Citi Double Cash Review: 2% on Everything Is Tough to Beat

The Citi® Double Cash Card – 18 month BT offer is a valuable workhorse among credit cards. With superior flat-rate cash back, it’s ideal for consumers who want low-hassle cash rewards on everything they charge. What it lacks in sizzle, it makes up for in daily dependability. It’s a Honda Accord in a credit card market that's lately gotten jammed with Lamborghini wannabes.

Most of what you need to know: The card gives you 2% cash back on every purchase — 1% when you make it, and another 1% back when you pay it off. Rewards are unlimited, and the annual fee is $0.

» WORRIED ABOUT THE SHIFT TO POINTS? Don't be. This is still a cash back card.

The Citi® Double Cash Card – 18 month BT offer stands up well on its own, but it also makes an ideal companion to a bonus-category credit card for those who use a two-card strategy to maximize cash back. And you can transfer rewards to handful of partners to potentially snag outsize value.

On the downside, the card offers no sign-up bonus or ways to earn more than its base rewards rate.

Even so, to get good, reliable rewards with minimum effort (or cost), this card should be among the top few you consider.

» MORE: Credit cards that earn 2% cash back or more on purchases

Citi® Double Cash Card: Basics

Card type: Cash back.

Annual fee: $0.

Sign-up bonus: None.

Rewards: 2% cash back on purchases, distributed in two stages:

• 1% back for every dollar spent.

• 1% back for every dollar paid off.

Redemption options: Statement credit, bank account deposit or a check. You can also transfer your points to a handful of partners, including JetBlue, Wyndham and more.

Interest rate: 0% intro APR on Balance Transfers for 18 months, and then the ongoing APR of 14.74%-24.74% Variable APR.

Balance transfer fee: 3% of the amount transferred or $5 (whichever is greater) for transfers completed within the first four months of account opening; 5% fee or $5, whichever is greater, after that.

Foreign transaction fee: 3%.

High rewards rate

The industry standard for cash back used to be 1%. As its name implies, the Citi® Double Cash Card – 18 month BT offer essentially doubles that rate, paying 1% back on purchases and 1% after paying the bill. The sooner you pay your balance, the sooner you earn the second half of the rewards. That's a powerful incentive to pay your credit card bill in full every month, which we recommend you do anyway to avoid interest.

While we still think this is a fine card, it’s not quite the industry unicorn it used to be. Other cards also offer 2% cash back or more on purchases.

» MORE: Citi Flex Plan: What it is and how it works

Simplicity

Many cash-back cards offer bonus categories — some of them permanent, some that change every month. They allow you to earn extra rewards in featured spending categories, such as gas stations, restaurants and home improvement stores. They can be a hassle to keep track of. Some limit the amount of spending eligible for bonus rewards, and all spending over that limit earns a mundane 1% cash back.

With the Citi® Double Cash Card – 18 month BT offer, you can be a lazy optimizer and whip out the same card all the time, without thinking about where you’re using the card and whether you’ve reached the limit for a bonus spending category.

Flexibility

Even though the Citi® Double Cash Card – 18 month BT offer is considered a cash-back credit card, technically what you're earning are Citi ThankYou points. And while those points can easily be turned into cash at a rate of a penny each, they could potentially be even more valuable when used for travel.

The card features a handful of travel partners, including JetBlue, Wyndham and Choice Privileges, and depending on your credit card strategy and travel goals, this conversion flexibility could potentially increase the value of your rewards, should you find a good deal on flights or hotels with those partners.

That's especially true if you happen to hold multiple Citi cards because you can combine points across them all. While the Double Cash features only a few transfer partners, other Citi products — like the Citi Premier® Card or Citi Prestige® Card — feature more than a dozen.

No sign-up bonus

A sign-up bonus can be a big part of a card's value in the short term, like the first few years. That’s why you might consider a different card that offers a bonus for new cardholders.

The most direct competitor is the Wells Fargo Active Cash® Card.

This card also earns 2% cash back in rewards, but it has a sign-up bonus: Earn a $200 cash rewards bonus after spending $1,000 in purchases in the first 3 months.. It also has an intro 0% APR offer with an annual fee of $0.

» MORE: Wells Fargo Active Cash vs. Citi Double Cash

No bonus categories

Double cash on all purchases is great, but it’s less than you’ll find on cards that offer elevated rewards on spending at certain places, like restaurants, supermarkets or gas stations.

Indeed, some cards offer 5% back on bonus categories that change quarterly. In the past, categories have included gas stations, restaurants, supermarkets, Amazon.com and PayPal. Good examples are the Chase Freedom Flex℠ and the Discover it® Cash Back. Both offer 5% back on categories that you activate, on up to $1,500 in spending per quarter (equal to $75 in cash back), and 1% on all other spending.

Other cash-back cards have bonus categories that don't change. The Blue Cash Everyday® Card from American Express is a good example. The card offers 3% cash back at U.S. supermarkets on up to $6,000 a year in spending (then 1%); 2% cash back at U.S. gas stations and select U.S. department stores; and 1% cash back everywhere else. Terms apply (To view rates and fees of the Blue Cash Everyday® Card from American Express, see this page.). It has an annual fee of $0.

And some cards offer a combination: a good flat rate on most purchases, a sign-up bonus and bonus categories. Example: The Chase Freedom Unlimited®.

• Flat rate: 1.5%

• Bonus category rewards: 3% cash back on dining at restaurants and drugstore purchases and 5% on travel purchased through Chase Ultimate Rewards®.

• Sign-up bonus: Earn an additional 1.5% cash back on everything you buy (on up to $20,000 spent in the first year) - worth up to $300 cash back!

» MORE: NerdWallet’s best rewards credit cards

No intro APR on purchases

The intro APR offer for this card is: 0% intro APR on Balance Transfers for 18 months, and then the ongoing APR of 14.74%-24.74% Variable APR.

Noticeably absent is an intro APR rate on purchases. Why is that important? After you transfer a balance to this card, future purchases you charge to it will begin accruing interest immediately. You won’t have a credit card grace period, even if you pay off your new purchases in full. You only get the grace period back if you also completely pay off the balance transfer amount. That’s why many other cards feature an intro APR offer, often for the same number of months, for both balance transfers and purchases.

» MORE: NerdWallet's best 0% intro APR cards

Balance transfer fee

The lengthy no-interest period on balance transfers is competitive, and the introductory 3% balance transfer fee with a minimum of $5 is typical. But the fee still hurts. That amounts to a $300 fee on $10,000 transferred. And after the first four months, the balance transfer fee is 5% or $5, whichever is greater.

Foreign transaction fee

Its 3% fee for foreign transactions means this is a poor choice of card to use abroad. To be fair, this fee is more common on cash-back cards, but rarer on travel cards.

» MORE: NerdWallet's best no foreign transaction fee credit cards

Reward expiration

If you want a low-hassle, flat-rate rewards card, the Citi® Double Cash Card – 18 month BT offer fits the bill because its rewards apply to all spending and have no limit. Your return rate can be even better if you use it in conjunction with a bonus-categories card.