When you receive a spending offer from a bank for one of your credit cards, it’s a chance to earn extra cashback rewards, bonus points or discounts. These offers are designed to encourage increased card usage and may even prompt you to start using a card that’s been inactive for a while. Ultimately, by using your card more frequently, you can benefit from the rewards while the bank earns transaction fees.
The offers usually have a simple design, like the one we recently received on our JetBlue Plus card:
Earn 10 additional points per dollar spent, up to 2,500 points, which means you’ll need to spend $250 to max out the offer.
Citi’s unusual math
I remember the bank sending out spending offers for as long as we’ve had Citi credit cards. And while they look the same as the offers from other banks, Citi uses some unusual math to provide your bonus.
To most people, this looks like a simple 5X bonus points offer.
You’ll earn 5 ThankYou points per dollar spent up to 2,500 bonus points. You can spend $500 to get 2,500 points, but that wouldn’t max out the offer. Remember, you’d already earn 1 point per dollar, so you’re only earning four bonus points.
This offer starts upon enrollment and will end on 07/31/2024. Earnings associated with this program will equal 4 bonus ThankYou Point(s) per $1 spent on eligible purchases and may overlap with other special offers in which you are currently enrolled. Bonus points awarded with this offer are subject to a maximum of 2,500 additional points.
To earn 2,500 bonus points, you need to spend $625 in the eligible categories.
Final Thought
As I mentioned, Citi has always designed its bonus point offers this way, so I don’t think they’ll change anytime soon. There are no tricks being played, but the downside is that customers might not be maximizing the offers.
I’ve heard that Citi has sent spending offers to customers on many different cards, so I’d check your email to see if you’ve been targeted. If so, remember to do the math and figure out how much you need to spend to maximize your offer.
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1 comment
Thank you for pointing out this fine print! I have an offer with the same language and probably have been doing it wrong.