Why I Don’t Have ANY Citi Credit Cards

so going through the 18 different credit cards I've had I've noticed something interesting not one of them is from City not the trifecta not American Airlines cards and no Costco card either none of them despite the praise that some of these cards get especially the trifecta none of them have made it into my setup and so in this video I want to take you along on this journey with me to figure out why these City cards are so popular uncover reasons why I've stayed away and also reasons why maybe should change my mind so when I think of City cards a few types of cards come to mind first you have the city Trifecta then you have the city American Airlines cards and then of course the Costco card which is the most straightforward offering 4% back at gas stations and EV charging up to $77,000 a year 3% on restaurants and eligible travel and 2% at Costco although these are compelling benefits I personally don't spend enough in these categories to justify getting this card however for those that do it could be a good no anual fee pickup for that specific use case but what about the city Trifecta why is that setup so popular well first there's the city double cash card whose main purpose is to give you 2% back on everything you spend on with no limit and regardless of category as with any Trifecta that Baseline card's job is to do exactly that and in this case is slightly better than the Chase trifecta's Freedom unlimited card card which only gives you the Baseline 1.5% back with either of these cards though along with other cards we'll talk about today even though these are marketed as cash back cards you actually get paid out in points instead taking the city double cash card where you'll earn a welcome bonus of $200 after $1,500 of spend in the first 6 months lowered down it indicates that you're actually getting 20,000 city thank you points which is a good thing not only could you then redeem for the original $200 you get lots of other options as well some giv you even more value which we'll touch on later card number two you have the city custom cache which is a bit more interesting obviously made to compete with the Chase Freedom Flex this is another flexible card that will give you a high 5% multiplier on a select category up to $500 a month in this case automatically adjusting to your top category every month within restaurants gas stations grocery stores select travel fitness clubs and more that means the best way to use that card is to pick one category and only spend in that category with a card that month for everything else put it on a card like the double cash so you can still earn that Baseline 2% back on all of that spend so 5% here and 2% on everything else and then this popular card number three and that's the City premiere card at $95 an annual fee with a 60,000 Point welcome bonus after $4,000 of minimum spend but giving you a solid three times points across a variety of categories like like supermarkets restaurants Gas and some travel the annual fee is also potentially offset by the $100 an annual Hotel credit on stays of more than $500 through the portal so honestly even by itself it's a pretty well-rounded all-in-one card that could even function as a one card setup but the power is really unlocked when you combine all three cards together getting the minimum two times points form the double cache the three times points across a broad range of categories on the City premiere and then five times points in your special category of choice with your custom Cash Card add in the ability to move your points across these cards so you can redeem them in other ways like through the City premiere and Transfer Partners an ability that's also available on the Chase and American Express side that I'm so invested in that should make for a pretty great setup right well that's where I have some thoughts on the reasons why these cards have never made it onto my list and reasons why depending on your situations you might want to consider as well so I like to travel a lot which you can probably tell by all of these videos going over my experiences in the last couple years and so it's important to me to have cards that give me travel protection in case things go wrong for that peace of mind for example on my Chase Sai preferred which is the closest competitor to the City premiere card you get benefits like trip cancellation and Interruption Insurance primary rental car insurance which I've used plenty of times saving like 20 to $30 per day baggage delay trip delay and emergency assistance all of which I get for even paying a portion of my ticket with the card meaning say if I'm redeeming points for a flight and I pay the fees with this card then I still get the full coverage unfortunately with the City premiere card back in 2019 they removed a lot of these benefits and even when it comes to shopping protection we can see that They removed return protection something I value a ton making shopping for deals online so much easier and one of the major shopping protection perks I've been using on my atmx platinum card and so as I was building up my credit card setup knowing that I like to travel and that I like shopping for deals online it just made sense to go with the chase ecosystem with the sapphire preferred and the freedom Flex card first as well as the AMX platinum card given I'm able to justify that high annual fee year after year using a bunch of the credits across the last five to six years more in this video here now along