Citi® Double Cash Card review: 18-month BT offer

CITI® DOUBLE CASH BENEFITS

Are you good about paying off your credit card balance each month? If so, CardName might be appealing to you. If you have excellent or good credit, this 2022 CardRatings Editor's Choice honoree among the best cash-back credit cards could change the way you think about earning rewards. Citi is a CardRatings.com advertiser

Some of the top Citi® Double Cash benefits include: double cash back - earn 2% on every purchase with unlimited 1% cash back when you buy, plus an additional 1% as you pay for those purchases (just make sure to pay at least the minimum due on time); no annual fees; and 0% intro APR on balance transfers for the first 18 months (then, RegAPR). Often times 0% APR introductory offers are limited to one year or less. The Citi® Double Cash balance transfer offer, however, is a generous 18-months. This is a great perk if you're carrying a large balance and need some extra time to pay it off.

Citi® Double Cash is also the only card that earns you 1% cash back when you buy and 1% cash back as you pay for those purchases (whether you pay your balance in full or over time, though you must make the minimum payment on time to earn cash back). The double cash angle is a different structure than most rewards cards on the market, which makes cardholders think differently about the way points can be accumulated.

FEATURED CARD

 

Petal® 2 "Cash Back, No Fees" Visa® Credit Card

• No fees whatsoever. No late fee, foreign transaction fee, annual fee, or any-other-kind-of-fee, fee.
• Variable APRs range from 17.74% - 31.74%
• Up to 1.5% cash back on eligible purchases after making 12 on-time monthly payments.
• 1% cash back on eligible purchases right away
• 2% - 10% cash back at select merchants
• $300 - $10,000 credit limits
• No credit score? No problem. If eligible, we'll create your Cash Score instead.
• See if you're pre-approved within minutes without impacting your credit score.
• Build credit alongside hundreds of thousands of Petal card members.
• Petal reports to all 3 major credit bureaus.
• No deposits required
• Card issued by WebBank

Apply Now

See Rates and Fees

Credit Needed:

Excellent, Good, Limited History, No History, Limited, No Credit

CITI® DOUBLE CASH SIGNUP BONUS

There is no traditional signup bonus offered with CardName; however, the bonus categories for this card are not restricted, and rebates have no caps, which is somewhat of a bonus in and of itself. Furthermore, this cash-back rewards card is good for high value ongoing rewards – the more you spend, the more you earn. The categories aren't rotating either, so knowing exactly how your rewards are being accumulated, at all times, is subjectively an important feature.

Receiving rewards points for purchases and payment on accounts is a great incentive to pay off your balance each month. Any time a credit card company can promote smart credit card habits, it's a win.

Really though, the true Citi® Double Cash bonus is the long intro 0% balance transfer APR offer. Like we mentioned above, most credit cards within the cash-back category have, usually at most, a 12-month introductory offer— Citi® Double Cash offers 18 months on balance transfers, which is one of the longest intro periods we've seen. If you have a major purchase on the horizon that would be easier to pay off in smaller increments, this extended balance transfer intro might be an appealing feature.

CITI® DOUBLE CASH CREDIT SCORE

Although Citi® doesn't share what credit score is needed to receive the CardName, this card is reserved for those with excellent or good scores. The credit scoring agency Experian considers scores of at least 740 to be "very good" and anything above 800 as "exceptional." Please note, however, that these numbers can vary between different bureaus.

CITI® DOUBLE CASH CREDIT FOREIGN TRANSACTION FEE AND OTHER POTENTIAL DOWNSIDES

No credit card is perfect, and one of downside of the CardName is its foreign transaction fees. The Citi® Double Cash foreign transaction fee is equal to 3% of the U.S. dollar amount for purchases made in a foreign currency. For instance, you'll pay a $3 fee if you buy $100 worth of items from an overseas website that charges in a foreign currency. Doesn't sound terrible, but think of it this way: If you take a vacation in another country and make $3,000 worth of foreign purchases, you'll pay $90 in fees. Since the Citi® Double Cash card pays out a maximum of 2% cash back, the foreign transaction fee wipes out any rewards you may earn on those purchases.

While the Citi® Double Cash card is a solid choice for everyday purchases, be sure you have a different card that doesn't charge foreign transaction fees if you plan to frequently travel internationally.

Another fee to keep in mind is the balance transfer fee: BalanceTransferFees. Furthermore, you must pay at least your minimum due each month in order to earn cash back; that isn't a downside, per se, as we like a card that encourages responsible use, but if you're someone who sometimes misses a due date, you'll be disappointed when those rewards don't add up.

