Spend $1000 A Month – Discover More or Citi Diamond Preferred Rewards Card?

I got this email recently from Dora:

Hi. i am new to credit cards, i don’t use them much; only to pay for my daughter’s education, however, due tot he many rewards i applied to two credit cards, discover cashback bonuts and the city diamond preferred? which credit card is best? i was dissapointed with discover. i’ve spend over $1,000 for the holidays but only getting $16 as cash back. thank you,

I probed further:

firstly, how much do you intend to spend on the card a month?
what sort of rewards are you interested in? cash, air miles, merchandize etc?
do you shop online?

Here was her reply:

i am planning on charging no more than $1,000 a month and I’m pretty good in not charging what i can’t afford. this month however, i will be added about $500 for xmas shopping. thank you so much for the advice.

Answer – Dora – both the Discover More Card and the Citi Diamond Preferred Rewards Card are good cards. But given the amount that you spend on the card, I would say that the decision depends on how you want to use the rewards.

With the Discover More Card, you earn cash rebates. You could also exchange the cash rebates that you earn for gift cards with a greater value than the cash rebates you have earned. They also offer you 5% cash back on categories that change once every quarter. They also have an online shopping portal called shopdiscover where you can earn anywhere from 5% to 20% cash rebates when you shop online with their shopping partners. Hence, if you are looking to earn cash rebates, the Discover More Card is probably the card to use. The other advantage of this card is that if you make use of their 5% rotating categories and their online shopping partners, you can earn more rebates (in points equivalent) than the Citi card.

The Citi Diamond Preferred Rewards Card is not a cash back card. But you redeem the reward points for travel, gift cards and merchandise. To redeem points for travel, you have to book them through Citi’s travel portal (which is basically powered by expedia.com). There are no blackout dates or any restrictions that used to apply with reward programs of yesteryear! The other difference with the Discover More Card is that you can only earn one point for every dollar that you spend on the card.

So to conclude, here’s my take. If you want to earn cash rebates or redeem for gift cards, the Discover More Card is the better card to use. If travel rewards are what you are looking for, then Citi Diamond Preferred Rewards would make the better card.

Note – Citi is no longer offer the Citi Diamond Preferred Rewards Card. It has been replaced with the Citi ThankYou(SM) Preferred Card, which essentially has the same features and the same reward program.