Citi® Home Rebate Platinum Select® MasterCard® Review
Summary - The Citi® Home Rebate Platinum Select® MasterCard® will appeal to the home owner who wants to pay down their mortgage faster through the use of rebates with this card. Let us explore this card in greater detail.
Rebate Formula - The Citi® Home Rebate Platinum Select® MasterCard® lets you earn 1% rebate for every dollar you spend on your credit card. The rebates goes towards paying your mortgage principal. You can earn unlimited rebates. If you are not yet a home owner, the rebates you earn are credited to your account statements instead. Hence, it functions also as a cash rebate credit card. New cardholders can earn 6% rebates on utilities, cable and satellite tv, internet connections and telecom services for the first twelve months.
Annual Fee and APR - There is no annual fee and the APR is moderately low. There is a 0% APR on balance transfer for 12 months from the date of balance transfer. You are allowed to make your first balance transfer within 12 months. However, there is a balance transfer fee with this card and there are no caps to the balance transfer fees. The APR is prime rate plus 4.99% and the average daily balance method (including new purchase) is used to calculate monthly balances.
Citi Home Rebate Versus It's Peers
How do we compare this card? The reason I pose this question is because there are really hardly any cards like that (ie let's you earn cash rebates which are paid towards your mortgage principal). Well, actually there is one other card like that. And it is the Wells Fargo Home Rebate MasterCard.
Citi Home Rebate Card vs Wells Fargo Home Rebate MasterCard - Both these cards are really identical in that you earn 1% rebates. The Wells Fargo Home Rebate Card automatically pays off your mortgage principal once you spend $2,500 on the card (ie you earn $25 in rebates).
But in our opinion, this card is nothing more than masquerading as a 1% cash back credit card. And the truth is that there are better cash back credit cards in the market. You can always take the cash rebates you earn and use them to reduce your mortgage principal. Let's look at some of the better cash back cards.
Citi Home Rebate vs Rotating Category Cash Back Cards - Cards like the Chase Freedom, Discover More offer cardholders the opportunity to earn 5% rebates on various categories that change every quarter (like gasoline, home improvement, travel etc). These cards allow you to earn much better rebates than the standard 1% that the Citi Home Rebate offers (not withstanding the 6% rebates on a few categories for the first 12 months).
Citi Home Rebate Card
Verdict - If you would like to pay off your mortgage faster, the best way is to make some extra payments monthly that goes towards paying off your principal. In this regard, the Citi® Home Rebate Platinum Select® MasterCard® offers a very convenient way to do that as the rebates you earn are "automatically" applied to reduce your principal payments.
But the big problem with this card (and the Wells Fargo Home Rebate Card) is that you can only earn 1% cash rebates (which is really not great for a cash back card). There are much better cash back credit cards. Furthermore, you need very good credit to get this card.
Update - Citi is no longer offering this card. If you have average credit and are looking for a cash back card, we suggest you consider the Barclaycard Rewards MasterCard as you can earn 2X on gas, groceries and utilities (more than this card). You can then use the rebates you earn to pay down your mortgage principal. But if automatic payments and convenience matters to you, then this card may be worth a shot.