Citi Double Cash Can I Balance Transfer Again
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Our quick have: The Citi® Double Cash Card has no annual fee and earns a market place-leading 2% greenbacks back on every purchase you make — 1% when you buy, and i% more when you lot pay it off. It won't go you free trips to fancy beach resorts or access to sectional airport lounges, but it's a top-notch, if not flashy, workhorse credit card and ane of our favorite cash back credit cards.
- Simple, like shooting fish in a barrel to earn and redeem cash back.
- 18-month 0% introductory APR on balance transfers (rises to a variable fourteen.24% to 24.24% Apr afterward the intro period).
- Expert users can convert the cash dorsum to flexible travel points when you as well have a premium Citi credit card.
- No annual fee.
- No bonus categories.
- No travel or luxury perks and minimal purchase protections.
- No introductory APR on purchases.
- 3% foreign transaction fee.
Current sign-up bonus: None.
All-time for: People who desire to automatically earn cash dorsum on everything they buy without thinking about it.
Credit cards are confusing. Then many features, and so much to recollect about. Even the words used to describe credit cards sound like gobbledygook: bonus categories, introductory rates, APR, annual fees, flexible points, transfer ratios, secondary automobile coverage… Do you accept to have a doctorate in economics to understand these things?
That's what we love most the Citi Double Cash credit carte, and why we've even chosen it as CNN Underscored's "criterion" credit card. In a word, it'due south simple. Simple to understand, simple to employ, simple to redeem its cash dorsum.
Nonetheless yous won't be left behind when information technology comes to rewards, because information technology ever earns a market place-leading 2% rate on everything y'all buy — 1% when you lot make a purchase, and some other 1% when you pay it off. Plus, it has absolutely no almanac fee, ever, which ways it'due south basically a card you can stick in your handbag or wallet and never accept to worry about.
Does that make it the well-nigh valuable credit card on the market? Not necessarily. You tin get more bang for your cadet with other cards, especially if you regularly spend a lot of money in certain categories where other credit cards offering bonus rewards, which would kickoff getting a lower return on the rest of your everyday spending with that card.
At that place are as well better credit cards if you lot're looking for luxurious travel perks like a costless trip around the world in first class. Simply to pull that off, you'll either need to exercise a lot of homework to sympathize how flexible travel points work, pay a high annual fee for a credit card or both.
If those options don't audio appealing to you lot and you'd rather just get-go getting greenbacks dorsum in your pocket every month without thinking too much about it, you've probably landed on the perfect card. Let's take a wait at why nosotros recollect the Citi Double Cash is a corking option for people who want the "set information technology and forget information technology" option of the credit menu world.
Run across if you qualify for the Citi Double Cash credit card.
First, the Citi Double Cash costs nothing to have in your purse or wallet. There's no almanac fee on the card ever, pregnant yous don't accept to worry about whether you're getting enough out of the bill of fare to warrant what it costs — information technology costs zero merely to have it.
On summit of having no almanac fee, the Double Cash has one of the best and most straightforward earning rates across all credit cards. You'll earn 2% in greenbacks back — ane% when you buy something, and some other ane% when you pay information technology off — on every single buy you make, with no caps of any kind.
For people who don't spend a lot of money daily in a specific bonus category, such equally groceries, food delivery or travel, earning flat-rate cash back probably makes the nigh sense, and there'southward actually no other major credit card available today that offers as high of an ongoing flat-charge per unit return on every unmarried purchase without an almanac fee.
The cash back you earn with the Citi Double Cash is also easy to redeem. Y'all can either use it as a argument credit to offset any purchases you make with the card, accept it deposited into a bank account or have Citi send yous a bank check for it. The only requirement is that you lot need to earn $25 in cash dorsum as a redemption minimum, though in that location's no maximum on the corporeality you tin redeem.
For well-nigh people, using the Double Cash to earn and redeem greenbacks dorsum will be as far as they need to go (and if the balance of this paragraph and the adjacent one audio like Portuguese to you, don't worry about information technology — just use the Double Cash as a cash back credit bill of fare, the way it was originally designed). But if you're an avant-garde credit bill of fare user, you tin can convert cash back earned with the Double Cash into Citi ThankYou Rewards travel points, with $1 in cash back equal to 100 ThankYou points.
To catechumen your cash dorsum to points, you lot'll need to too have either a Citi Premier® Card or the now-discontinued Citi Prestige® Card, both of which accept annual fees (in the case of the Citi Prestige, a very high one). Citi'due south ThankYou Rewards is a good flexible point transfer program, though it doesn't accept the easiest-to-employ airline partners for transferable points beginners. Simply if you like to redeem credit card rewards for travel, information technology may brand sense to plough your cash back into points instead and potentially get even more value for them.
What else do we like virtually the Double Cash? Well, equally many people have unfortunately learned, credit cards tin be a style to get stuck owing a lot of money if y'all aren't careful most how you use them. For folks who are currently staring down a boatload of debt and wondering how to claw their manner back out, the introductory balance transfer characteristic of the Citi Double Cash can serve as a temporary life raft.
New Double Greenbacks bill of fare holders tin accept advantage of a 0% introductory APR on balance transfers for eighteen months. It'due south important to annotation that after the introductory Apr expires, you'll pay a variable xiv.24% to 24.24% (depending on your creditworthiness) as your regular APR on the remaining balance. So you'll desire to be sure to either pay off your debt in total or transfer information technology to some other card earlier the 18 months elapse.
Too, balance transfers incur a three% balance transfer fee with a $5 minimum, so the transfer isn't entirely without cost. Nevertheless, if you're currently paying loftier interest on another credit card, a small iii% fee could be a huge relief.