the lines of travel another issue I found is that these cards don't really match my goals of being in this travel credit card space as I've shared in other videos my goal is not save on every single dollar spent on travel rather I want to have these elevated travel experiences without paying those High retail prices and the city Trifecta just doesn't provide that for example when it comes to hotels I'm more drawn to cards like the AMX Platinum the Hilton Inspire or even the Marriott bonoy brilliant cards as each of these will give me hotel status for little to no extra work meaning every time I travel sa for work I have a chance at getting upgraded through these statuses and while I'm traveling for personal reasons usually abroad then I'll have an even higher chance at getting upgrades or getting these perks given there's much less competition among people with Hotel statuses abroad so that's why I prefer AMX cards first over City but then what about Chase well we already went over travel protections and how Chase wins there but also when I was starting out my credit car Journey the whole city ecosystem was completely different there was no City Custom cash which came out in 2021 and the cash back on the double cache didn't convert to their typical points until 2019 because I started my journey back in 2017 Chase was really the main good option at that time in fact the sapphi preferred was my first credit card after moving to the US that year and because I started in that ecosystem it just made sense to continue building out there with cards like the Freedom flex and even the ink cards even in today's Ro I'd argue that the Venture x with this Capital 1 Duo would be better than the City premiere and the city Trifecta when it comes to Baseline earnings The Venture X will give you two times miles on all of your spend same thing as the double cash when it comes to travel the Venture X has travel coverage as well as lounge access and car rental status yes it has a higher 395 in Annual fees but I'd argue that the credit you get the $300 travel credit through the portal and the $100 worth of miles you get every anniversary year is easier to use than City's credit with no minimum you have to spend on your stay and that in my experience the Capital One portal is far nicer to use and then when it comes to earning the sa one also has three times points covering a wide variety of categories like groceries and dining five times on hotels and car rentals through the portal Uber benefits for a while longer and no foreign transaction fees which is a pretty big one Speaking of all of these point points like I mentioned earlier I'm not looking to save on every dollar spent on travel and so I don't use my points for cash back nor do I use my points on redemptions between 1 and 1.5 cents per point which is what you would usually get through the portal or other similar means pretty much my primary use of points has been through Transfer Partners redeeming usually between 3 to 5 cents per point across all of my redemptions but would be happy with anything more than about two cents per point and that's where City Falls a bit short in my books when it comes to their Transfer Partners first hotels where City's partners are pretty subpar in my opinion and again shows why Chase and American Express is better in this category Hyatt partners with Chase which is one of their most popular Transfer Partners and Marriott partners with American Express which is not even their most lucrative partner with Choice Hotels Leaders Club and Windham you'll usually get redemptions pretty close to the 1 to two cents per Point Baseline and likely aren't that exciting to visit when it it comes to flights and Airline Partners though this is where things get a bit more interesting with most of my redemptions over the last couple years pretty much being exclusively through Aeroplan it's almost like getting spoiled how good or I guess decent the Aeroplan portal is and with so many of these Star Alliance Partners flying routes to cities that I'm targeting like Singapore Airlines Eva Asiana or Ana and with other partners like United severely devaluing their points Aeroplan has been a crowd favorite when booking Star Alliance Partners now on City Aeroplan is not a Transfer Partner but they do have alanka who is also a Star Alliance Airline where you can book Star Alliance Partners sometimes with even slightly fewer points than on aopl however from some light personal experience and from reading people's experience online aanka is far from the easiest program to work with being hard to navigate having Fantom award space which means you'll see the award but then it's not actually available to book and no special highes like airoplan has with Singapore Airlines and their business class space maybe it takes some time to get used to but with airoplan easier to use portal and just for a tad hire in points needed it sounds worth it Emirates is another popular program especially for flying East to Europe and Beyond as well as Qatar with one of the best business class seats that I hope to find one day that said what about American Airlines and the cards they have with City well with a $0 intro annual fee and perks when flying American Airlines like free check bags the Platinum select card sounds good but the problem is that I've never flown American Airlines and never have the opportunity to fly them as the best option even if I bump up to the executive card and get Admiral's Club access is really not that worth it for me