Deal has ended, view more spending bonuses by clicking here.
Update: Some people also had the same offer for home improvement stores.
The Offer
- Some Citi Sears cardholders are being offered 20% cashback, 25% cashback, 20x Citi ThankYou points or 25x Citi ThankYou points on Utility purchases of $100 or more.
The Fine Print
- Valid on purchases 8/1 – 10/31
- Maximum of 9,000 points or $90 per month for the 25% offers or 7,500 points or $75 per month for 20% offers
Our Verdict
Awesome deal, some utility providers allow you to prepay which could help maxing out this promotion.
Checking with folks. My August bonus posted on 9/9 and my September bonus posted on 10/10, but no bonus yet for October spend.
Should I expect it to still come in or are they delayed sometimes?
Same here, October bonus has yet to post. It seems to be normal for this card as I’ve had it happen with other offers in the past. It takes a while but they eventually always post for me. When the promos finally do post, they backdate the credits for some reason. For example it takes until like the very end of October or beginning of November for the credit dated “Oct 10” to show up in the transactions. I have the SYW card, dunno how the TYP works though.
Thanks Chris!
I had expected it to be on the same posting schedule, but I do see it’s not always consistent. The terms do state within 2 billing cycles too, so it’s a waiting game while I gobble up the other bonuses that keep coming!
I also have the SPW version.
It posted!
Ah yup, just checked and it posted for me as well.
It seems the “Restaurants-TELEPHONE SERVICE” category will work for this promo even though it’s not specified in the terms. Doesn’t have anything to do with restaurants, just seems like a weird Citi category display quirk. Too late to take advantage of for this specific offer but thought I’d share a data point for the future.
I had two offers going (20% on utilities up to $75 and a general $75 on $750 offer) and forgot to max out the utilities one month. However, I charged my Verizon bill that month to cover the rest of the other offer and still got the max $75 for both posted. I don’t have any other transactions that could be thought of as “utilities” so I’m appears Citi counts “TELEPHONE SERVICE” as one.
I just saw on my thankyou.com/pointsSummary.htm where there’s a 9000 bonus posted on 10/21. I assume this is the bonus for the utility payment I made for month of August…Don’t remember other offers that gave the 9000 bonus during the period.
The Merchant Category is “Restaurants-UTILITIES-ELECTRIC,GAS,SANITARY,WATER” so looks like it is working! Looking forward to the month of September and October bonus on this!
I was targeted at 25x for August, September, and October. I just called because my electric bill, which includes the word “utility” in its description, has a category of “Services-MISC GOVERNMENT SERVICES”. Also, my gas bill shows the category “Restaurants-UTILITIES-ELECTRIC,GAS,SANITARY,WATER”. I only asked about my electric bill, but was told that it will not qualify. Given that I do not currently see 25x in my points details for either August or September, it is looking like I will only be getting 1x instead of 25x for both months.
Hmm…
Anybody know if a transaction coded as “FUEL DEALERS-FUEL OIL,WOOD,COAL,LP GAS” counts towards this? I made a purchase already so I guess I’ll have to wait ~2 months to confirm.
I got denied today when I tried to buy a $500 gc at a grocery store. I learned that the fraud team can tell what category before the regular customer service can. See customer service has to wait till chart is posted.
i sometimes run into a blocked transaction in grocery stores because the amount is large. Usually giving them a call solves the issue and I just have to swipe it again
Found out today that the card company is blocking transactions with the $300 vsa & mc gc as I was able to make regular purchases once the gc was removed from the transaction. I thought it might be that store/company so I went to a different co and tried transaction with the card and other stuff got denied again. Took the card off and transaction went through with just the other stuff.
After a few calls while I’m at the register and having one of their rep online pushing the sale through they seem to now allow me to make 1500 worth of purchase without denying the transaction. They may ask for ID and once the cashier put the info in the sale goes thru
Update: Bonus posted! The category for “FUEL DEALERS-FUEL OIL,WOOD,COAL,LP GAS” counted toward this utilities promo.
25x Utilities, which is a payment of $360.
Below is the fine print..
You have the opportunity to receive 25X Bonus ThankYou Points (25X Bonus ThankYou Points per dollar spent) on eligible utility purchases which total $100 or more each month (up to a maximum total of a 9,000 Bonus ThankYou Points each month) and which are made with your Sears Mastercard and post to your account between 8/01/20 – 10/31/20. These Bonus ThankYou Points are in addition to the 1 ThankYou Point per $1 spent on purchases that you already earn with your card.
