Why I did NOT do the Citi Dividend 5% categories in 2015 but will in 2016

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Introduction

I have 2 Citi Dividend cards from former AA Exec cards.  These cards have quarterly 5% bonuses.  They collect dust until I see a good category to use them in.  The good thing about these cards, unlike the Freedom and Discover is that you can bang out all $6,000 of spend in one quarter and hit your yearly limit in one quarter vs being limited to $1500 per quarter.  Let’s look back on 2015:

 

2015 Quarter 1 – Macy’s

Giftcardwiki shows that Macy’s gift cards average 8%.  Why would I go charge something for 5% when I can buy the gift card for 8%?  Far as I know, there isn’t return protection or extended warranty on the Dividend cards, so there’s no reason to have used it in Q1.

 

2015 Quarter 2 – Home depot

Once again, Giftcardwiki shows an average discount of 5% and currently 9% off for Home Depot.  Plus I was doing my Smart and Final gift card run in Q2 and was buying the GC’s for 20% off.  Sure, HD sells VGC but they are costly!

 

2015 Quarter 3 – Hilton and airlines

I don’t pay for Hilton hotels and I can MS the points for cheaper.  Plus, AMEX had a Hilton offer during that timeframe too that was $75 off $350.  Odd how AMEX had a Hilton offer the same quarter that Citi had theirs.  It just made no sense to save 5%.  As for airlines, you can buy some of their gift cards (AA, Southwest) for 5%-10% off.  I guess I could have bought Alaska Air gift cards at 5% off.  That wouldn’t have been so bad, but I was holding out for Quarter 4…

 

2015 Quarter 4 – Best Buy and Department Stores

When the chart came out in early 2015, I figured I’d just go nuts at Best Buy.  Department stores are intriguing but you can buy Sears, Kohl’s, Macy’s, etc gift cards for > 5%, so why waste it there.  But then the AMEX Offer of $20 off $200 came out for Best Buy as well as the Apple Pay Discover thing that it rendered the 5% useless.  Thus, I didn’t use the cards at all in 2015.  Looking back, I SHOULD have bought Alaska GCs in Q3.

 

2016 Categories

citidividend2016

Drugstores is back in Q2.  It doesn’t take a genius to figure out where I’ll be banging out my $6,000 x 2 in 2016.  Let’s hope our favorite drugstore is still taking debit for Serve loads by April…

7 comments on “Why I did NOT do the Citi Dividend 5% categories in 2015 but will in 2016

  1. I maxed out my 2015 dividend by calling retention and asking to see if there were any offers on the dividend card. Surprisingly they offered $2 extra dollars (3x total) for all spend up to the annual limit (and this does not allow you to go above $300). So I bought mall gift cards with my dividend card and earned a nice profit (300-48 in fees).

    1. ah nice. I had heard others getting retention bonuses like that, but weren’t sure if it hit the $300 limit.

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