Costco & Citi have officially announced the details of their Costco Anywhere Visa card and the rewards on the card are much better than what was originally expected. The card is not available for new sign ups yet, but will be available for new sign ups on June 20th, 2016. Let’s take a look at both the personal and business version of this new card.
Card Review
Both the personal and business cards will come with the same rewards program, benefits & fees. They are as follows:
- No annual fee (but Costco membership is required)
- No foreign transaction fee (after January 25, 2018)
- Card earns at the following rates:
- 4% cash back on eligible gas worldwide, including gas at Costco, for the first $7,000 per year and then 1% thereafter
- 3% cash back on restaurant and eligible travel purchases worldwide
- 2% cash back on all other purchases from Costco and Costco.com
- 1% cash back on all other purchases
Cash back with Costco is a bit different than normal. Normally you accumulate cash back and can redeem whenever (assuming you meet any minimum cash back requirements), instead with Costco you receive an annual cash back coupon every year in February.
Existing Cardholders
The Costco portfolio is currently managed by American Express, if you currently have an American Express Costco card the following will happen:
- Sometime in May you’ll receive your new Citi card
- Continue to use your American Express card until June 19th
- On June 20th you can begin using the new Citi Costco card you received in May
- Cash back you’ve earned on your American Express card will be rolled over to your new Citi card and you’ll receive it as part of your annual cash back coupon that you’ll receive in February of 2017.
Our Verdict
This card is significantly better than the card offered by American Express, which had the following rewards:
- 3% (4% on the business card) on the first $4,000 ($7,000 on the buisness card) of gas, 1% thereafter (includes Costco gas stations but excludes superstores, supermarkets, convenience stores, and warehouse club)
- 2% on travel and at US restaurants
- 1% on all other purchases including Costco
Basically the new card will offer an additional 1% in all of the bonus categories. It was going to be absurd if it was possible to earn 2% back at Costco by using the Fidelity Visa 2% cash back card on all purchases and only 1% by using the official card.
It is possible to earn 5% cash back on gas purchases, but not at Costco stations. 3% cash back on restaurant purchases is best in show for cash back, but depending on how you value points you might get better value out of another card. As mentioned early, this is a significant improvement over the American Express card. It’s really difficult to know if signing up for the card will make sense though – as we don’t know whether a sign up bonus will be offered and if it is offered what it’ll be. I guess we’ll find out more when June 20th comes around.
Hey, everybody!
Could you kindly tell me to which credit bureau Citi is doing a hard inquiry after the application for Costco Anywhere Visa® Card is submitted? Thank you
I’m wondering about the differences between the personal version and the business version of the card. According to their compare page, the personal has three advantages and the business, none that I can see. The personal version has Non-business version has:
Citi Price Rewind – does a 60-day search for a lower price on your purchases. And if we find one, you can request a refund of the price difference. Citi Price Rewind does the hard work for you.
Trip Cancellation & Interruption Protection – if your trip’s cancelled or interrupted due to covered reasons like severe illness or weather, you may be reimbursed for your non-refundable trip expenses. It even covers expenses like change fees.
Apple pay.
Does anyone know of an advantage of the business version of the card?
I live in Texas, and get gas at H-E-B…I’d love to hear that it’ll count towards the full 4% back. Not holding my breath though, but it would be disappointing.
Anyone know for certain about this.
I was wondering the same thing. I don’t think we’ll know for certain until the card is live and can actually be put to use.
Apparently if you leave a reply that is honest, but not so complimentary on the card, this site will not publish it!
We don’t censor comments. It does take time for comments to post, at times. Hopefully, you’ll see your comment soon, if not yet.
So while everyone is excited to see the increase in rewards – which is really great, I cannot find ANY information in the notice I received 4/25/2016 regarding any other benefits the card provides. Such as:
with Amex you can open an incident and track it online and no interest is charged while being investigated. With Citi, you have to MAIL a letter to Citi and they MAY charge interest on the transaction in question. Also no mention of Car Rental Loss and Damage Insurance, Roadside Assistance Help as with Amex. Bo mention of PURCHASE PROTECTION (included with Amex) for 90 days if item is damaged or stolen. Citi’s “purchase protection” restricts you to purchases made in your home state or within 100 miles of your address AND you must NOT HAVE PAID THE PURCHASE PRICE IN FULL. Otherwise you get nothin’. Amex also provides Extended Warranty up to a year after warranty runs out – Citi – nothin’. With Amex you can set up alerts for many, many things and choose the way you want to be notified. With Citi, there is no mention of any alerts but they do state that Citi may contact you via any phone number, email address, mailing address provided or that they obtain through other ways – this includes communications to cell phones by live operator, Auto-Dialer, Recorded or artificial voice, text or email.Of course you get to pick up the charges, if any, associated with the communications. What a deal? I think I’ll be using my own personal Visa card that provides Amex-like benefits without any foreign transaction fees. And I’ll be checking out Sam’s and BJ’s.
I don’t care about Sam’s and I buy almost all of my groceries and a few other things at Costco anyway so this card is very very attractive to me, I’m just wondering if the 4% gas is applicable to any and every gas station or if there are exceptions, and if so are the exceptions more the norm than not?
Comparing the Sam’s Club MasterCard to the Costco Anywhere Visa, Sam’s pays 5% gas vs. 4% Costco.
Sam’s pays at gas stations vs. “gas” at Costco. Does this mean diesel is excluded using Costco Anywhere? Sam’s excludes gas at Costco, BJs, HEB, Kroger, Meijer, and Publix. Costco excludes those types plus no convenience stores. Under the travel 3%, Costco Anywhere allows NO timeshares, bus lines, rail, tour operators, or travel sites (as IS so for Sam’s Club MasterCards). Sam’s has 3% Foreign Transaction Fees. Costco Anywhere Citi Visa? Really the comparison has to be between the Sam’s MasterCard from Synchrony and the new Citi Visa, as it seems that Costco was aiming at that, not just improving on the Amex program. We may not know the true details until the cards issue.
Will they close your AMEX card? If not, do they offer an additional card without hitting your credit score?
Yes, Amex card will close. Contact Amex about getting a different card instead.
Trying to avoid the additional hit on the credit. Seems impossible? I read something earlier they would roll you into another card.
Does the 4% apply to 711? If so, that’d be awesome.
Does anyone know if this new card will have a foreign transaction fee?
Yes it has a 3% fee – up from 2.7% with Amex.