The Citi® Dividend Platinum Select® Visa® has been Citi's main cash back card for the last few years and has gone through several changes through the years. Here is how the card works.

Dividend Cash Rebate Formula - If you are a cardholder, you will earn what Citi called "Dividend Dollars". You to earn 1% rebates for every purchase that you make on the card. You can redeem your cash rebates in $50 denominations. You have to request your rebate checks yourself. It also turns out that you can earn 1% rebates for cash advances and balance transfers (up to $1,500).

5% Quarterly Rotating Categories - Like, many modern cash back cards, they have a 5% quarterly rotating category feature. This is how it works. Every quarter, you will receive 5% rebates when you spend on selected categories. For example, you will earn 5% cash back from The Home Depot and on Home Furnishing and Home & Garden purchases from 4/1/12 to 6/30/12. In the first quarter of 2012, you would have earned 5% cash back on fitness club, health care, and utilities purchases (ie from 1/1/2012 to 3/31/2012). These categories change every quarter. You also need to enroll in the program - which you can do on the website or just calling them.

Online Shopping Portal - Like most cash back cards these days, Citi provides an online shopping portal. In fact, they were perhaps the first card to offer this way back in 20041. Back then, the portal was called Citi Dividend Merchant Network. The name was later changed to the Citi Bonus Cash Center². This is how the portal works. Citi has lined up merchants for the portal. Unlike other portals, the Citi Bonus Cash Center has both online partners, as well as catalog partners and partners where you can order products over the phone (many of them are the same merchant). When you shop online through the Bonus Cash Center (after logging into your account), you will be able to earn more than one point per dollar spent. The same thing happens when you shop with a catalog or phone order partner. They also have off line store partners. So if you go to their stores and use this card, you will earn the extra rebates. (See screen shots below)

We recently did a study on online shopping portal³ and we found out that the Citi Bonus Cash Center had the most merchants among its competition⁴.

Caps On Rebates - One of the surprising things about this card is that you can capped to earning only $300 in annual cash rebates on the 5% rotating category and 1% regular purchases spending. Any purchases from Citi Bonus Cash Center are not capped.

How Does It Stack Up With Other Rotating Category Cards? - This card faces competition from Chase Freedom Card and Discover More Card.

In terms of rotating categories, I do not think we can really compare them. The reason is because they tend to change every year and also they may be different. The Discover More has a tier system where you have to spend more than $3,000 annually before you could earn 1%. So in this aspect, they come out slightly worse than Citi and Chase. However, Citi caps what you earn from the 1% and 5% spending categories to $300 a year, whereas both Discover and Chase do not.

In terms of the online shopping portal, Citi comes out ahead in terms of number of merchants. They also have off line, catalog and phone order partners whereas both Chase and Discover do not. The Discover online shopping portal ShopDiscover has the least number of merchants among all its' competitors. But the have the most merchants that pays the highest rebates (since many merchants are on all the credit card issuers portal buy give different rebates).

There is another difference between these three cards. And that is that with the Chase Freedom, you earn points which can be converted to cash back or rewards from their Ultimate Rewards program. Citi and Discover are pure cash back cards.

Is the Citi Dividend a good card? - The Citi® Dividend Platinum Select® Visa® is a pretty decent cash back card and certain beats regular 1% cards. It's strong points is it's online shopping portal because of the number of merchants and also because they have off line and catalog partners as well. It's weakness is it's cap on rebates, which it's competitors do not have. If you find yourself shopping online a lot, you might just want to consider this card.

Screen Shots of Citi Bonus Cash Center Partners - Citi Bonus Cash Center has over 400 merchant partners and you can save money when you shop with them through the portal.



References
1. 28th Oct 2004: Citi Launches Merchant Network for it's Citi Dividend Platinum Select Card - Increase Cash Back Benefits
2. Citi Bonus Cash Center
3. Ask Mr Credit Card: Online Shopping Portal Study
4. Citi Bonus Cash Center Review