Originally Posted by
mailbotx
Not sure about everybody else, but I think this looks like a great card. Haven't had any citi cards because they are pretty weak reward-wise. I don't want/need the rotating category hassle. I need to set up charges and autopay and then forget about it.
Grocery stores. (mastercards don't work at Costco...)
Restaurants. (already have 4% cashback savor card and spend more than $500 in this category irregularly)
Gas stations. (have an electric car [see below], the gas-guzzling truck stays parked, and use a visa to fill up at Costco)
Streaming services. (if you spend $500 month on netflix, disney, hulu, hbo, you have other problems than cashback???)
Drugstores. (hsa/fsa ...)
Home improvement stores. (Great backup category for when I get a project)
Fitness clubs. (wow, even equinox isn't $500 a month, troll category to make the list look big citi?)
Select travel. (spend more than $500 but not every month, ticket prices vary so much rather use a better travel reward card).
Live entertainment. (maybe if I purchased broadway/concert tickets each month, but I already get 4% on my savor in this category which I don't use)
Select transit.(DING DING - we have a winner!) Here is what I found - **Select transit is defined as car rentals, ferries, commuter railways, subways, taxis/limousines/car services, passenger railways, bridge and road tolls, parking lots/garages, bus lines and motor home and recreational vehicle rentals. It also includes merchants that sell electricity for charging an electric vehicle.
So I easily spend a few hundred dollars on rental cars every other month (probably more now that you can't get a rental car). I'm spending at least $25 monthly on bridge and highway tolls. Now that it's safe to ride in an Uber/Lyft to the airport and short trips another $100 month. Finally, instead of gas, my supercharger bill can run $50 a month or so for the electric car. Plus this would come in handy on the occasional rail, subway, mass transit trip and I could pretty easily get close to the $500 without going over/under. I'll update flyertalk after a few months of use to confirm they actually pay these categories.
Well, it will be like a rotating card for me once I get it, because the only thing I semi-regularly do that no other card covers at all is parking lots/garages (mostly at the airport, I don't use Uber). (I already have 4x on restaurants and groceries with my Amex Gold.) Until recently my Citi Premier card covered that plus "travel", but those are separate categories here. I only use use Citi Premier for hotels where I don't already have a hotel program credit card, but I get 3x on hotels there whereas I'd get 5x here. But if I used it for one $115 hotel in the same month I had $125 parking, I'd get 5x on the $125 and only 1x on the $115. So I will have to keep track of the billing cycles when I'm flying and keep it to parking those billing cycles (and keep hotels on the Premier during those Custom Cash billing cycles), and then those billing cycles where I don't have parking I can use it for hotels to get 5x instead of just 3x TYP.
But that's even more frequent juggling of cards than with quarterly rotating categories such as at Chase Freedom and Discover.