Citi Rewards+ Card 10% Rebate Benefit: How It Works

The Citi Rewards+® Card (review) is a fantastic no annual fee card, especially for those who are involved in the Citi ThankYou ecosystem. One of the things that makes the product unique is that it could be worth having even if you don’t plan on putting much spending on the card.

That’s because the Citi Rewards+ offers a 10% refund when you redeem points, which could score you up to 10,000 ThankYou points per year. In this post I wanted to look at how that works in more detail.

Basics of the Citi Rewards+ Card

The Citi Rewards+ is a pretty awesome no annual fee card. Among other things, the card offers:

• A welcome bonus of 20,000 ThankYou points after spending $1,500 within the first three months
• The card earns 2x ThankYou points at supermarkets and gas stations, on the first $6,000 spent every year (earn 1x points thereafter)
• Purchases on the card are rounded up to the nearest 10 ThankYou points, allowing you to maximize your points even further
• Receive 10% of your points back for the first 100,000 ThankYou points you redeem per year

This is an excellent no annual fee card that’s a great complement to the Citi Strata Premier℠ Card (review). While I think the merit to using this card for select spending is obvious (at supermarkets and gas stations, plus for purchases that can be rounded up), in this post I wanted to talk about the coolest benefit, which is a 10% refund on redeemed points.

The Citi Rewards+ Card 10% points back perk

The Citi Rewards+ offers 10% of your points back for the first 100,000 ThankYou points you redeem per calendar year. Many wonder how valuable this benefit actually is, given that:

• If you exclusively have the Citi Rewards+, points can be redeemed for one cent each
• If you have the Citi Rewards+ in conjunction with the Citi Strata Premier Card, then points can be pooled, and you can transfer all rewards to Citi ThankYou airline and hotel partners, meaning this card can indirectly earn airline miles and hotel points; this requires you to link accounts via your Citi log-in, which is easy enough
• You can expect that the rebate will post to your account at the end of each billing cycle

What’s awesome is that if you have the Citi Rewards+ in conjunction with the Citi Strata Premier, then any redemptions through either card would be eligible for the 10% points refund. In other words, if you had both cards and transferred 100,000 ThankYou points to an airline partner (like Singapore KrisFlyer or Virgin Atlantic Flying Club), you’d get 10,000 ThankYou points back.

That’s pretty great, because it means if you have the two cards together and redeem at least 100,000 ThankYou points per year, just holding onto the Citi Rewards+ would net you 10,000 ThankYou points per year.

The only redemption activity that wouldn’t qualify for the 10% points back is the points sharing feature, whereby you can share Citi ThankYou points with others. But aside from that, virtually all redemptions would trigger this.

Bottom line

The Citi Rewards+ is a phenomenal no annual fee card. Personally my favorite benefit of the card is that you get 10% of the points that you redeem back. This can be maximized in conjunction with the the Citi Strata Premier, as you could transfer points earned from both cards to airline partners, and still receive the rebate as long as the cards are linked.

If you have the Citi Strata Premier and are eligible for the Citi Rewards+, I definitely think there’s merit to picking up the card for this perk alone.

To those with the card, what has your experience been with the Citi Rewards+ Card 10% rebate?