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Contents
The Offer
- Some Citi Sears cardholders have received a targeted spending bonus. Some of the offers are as follows:
- Get 20% back in statement credit when you spend $500 or more on eligible gas stations, grocery stores and restaurant purchases from 1/1/21 until 3/31/2021. Maximum of $200 back per month
- Same categories but 15% back and $150 maximum back per month
- Same categories but 10% back and $100 maximum back per month
Our Verdict
These deals stack, but the current other offer is for online purchases only. But we might see more offers coming in February and March. Even without stacking 10/15 or 20% back in these categories is obviously fantastic. This is why we rank this as our top store credit card.
Just got the following —
Activate your offer now to start earning
20X
Bonus ThankYou® Points on eligible online purchases.²
For total eligible online purchases of $600 or more made each month from 2/1/21 (or the date you activate this offer, whichever is later) through 4/30/21, you’ll earn 20X Bonus ThankYou Points (up to a maximum total of 15,000 Bonus ThankYou Points each month). Only purchases made after activation will apply toward receiving your Bonus ThankYou Points.
So any store online purchase will count as “online purchase”?
No, if you scroll down you will see the disclaimer:
Eligible online purchases are those made via a computer network but not all online transactions will be considered an eligible online purchase. Eligible online purchases do not include the following types of purchases in the following categories: subscription, membership or recurring purchases; utilities, cable/satellite and telephone; insurance; medical and healthcare providers; government services, taxes and tolls; education, including schools or other teaching institutions; contractor, professional, financial, legal, personal and business services; repair services, direct marketing; purchases that are manually keyed by a merchant; or online purchases made through mobile/wireless technology depending on how the technology is set up to process the purchase. Merchants must submit charges under the appropriate merchant code or industry code to be an eligible online purchase. We do not determine whether merchants appropriately identify all transactions made on a credit card, however we reserve the right to determine which purchases qualify for this offer.
Of course, your typical money like transactions are also excluded…
Bought a Visa GC at 7/11 Gas station hoping it would code as “Gas Station”. Unfortunately it did not. It coded under “Merchant Category – Vehicle Services-SERVICE STATION”.
I guess should have just done a trial purchase first to check how it codes.
Many cards limit gas station cashback to a specific MCC code, 5542 Automated Fuel Dispensers. However, looking at the disclaimer, Citi/Sears does not specifically state that the purchase has to be made at the pump: “Gas stations are merchants that primarily sell vehicle fuel for consumer use.” If you do not receive cashback on this transaction, theoretically it is possible to argue that the transaction qualifies because a gas station is equivalent to a service station in the US and may be billed as such if you paid inside.
I got the 20% version on Gas, Grocery and Restaurants. Will start earning the 20% only when total purchase exceeds $500 for the month which is then maxed out at $1000 with a maximum of $200 statement credit. Its definitely going to be difficult to get real organic spend of $1000 per month to max out the $200 statement credit.
Not necessarily because the programs are different. That said, it’s likely that their terms include both as mentioned previously especially since their terms did not exclude purchases made inside the store.
Thanks!
Hope this worked out for you. Replying in case someone Googles this issue.
For the most recent promo that includes “gas station”, my in-store purchase (Speedway gas gift card) coded as yours did – and DID count!
Got 10% on same categories with only $100 minimum spend each month which is quite good and better than earlier $800 per month,and if you have the online offer see if plastiq has any offers- they sent me a physical mailer with $1000 fee free and then once I completed that I also see $1500 Fee Free (not sure if that one is a mistake but I already scheduled payment using those fee free dollars.
I’m planning to apply for this card primarily for these bonuses.
https://www.shopyourway.com/card – I understand there are two versions TY and SYW. Do both cards get the same (or same type of) offers?
Can I convert my Rewards+ to this card (either thank you/Shop your way)?
My understanding is the points need to be redeemed within 12 months and third party GCs are the best way for non-Sears shoppers?
Any prognosis for this card after Sears fully goes under?
TIA.
There are three versions of the card. SYW, cash back and TYP. They all basically get the same offers. You can only apply directly for the SYWR version at the moment, some people have had success getting it product changed recently, others not.
Any prognosis for this card after Sears fully goes under?
Citi cares about this card a lot, have given sears a lot of money to keep things moving. I think it would just become a branded Citi card if Sears failed, who knows what would happen to the offers.
Thank you!
They used to allow you to call in to complete the product conversion, but now even a manager cannot do it because the option has been removed from the system. Supposedly there were plans to migrate all Thank You Point customers to the Shop Your Way version, but the timeline has not been finalized.
If Sears does go under, I am pretty sure that Citi would have no choice but to eventually close the card. This is because the credit card is issued directly by Citi Retail Services, whose cards are linked to a particular store or brand. It doesn’t make sense for them to switch you from having a Citi Sears MasterCard to a Citi Wayfair MasterCard because the brands are unrelated. It also doesn’t make sense for them to switch them to a regular Citi card because they are issued by a completely different branch of Citi and their target audience’s credit profile is drastically different.
I think research has shown that store card cardholders are more likely to spend money and keep the balance on credit compared to regular card audiences (who generally also have better credit scores on average). These offers just give the nudge for those people to spend more so they can recoup that amount with interest that is paid over time. Citi is definitely not doing this because they have a big heart and wish to reward their customers. If Citi was forced to close the card because the brand is gone, it is unlikely that they will push these customers elsewhere unless the brand is bought by someone else and the offers will correspondingly vanish.
Does Wal-Mart count for grocery? It codes for grocery for my Verizon Sig. Not sure if mastercard is thr same.
