Citi® Dividend Platinum Select Visa® - Is This A Good Card?
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Editor's Rating:
  4.0/5.0
Our Verdict: A top tier cash back card that belongs to the rotating category camp. Best features include their Bonus Cash Center online portal, where they have more merchants than their peers. Little known is their trip cancellation insurance feature, which most other cards do not have. A good card either as a standalone or to combine with other cash rewards cards.
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| Intro Purchase APR | Regular APR | Intro Balance Transfer | Annual Fee | Issuer | Credit Needed |
| 0.00% for 12 Months | 12.99% to 22.99%* (variable) | 0% for 12 Months | $0* | Citi | Excellent |
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PROS
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CONS
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After looking at some of it's peer comparison, it is clear that this card belongs to the "rotating category cash back card" camp. The truth is that because the cash back world is segmented this way, it is really hard to do apples to apples comparison with all of its peers.
What we can say is that compared to other "rotating category cards", the Citi Dividend Platinum Select Visa has a few strong points.
- It has the most merchants in it's online portal - Compared to other issuers online shopping partners, Citi has more of them than other portals. That means that if you shop a lot (especially online), you will find more merchants where you can earn extra cash back with this card.
- It has trip cancellation insurance - Citi is one of the rare card issuers that actually offer trip cancellation insurance to their card holders. Chase, Discover do not. For those who travel, this perk will come in handy if you use this card.
But this card has it's downsides as well.
- $300 Cap in Cash Back Earnings - One of the things that I do not like about this card is that they cap the cash back you can earn a year to $300 (but spending at Citi's Bonus Cash Center are exempt from this). For very high spenders, this might be an issue.
As I have mentioned in the beginning, it is really hard to select an overall best card in the cash back category because they are a few distinct types. The most generic ones just let's you earn 1% cash back and nothing else. You want to avoid those. Then there are those like Capital One who pay 1.5%. It is not too bad but the Citi Dividend Platinum Select Visa is a "rotating category" type card and it belongs to the top tier in the cash back segment.
If you want to earn cash back on as many categories as possible and you shop a lot online, then these are the types of cards you should consider. And I would put Citi as one of the cards to consider. In fact, if you really wanted to max out your rebates, getting the Citi, Chase Freedom and Discover More will allow you to mix and match your card depending what is the flavor of the moment.
You could go even further by combining a card like this to the Amex Blue Cash Everyday. But having a 5% quarterly category card and a straight non-tier card like the Blue Cash, you get the best of both worlds.
To conclude, there are tons of cards that pay cash back rewards. Every little bank seems to offer them. But I would say that in you really look into it, there are only four or five cards that deserve to be in your wallet. And this card belongs to this group. If you decide to get this card, we would say you have made a very good choice.
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