The Offer
- Reddit user WanderingWitch has reported receiving the following targeted offer for the Citi ThankYou Premier:
- We’ll match the points you earn up to 50,000 points after the first year of opening your account
Card Details
- Annual fee of $95 waived the first year
- Card earns at the following rates:
- 3x on travel
- 2x on dining and entertainment
- 1x on all other purchases
- Offer does not contain language about new Citi rule
Our Verdict
You’d need to spend $50,00 on every day purchases, $25,000 on dining/entertainment, $16,667 on travel or a combination to get the full 50,000 point bonus. In the past this card has offered a straight 50,000 point or 40,000 point bonus so this offer is basically just trash. The one upside is that the new Citi rule isn’t mentioned on this offer, so it looks like targeted offers will be excluded.
You can learn more about Citi credit cards by reading this post. Let us know your thoughts on this offer in the comments.
You forgot the link in “You can learn more about Citi credit cards by reading this post”
Added, thanks Aahz! https://www.doctorofcredit.com/12-things-everybody-should-know-about-citi-credit-cards/ for those interested
I got this as a retention offer on my premier once. Interesting to see it as a new card sign up.
Got this offer too, but meh, wasn’t interested.
Kevin– I was thinking the exact same thing. All the banks want us to spend a lot on their card, not just $4K and sock drawer it.
As “terrible” as this offer seems I wouldn’t be surprised if this becomes the new norm: forcing users to actually spend on the card for a year (a la Discover) before they get the bonus. Sucks for churning and reward maximizers yes but for the issuers, it makes a lot of sense.
We will see, I suspect there will be push back from non bonus chasers as these offers aren’t nearly as attractive as normal sign up bonuses. I think something more in line with what American Express is doing with their blue cash cards will become the new ‘norm’. But we shall see.
With Discover, it’s uncapped. That makes it potentially much more valuable. Offering the exact same sign-up bonus (50K) with hundreds of times the effort it just terrible.