assume this card will come with a relatively low CL.

greecemonky said: I think it's safe to assume this card will come with a relatively low CL.

If you read T&C, if you get accepted, the LOWEST CL you can possible get is $8000.

Edit: WHOOPS, got this mixed up with the Citi AMEX Plat. card. Sorry, about that.

Yeah, had not looked at it much before. I agree that the CitiBank Platinum AMEX is a very good credit card for the first 24 months.