Part 6: Citi® Dividend Platinum Select® Visa® Review - vs Chase Freedom Visa®

The Chase Freedom is the most common cards that readers request us to compare this card to. So we will start here.

These two card are actually very similar in many ways.
 

• They both have 5% rotating categories
- It's really up in the air as to who starting the 5% rotating category first. But both these cards have them. And they have different expense categories and they do change every year. Hence, we cannot really do an apples to apples comparison.

The one thing I like about the Chase Freedom (a card which I have) is that they will list the categories for the whole year whereas Citi will only list it quarter to quarter.


• Both Have Online Shopping Portals
- Another similarity that both cards have is that they both allow you to earn extra rewards when you shop at their online shopping portal. As mentioned earlier, Citi's portal is call the Bonus Cash Center whereas the one from Chase is from their Ultimate Rewards Portal.

After investigating these two portals (including listing their merchants side by side), we came to the conclusion that the Citi portal had way more merchants than Chase. Furthermore, they have online, offline and catalog partners whereas Chase is mainly exclusively focused on online partners.

Hence, in terms of shopping portal, Citi comes up ahead.

But there are some differences which we have to highlight as well.
 

• Citi is strictly a cash back card whereas Chase is a rewards card as well
- This card from Citi is strictly a cash back card. You earn what they term "Citi Dividend Dollars" and you request a check when you have earned enough rebates.

With the Chase Freedom, you actually earn points. You can obviously exchange the points for cash rebates, but you can also use it to redeem rewards from their reward program. So in that sense, it is a hybrid cash back rewards card and does provides more flexibility in terms of how you want to redeem points.


• Different Earnings Cap Policy
- Both cards impose some form of caps on the rewards you can earn. For example the card from Citi allows you to earn up to three hundred dollars you rebates every year. But you can unlimited rebates when you purchase products through their Bonus Cash Center shopping mall!

Chase, on the other hand, has no caps on the points and rewards you can earn. But on the hand, you are capped to $1,500 in spending on the 5% quarterly rotating categories.

They are more similar than different - When you look at both cards, you will realize that they are more similar than different. They are essentially cash back credit cards with identical ways to earn your rebates. They just have small differences which may or may not matter to some of you.

Now, let us compare this with the Discover More.

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