CITI® DOUBLE CASH CARDHOLDER SCORES

CardRatings conducts a survey annually to learn what actual cardholders think of their cards. Here are the results:

*Scores above reflect the results of surveys with actual cardholders. Full methodology below.

HOW CITI® DOUBLE CASH COMPARES TO OTHER CREDIT CARDS

Citi® Double Cash vs. Chase Freedom Unlimited®

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The no-annual-fee CardName earns a bit less than the Double Cash card, but the 1.5% cash back earned is automatic per each dollar spent and you can earn 5% on travel purchased through Chase, 3% on dining at restaurants and 3% at drugstores. Additionally, it also offers an extra 1.5% cash back on every purchase (up to $20,000 spent) during the first year, which is worth up to $300. Lastly, it offers 0% intro APR on purchases and balance transfers for the first 15 months (then RegAPR).

The Freedom Unlimited® card is especially a good bet if you have any other Chase Ultimate Rewards®-earning cards like CardName or the CardNamediscontinued, that is if you're willing to be strategic with your credit card use. The CardName earns bonus back in rotating categories, so the Freedom Unlimited® makes a good companion as it can be used to earn bonus rewards on all the purchases that the Chase Freedom Flex℠ doesn't earn bonus rewards on. The same idea applies to the tiered-rewards Sapphire Preferred®, but with this card, points are worth 25% more when redeemed for travel, so you could theoretically get more out of your rewards when pairing the Freedom Unlimited® card with the Sapphire Preferred® card if you pooled your rewards into your Sapphire account. Or, if simplicity if the name of the game, simply use your CardName to earn unlimited 1.5% on every purchase you make to easily rack up rewards on all of your purchases.

Information related to Chase Freedom Flex^SM has been collected independently by CardRatings and was neither reviewed nor provided by the card issuer

Citi® Double Cash vs. CardName

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Similar to the CardName, the CardName has no annual fee and the ability to redeem cash back at any time with no minimums. Where the two cards differ is in how points are earned and the new cardmember bonus opportunity. The Discover It® card earns 5% cash back in rotating categories each quarter (up to the quarterly maximum each time you activate). For new cardmembers, at the end of your first year, Discover matches that 5%— effectively meaning you earn 10% cash back in those categories.

Where the Citi® Double Cash card excels is in straightforward cash back earning. With the Citi® Double Cash card you earn 1% when you make a purchase plus an additional 1% when you pay for those purchases. While this is less than the possible 10% cash back rate offered by the Discover It® card, you earn the same rate on all purchases and you don’t have to worry about opting into quarterly bonus categories. Remember though, the match offered by Discover is only good for the first year. After that, you'll just earn 5% in rotating categories up to the quarterly maximum when you activate, and then 1% on everything else.

Citi® Double Cash vs. Capital One Quicksilver

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For those who want a no annual fee cash back card without the hassle of rotating categories, the CardName and CardName are both great options. One of the largest differences between the cards is their introductory bonus offers. The Quicksilver card has a one-time introductory bonus offer of $200 after spending $500 on purchases during the first three months of card membership. The Citi® Double Cash Card does not have an introductory cash back bonus offer, although it does have an an intro 18 month 0% APR offer on balance transfers (then, RegAPR).

These cards also differ in their cash back earnings rates. The Citi® Double Cash card earns 1% cash back when you make a purchase plus 1% cash back as you pay for those purchases for a possible total of 2% cash back on all your purchases, while the Quicksilver card earns a flat-rate 1.5% cash back on all purchases made.

IS CITI® DOUBLE CASH A GOOD CARD?

CardName is best for consumers with excellent or good credit who are interested in earning cash-back rewards, but don't want to keep up with rotating categories or spending caps. As with any rewards card, the ideal cardholder is someone who will pay their balance in full each month so that interest charges don't eat into the rewards you're earning.

Lastly, it's also important to remember that this card does charge foreign transaction fees, so you should plan to carry a different card along when you travel abroad.

Survey Methodology: CardRatings commissioned Op4G in September and October 2022 to conduct surveys among 1,554 cardholders nationwide. CardRatings website analytics from Jan. 1, 2022-Aug. 31, 2022 were used to determine a selection of the most popular cards and additional cards were included to add survey breadth. Responses to each of nine questions were given on a scale of 1-10 and respondents' scores were then averaged under broad topics. To determine the overall score, responses from questions 1-8 were summed and the answer to "How likely are you to recommend this card to a friend, coworker or family member?" was double weighted. "Current Scores" reflect scores from the most recent survey (2022); "Past Scores" reflect scores from the 2021 survey.