Finally, the Citi Double Cash is a Mastercard, so you shouldn't have much trouble finding merchants who volition have it when you lot want to apply a credit card to pay for goods or services.
Utilise now for the Citi Double Cash credit card.
Lots of other credit cards offer what are known equally "bonus categories," pregnant you'll earn a higher rewards rate — either in greenbacks back or points and miles — for some types of purchases. For instance, another card might offering 3% cash back on dining, ii% on groceries and ane% on all other purchases. Or you lot might find cards with rotating categories, where every few months the bonus categories alter or can exist selected from a menu of categories by the card holder.
You won't find whatsoever bonus categories on the Citi Double Cash, and that's the downside of simplicity. So if you routinely make a large number of purchases in a particular category, yous may find another credit bill of fare that offers a bonus for those purchases is a ameliorate pick for you.
Or if you don't mind carrying multiple credit cards and regularly switching to the best one depending on what you're buying, you tin potentially out-earn the Double Cash overall by maximizing unlike bonus categories on various cards (though the Double Cash could still be a proficient "catch-all" card for purchases that don't fall into any other card's bonus categories).
Also, in life, you ordinarily become what you pay for, and since this is a credit card with no annual fee, yous won't detect any great perks on the Citi Double Cash. That means no travel benefits, no travel protections similar trip delay or car rental coverage, no purchase protections and no fancy dining or travel credits. This is your basic no-frills rewards credit carte.
You also won't want to utilize the Double Cash on overseas purchases, since the carte has a 3% strange transaction fee. That means the cost of making international purchases is more than the 2% in cash back you lot'd earn from them, so y'all'll want to restrict this menu to domestic use simply.
And it'southward a small bespeak, but you need to earn cash back with the Double Cash card at least one time every 12 months to prevent your existing cash dorsum from expiring. That shouldn't be besides difficult — even one modest purchase once a yr will work — but information technology'south something to continue in mind if y'all finish upwardly not using the card as ofttimes as you originally planned.
The biggest drawback of the Citi Double Cash is its lack of a sign-up bonus. While many other credit cards offering hundreds of dollars in bonus rewards just for signing up and spending a minimum amount on the card in your offset few months, you won't get any bonus for signing up for the Double Cash. That's not a deal breaker if you're using this card long-term, but it does sting correct at the outset.
Start earning greenbacks back on everything you lot buy with the Citi Double Cash.
CNN Underscored has chosen the Citi Double Greenbacks Card equally our "benchmark" credit menu. That doesn't mean it's the all-time credit carte on the marketplace — rather, information technology means we use it equally a basic standard to compare other credit cards and see where they score amend and where they're worse.
Hither's how the Double Cash scores as our benchmark carte du jour (see our credit card methodology for more details on what we accept into account when it comes to perks, protections and redemption value):
When reviewing other credit cards, we utilise this format and these criteria to compare them with our benchmark. You can read our credit card methodology for more details on all the criteria we take into account when ranking credit cards.
Click here to use for the Citi Double Greenbacks credit carte.
There aren't whatever other major credit cards on the market that offer an ongoing 2% cash back on all purchases with no annual fee, but in one case you gene in sign-up bonuses that are available on cards other than the Citi Double Cash, some other options are worth considering.
For instance, the Hunt Freedom Unlimited is a comparable apartment-rate cash back credit menu that earns 1.five% cash back on all purchases but also currently comes withan additional i.5% cash dorsum on everything yous buy in the first year later opening the account, upward to $20,000 in purchases.
That means if you're able to spend that much, you'd be earning an extra $200 in bonus cash back to a higher place and beyond what you'd earn by spending that $20,000 on the Double Greenbacks. It'll take an additional $40,000 in spending at ii% greenbacks back on the Double Cash to brand upwards that extra $200, which sounds like a lot — except that's just another 20 months beyond the first year if you usually spend $2,000 a month on your credit card.
If that's you, then in but a piffling over 2 and a half years, you'd be doing meliorate with the Citi Double Cash without a sign-upwards bonus versus the Freedom Unlimited with one. Just if you usually spend less than that each month, it'll take longer to brand up for the sign-up bonus, which might make the Freedom Unlimited a improve choice.
Some other comparing card is the Capital 1® Venture® Rewards Credit Menu, which offers a like 2 miles per dollar on all purchases. Since you can redeem Capital One miles against whatsoever travel expense and get ane cent in value for each mile, the Venture effectively earns at the aforementioned rate as the Double Cash.
While the Citi Double Greenbacks has no sign-upwardly bonus, the Capital One Venture currently has a sign-up bonus of threescore,000 miles. Just to earn all those extra miles, y'all'll have to spend $iii,000 on purchases within the outset iii months subsequently yous open up the business relationship.
Yous'll likewise pay a $95 annual fee on the Venture each year, and if you're not interested in travel right now, and then a card that earns miles to redeem for travel purchases might not be the best fit for your needs.
If you lot spend a ton of money on travel or dining, there'south probable some other credit card that offers enough extra bonus rewards in those categories to arrive worth getting. You'll also desire a unlike credit card if your goal is to earn luxurious travel rewards or perks — for that, yous'll need to pay an annual fee on a midtier or premium travel rewards carte du jour.
Simply if you aren't looking for travel luxury and don't desire to deal with the complexity of bonus categories, you likely can't go wrong with the no-almanac-fee Citi Double Greenbacks card. It's a perfect choice for people who but want a unmarried, simple credit menu that earns basic cash back with a 2% render on everything, regardless of their personal spending habits.
If that sounds like you, consider grabbing one and popping it into your purse or wallet to showtime earning greenbacks dorsum on everything today.
Larn more about the Citi Double Cash Card.
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Source: https://www.cnn.com/cnn-underscored/reviews/citi-double-cash-credit-card
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