Utilities are classified as merchants that provide electricity, gas (natural or propane), home heating oil, water system supply services, collection and disposal of refuse, or the delivery of cable or satellite television or radio programming on a subscription or fee basis. We do not determine how merchants are classified, however they are generally classified based upon the merchant’s primary line of business. We reserve the right to determine which purchases qualify for this offer.
Is this card available to sign up for? As I can’t find a working application link.
I think there is still a $40 signup bonus on $50 spend but I don’t see it mentioned on the site anymore. I was at a mall with a Sears recently and they still had signage up for it.
Just be aware that it seems you have to have the card open for a couple months before you to start to getting these crazy offers. I just hope Sears doesn’t go completely out of business yet as this card has been great to me over the past year.
Thank you.
Thanks, I received 20% cashback on utilities for August-October. I plan to max this out with a combination of electric, gas and att uverse bills. Will test att with a $1 payment first just to make sure that it codes as a utility. Also, I pay my electric bill through Arcadia power and will see if that codes as a utility as well. I can get a max of $75 cashback monthly on this offer so I would need $375 in total monthly payments to max this out. Att can be prepaid, so that will help out a lot if that one codes as a utility.
Just be aware that this is a 3 month promotion and it takes at least 1 month for the credits to appear on your bill. You could easily be in the middle of the 2nd month before finding out if it codes properly.
I prepaid some bills and it looks like there’s two categories/codes that should probably count:
CABLE,SATELLITE,PAY TV/RADIO SERVICES
UTILITIES-ELECTRIC,GAS,SANITARY,WATER
That lines up with what the fine print says as well.
What scares me is that it says this for my cable bill payment to Spectrum:
MERCHANT CATEGORY – Restaurants
After which it states: CABLE,SATELLITE,PAY TV/RADIO SERVICES
Under normal circumstances I wouldn’t be concerned. However, in February through April I had an offer for 10% back on up to $600 in online spending each month. During those months I had a total of five very small dining purchases the card was used for. So what does Citi decide to do? They credit those five transactions with the 10% back and give the $1800+ I actually spent online with nothing. When I contacted customer services about this over the phone, and once again via messaging, I was told both times that although the way the promotion paid out did look odd they had no control over how transaction categories were coded.
Thanks a lot Citi! $180 in expected statement credits down the drain not to mention the loss of 2%-4% in CC rewards I would have earned using my other cards on that $1800 spent.
If you have another Citi card, I figured out that you can login and look at the “Purchase Method” coded under each transaction. If the transaction says “Online” it should count for the Sears card online purchase promos. If it says “Card Swiped” or is completely missing that line it probably won’t count.
It’s extremely annoying as some purchases you would think are obviously “Online” aren’t always coded that way. Like you, I learned this the hard way when I first got a promo for online purchases. Luckily I didn’t spend as much but it was frustrating to see it not code properly.
Interesting. So it sounds like the way online transactions are coded is problematic for all Citi cards, not just the Sears/SYWR ones. Sorry to hear you ran into the same issue, but I do appreciate this info as I’ll be sure to steer clear of any online spend promotions in the future.
Still blows my mind though that only the transactions where I physically used the card were credited the 10% back. Meanwhile, every online transaction, including ones that said BestBuy.com or Paypal.com in the transaction summary, were denied. Literally the exact opposite of how the promotion was supposed to work.
So that restaurant on the transaction does not imply anything. Its correct to say that transaction is valid for the utilities cash back. Please validate my understanding??
That’s my understanding. My utility charges are labeled with “RESTAURANT” as the main category, but it does say “UTILITIES-ELECTRIC,GAS,SANITARY,WATER” afterwards.
+1. Also see RESTAURANT on electricity utility payment. Hopefully it counts!
Arcadia Power, AT&T Internet u verse and so cal gas all fall into the two categories required for this promotion, and trigger the credit. I have already maxed out this offer for August-October and received the full $75 for August. The categories all said something about restaurant spend but that didn’t seem to matter because the bonus posted anyway.
How does one get these offers? By e-mail or when you login to your Citi SYW account, or by mail?
These ones were sent out by both e-mail and snail mail
So sad. I’ve never got any offer since I got Citi Sears card on May. Is there a way to get targeted? I’ve spent 4000+ dollars on this card with a poor credit limit of 1000.
It has just been less than a month since I got the Citi SYW MC version as I heard these bonuses will come as statement credit on the SYW version as compared to the TY version which comes in the TY points and the TY version is neither available for signup nor can it be product changed. Not sure when I will get targeted for my first bonus offer and thereby more offers in future. One can only hope for the best.