being on the west coast the only domestic Airlines I'll likely be flying is either Alaska or maybe Delta so I would probably consider those credit cards first before even considering American Airlines the only benefit here is to earn some of these rare American Airlines points which could be used on some sweet spots like Jal or cath Pacific products or Qatar Q Suites but I would consider those to be more Niche use cases outside of my immediate short list of travel destinations that said city does have some Partners I can see myself using within the near term being the only onetoone Transfer Partner with Eva is great especially when I flew them last year and think that it's honestly a better product than single for Airlines or the old Ana cabin so I'd be happy to fly with them again Eva isn't the most popular points currency but does have reasonable rates and pretty good availability there's also flying blue and virgin that I'm now learning and using to book another major Asia trip next year video on that soon and then of course Singapore Airlines themselves got to try their sweets product cuz I don't think they release those to any Partners however even though I think those programs are useful they are more Niche similar to credit card points in general having flexibility is key and so here I would still value Aeroplan a bit more but there are some decent redemptions with these use cases but 18 credit cards later and having gone through most of the other popular cards maybe it is time to venture into City cards because if those Niche Transfer Partners is one benefit then another benefit is unlocking a whole new ecosystem of points earning potential I already have Chase cards AMX I already have the platinum card and green card which means I don't qualify for the gold card bonus and for Capital One I already have the Venture X Card meaning the next best area might just be city as the next ecosystem of flexible credit card points especially with a double cash now having a 20,000 Point welcome bonus the custom cash also having 20,000 and the City premiere offering 60,000 points that's a 100,000 worth of city thank you points that are relatively easy to achieve much easier than continuing to focus on Chase an American Express at this time speaking of American Express another benefit is that unlike American Express who has stricter welcome bonus rules like once per lifetime per card city has rules that are a bit more similar to chase in that you can still qualify for the welcome bonuses on these cards again if you haven't had one in the last 48 months and if I can continue to find Value across these other Transfer Partners like flying blue and virgin then I can stretch these points just as far with a little little bit more work similarly I could imagine another benefit being the multipliers like we mentioned earlier the combination of these cards cover a wide variety of categories if I end up getting rid of my MX green card then other than my ink preferred I won't have a card that gives me three times points on restaurants and although I don't spend that much at supermarkets that's another category I don't have any cards to cover the five times points on the custom cache I can see myself using maybe choosing restaurant in a month that I know I'll have a lot of spended but then the double cash flow might be lower down on the list given I already have a card like my Venture X giving me that catchall two times points for all other spend so with all of that said two things do I regret not getting these cards in the past and based on where I'm at in my credit card Journey today do I expect to get these cards in the future well first I do not regret having skipped these cards up until now I think what you see on the internet is true I would still recommend Chase as the first ecosystem for any new person in this space slotting in American Express cards as you see fit the Venture X is still my recommendation for people who want that taste of a travel or premium credit card without those extra extra high fees and those are the cards I've been focusing on as a person whose goal is to have these enhanced travel experiences but having gone through a lot of those popular cards already I think now the city cards are closer to the top of my list for a couple reasons one is it'll unlock a whole new ecosystem where I can earn an influx of points without too much extra work and then two I'm beginning to venture into these Niche Transfer Partners like flying blue virgin or Eva to learn and leverage these for greater value the only hesitation I have is needing to think about an entirely new ecosystem adding to the mental capacity needed for this space and so if you also want to keep it more simple I recommend starting here for these powerful trifectas you don't want to miss but what do you think do you have City cards and if you do what's your experience like let us know down below and I'll see you next time

Channel: Kevin Yang

Views: 11,113

Keywords: best citi credit card, citi double cash, citi custom cash, citi premier, citi trifecta, how to claim the credit card ladder, ranking citi credit cards, citi trifecta vs, best gas card, best travel credit cards, cash back credit cards, csp vs citi premier, best points card, easy credit cards, citi rewards, best cash back, citi strata elite, citi strata premier, citi vs chase, citi vs amex, citi thankyou points, citi credit card review, citi trifecta explained

Id: OgH-Wu6rSFo

Length: 15min 41sec (941 seconds)

Published: Thu May 09 2024