This depends on your Walmart MCC. If it codes as Grocery Stores on your VISA card, the likelihood that it is the same MCC is very high. AMEX is probably going to be different.
Wal-mart Supercenter and Neighborhood Market purchases have counted as grocery on the Sears card for me in the past.
This depends on the area. Some neighborhood markets are coded as Discount Stores here.
Got 10X bonus points but need to spend at least $1,500 per month. I don’t spend anywhere close to that amount so I will pass. I got the same offer for October 2020 – December 2020 and passed on that as well.
How are you guys getting these offers, i’ve had this card for 8 months and haven’t gotten offered a thing. Was using the card for gas regularly until pick up PP last month
They are sent to you via email and it looks pretty much like an ad. It is possible that these emails might have been sent to your junk or spam mailboxes. One of these was delivered to my “Promotions” tab rather than the Inbox.
If you have Gmail, you can try using these search queries:
in:all from:[email protected]
in:all from:[email protected]
and see if you get any hits. Subject line is:
XXX, your limited-time statement credit offer is here
for SYW cards.
and
XXX, your limited-time Bonus ThankYou® Points offer is here
for Sears MasterCards, where XXX is replaced with your first name.
You will also get a huge banner on the front page when you log in, but you most likely will not see it if you have an ad blocker turned on since it’s served from an advertising type domain.
Generally speaking, you get targeted the quarter after you sign up from what I am seeing, but it is possible that something like credit scores can affect that targeting (e.g. if you have too low of a score you may not be targeted for anything because the aim of this is to get you to spend and pay interest over time, but they don’t want people to be defaulting and not paying back what they are owed). The bar, however, probably wouldn’t be too high since the majority of the customer base tends to have median or lower than average scores for a store retail card.
Thanks. Searched all those email addresses in my mailbox and onlything that came up were billing statements. Guess I’ll just have to continue to hurry up and wait…
Out of curiosity, what is your credit score and how much spend do you generally put on the card? What would you say was your largest purchase on that card? Lastly, do you have any late payments or defaults on any of your other credit accounts?
Score ~780-800. I was just putting gas on the card until I picked up PP in Nov. So largest single purchase ~$30, statement balances have been ~$120. Which is 12% of the messily $1k CL and they gave me. No late payments, defaults or interest bearing balances on any of the other cards (~13).
Interesting, that profile sounded like it should have been targeted since that’s similar to the card I had before. When you log in to the account, do you see a banner that looks like this:
https://tpc.googlesyndication.com/simgad/14127077920292453161
Also, do you see an ad block warning when clicking the link above? If so, try disabling the ad blocker and see if you see the banner.
You can also try this link, although YMMV:
https://citiretailservices.citibankonline.com/RSnextgen/svc/launch/index.action?siteId=SEARS&langId=en_US&pagename=authenticate#specialoffers
Also, if you don’t have any luck, you can try the following to *perhaps improve* your chances:
1) Drop your usage to 1% of your CL. If you are not that close to the end of your current billing cycle, try to make a bigger purchase (the bigger the better) on your card before dropping to 1% the next month.
2) Every other month, put no usage on the card at all.
3) Conduct small transactions on the card, (e.g. load 50 cents on Amazon, buy a pack of gum in the grocery store, or pay a sub-dollar amount on Comcast if you have an account).
4) Pay parts of your balance off before your statement date, especially on that bigger purchase you have made earlier.
5) Call Citi Retail Services to increase your CL to 5k (mine is currently at 15k and my CS is ~825). Increasing the CL too much will probably cause you to get the lower % offers, although the total amount would be more.
Since targeting is seemingly done every 3 months, you may not get anything until the start of April. That said, the targeting emails are sent in waves and not everyone receives their targeting email at the same time. They also send the same email every month or so in case one gets deleted by your junk mail and even if the offer is activated already.
And one more thing, if all of your transactions are made in-person, make sure *at least one* transaction is considered an “online” purchase and not in-person (or illegible). Amazon reloads are the easiest, but bill pay (in certain situations) works as well.
The definition of “online” is defined as follows:
“Eligible online purchases are those made via a computer network but not all online transactions will be considered an eligible online purchase. Eligible online purchases do not include the following types of purchases in the following categories: subscription, membership or recurring purchases; utilities, cable/satellite and telephone; insurance; medical and healthcare providers; government services, taxes and tolls; education, including schools or other teaching institutions; contractor, professional, financial, legal, personal and business services; repair services, direct marketing; purchases that are manually keyed by a merchant; or online purchases made through mobile/wireless technology depending on how the technology is set up to process the purchase. Merchants must submit charges under the appropriate merchant code or industry code to be an eligible online purchase.”
Is there a way to get this card? Is it this card? https://www.shopyourway.com/card
yes but if you want TYW points you will have to convert later (not sure if that’s still possible). but yes go ahead and apply there. 10% in SYW money with the GC option now is still better than nothing.
I was under the impression that the non-TYP version always or almost always got offers these offers as earning statement credits not bonus SYW points. Is this not correct?
Yeah, the SYW card gets offers as statement credits and the TYP cards obviously TYP. As far as I know they haven’t been allowing conversion to the TYP card for a while now.
Conversion is no longer possible. If you get the SYW version, 10% is in statement credits, not SYW points.
That’s the card, although most readers have the TYP or statement credit earning version (can’t apply for this directly any longer but some have had success PCing to it)
Conversion has been prohibited in the system sometime early last year.
Got %10 ,1500$ min purchases max 250$ each month
Same here
I got 15%, max $150/month. barely a month goes by that I don’t get $100 on this card!