Review of National City Bank Diamond Edition Elite Visa

The National City Bank Diamond Edition Elite Visa was last reviewed on 9th September 2006

Summary - The National City Bank Elite Visa is a reward credit card as well as a charity credit card with a reward program that has both travel and shopping rewards. Let'w explore this card in greater detail.


Reward Formula - The National City Bank Diamond Edition Elite Visa has the same reward program and formula as the regular Elite Visa. You can earn 2 points for every dollar you spend as long as your annual spending is below $5,000. Once your annual spending exceeds $5,000, you will earn 5 points for every dollar you spend on the card. New cardholders get 5,000 bonus points after their purchases.

Charity Credit Card - Upon first use of your Diamond Edition Elite Visa, National City will donate $5 plus a portion of every transaction thereafter to the National Breast Cancer Foundation.

Fees and Rates - There is no annual fee for this card. The apr is either prime rate plus 3.99%, 6.99% or 12.99%. The two-cycle average daily balance method (including new purchases) is used to calculate monthly balance. New cardholders get an introductory 0% apr offer on purchases for 3 months and balance transfers for 6 months.

Is earning 5 points for every dollar you spend too good to be true?
When I first read that the elite visa lets you earn 5 points for every dollar you spend after your annual spending exceeded $5,000, I thought they had given the Citi Diamond Preferred Rewards Card a run for their money. Recall that the Citi Diamond Card allowed you to earn 5 points for every dollar you spend at supermarkets, gasoline stations and drugstores. To get to the bottom of this, I checked the reward catalog.

After scanning through the rewards, I found out that the 5 points per dollar headline was indeed too good to be true. The reason is because the points required to redeem rewards is skewed upwards to reflect that. For example, one would require 100,000 points to redeem a roundtrip flight within the continental USA. Most reward program only requires 25,000 points. Hence, when you factor in that you earn 5 points for every dollar after $5,000 in annual spending and scale it to compare with other credit card reward program, then a roundtrip air ticket within the US for the Elite Rewards requires an equivalent spending of between $20,000 and $25,000. (which is comparable to other reward programs).

Verdict - I do not particularly like it that they advertise that you can earn 5 points for every dollar you spend when the number of points required for rewards is scaled up such that earning 5 points per dollar spent is almost equivalent to earning 1 point (as measured to other credit cards). The reward program is not as comprehensive when compare to others like the Chase choosemyrewards, Citi ThankYou Redemptions Network or the Membership Rewards.

If you were originally attracted to the fact you could earn 5 points for every dollar you spend, then perhaps you should consider the Citi® Diamond Preferred® Rewards Card, which allows you to earn 5 points for every dollar you spend at supermarkets, gas stations and drugstore. With this card, spending just $5,000 on these items will get you a free airline ticket!

If you are more inclined to get this card to automatically make donations to the Breast Cancer Foundation, then I urge you to go ahead and apply for this card

Positives