Citi Double Cash Review: 2% on Everything Is Tough to Beat
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Our Take
4.6
Although the market has started to catch up, this remains one of the better top-of-wallet cards. Use it by itself every day, or as a companion to bonus category cards.
on Citibank's application
Quick Facts
Pros & Cons
Pros
No annual fee
High rewards rate
Intro balance transfer fee
Cons
Requires good/excellent credit
No bonus categories
No bonus offer
Earn 5% cash back in rotating categories that you activate (on up to $1,500 per quarter in spending), and 1% on all other spending. Bonus: INTRO OFFER: Unlimited Cashback Match – only from Discover. Discover will automatically match all the cash back you’ve earned at the end of your first year! There’s no minimum spending or maximum rewards. You could turn $150 cash back into $300. Annual fee: $0.
Compare to Other Cards
Annual fee$0 | Annual fee$0 | Annual fee$0 |
Regular APR17.74%-27.74% Variable APR | Regular APR17.99%-26.74% Variable APR | |
Intro APR0% intro APR on Balance Transfers for 18 months | Intro APR0% intro APR for 15 months on purchases and balance transfers | Intro APR0% intro APR for 15 months on purchases and balance transfers |
Recommended Credit Score |
Recommended Credit Score |
Recommended Credit Score |
Full Review
The Citi® Double Cash Card 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 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 a handful of partners to potentially snag outsize value.
On the downside, the card offers no 0% introductory period on purchases 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.
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.
Technically, rewards earned on the Citi® Double Cash Card appear in a cardholder's account as Citi ThankYou points, but that will not affect your ability to earn or redeem cash back. You'll earn 1 point per $1 spent and 1 point per $1 paid off. Points are worth 1 cent apiece when redeemed for cash back, meaning you'll still get 2% cash back on purchases. See here for more information.
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 17.74%-27.74% 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%.
Benefits of the Citi® Double Cash Card
High rewards rate
The industry standard for cash back used to be 1%. As its name implies, the Citi® Double Cash Card 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.
When you redeem cash back for a credit on your statement, you don’t earn the second 1%. That’s because you’re not actually paying off that amount; it’s just subtracted from your bill. But that’s a minor consideration. Redeeming a hefty $1,000 per year would mean forgoing $10 in rewards for the convenience of taking the money in the form of a statement credit. That’s still very close to a 2% return on spending, assuming you pay your bill in full every month.
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, 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 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.
The Citi ThankYou rewards program is not as straightforward as others and requires a little know-how to navigate in order to get the best value. For example, transfer ratios with the Citi® Double Cash Card are less than favorable: 1,000 ThankYou points would get you only 800 points with JetBlue or Wyndham.
Drawbacks to consider
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 earns 3% cash back on up to $6,000 spent per year in each of three categories: U.S. supermarkets, U.S. gas stations and U.S. online retail purchases. Other spending earns 1% cash back. Terms apply (see rates and fees). It has an annual fee of $0.
For optimizers, the decision is not either-or, but both. Boost cash rewards by using a bonus-categories card to get higher earnings on certain purchases, and use the Citi® Double Cash Card for everything else. That reaps a superior return with a little more effort.
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!
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 17.74%-27.74% 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.
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: $200. It also has an intro 0% APR offer with an annual fee of $0.
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.
Reward expiration
Citi says cash rewards balances “expire” if you don’t earn cash back from purchases or payments for 12 months. If you quit using the card, be sure to first redeem eligible rewards — or make a minor purchase with the card at least once a year to reset the clock on expiration.
Is it right for you?
If you want a low-hassle, flat-rate rewards card, the Citi® Double Cash Card 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.
Need more information to help you compare your cash-back credit card options? Our best credit cards page can help.
» MORE: Benefits of the Citi Double Cash
on Citibank's application
