Originally Posted by
AlexTheMan
Things can be different and nice that you provided a lot of detail. What I referring to is what happens for myself and a number of other people. Let me give you an example. For the current promo of $200 credit when spending $2000 or more., my wife and a bunch of posters here received the credit on 2/17/2024. If you go back you will see a number of posts on 2/17 reporting the credit. I checked the day before and there was no credit. However, the credit showed up on 2/17 but it was backdated on SYW website to 2/7, a day after statement closing date of 2/6. This is what i am referring to as "phantom" dates.
Looking at transaction history, credit seems to apply a day after closing date, but it actually was posted 10 days later in my case.
So what I mean, while quoting your statement, "Citi has actually credited me with the statement credit 1-2 weeks PRIOR AFTER the actual posted date"
Aha! I see now. Sorry to be so dense.
So I think I just observed what you stated (and I blame Citi--haha).
First, I'll correct that my statement closing dates are "around" the 23rd of the month (sometimes the 24th, sometimes the 25th).
Example of what I *think* you're describing happened today:
1) Quicken downloaded my SYW card transactions today (I did it Saturday and M-F last week). As is typical, the weekend transactions sometimes take 1-2 days to be reflected (that whole transaction date vs. post date).
2) On 3/8/24 I made a $68 purchase (or thereabouts) at WalMart.
3) That transaction was downloaded today (but not over the weekend). It has a posting date of 3/8/24.
4) ALSO it downloaded (today, 3/11/24), a $50 statement credit that had a 2/24/24 POST date (Transaction date of today, or so I'm assuming since I can't see those on the Citi website, nor are they in Quicken, but since the item hasn't shown up the entire last week...)
5) I thought that was odd, (although SOMETIMES Quicken's integration with Intuit's servers, causes it to download previous transactions), so I double-checked and no, no 2/24/24 transaction previously.
6) I wasn't sure which statement credit promo it was referring to, although I had my suspicions, so I went onto the Website and clicked the "+" sign to expand and all it said was Statement Credit for 3/1/24 - 3/31/24. OK, the month hasn't finished yet, and why is it posting "this months" credit on 2/24/24? More about that later.
7) I was able to determine that the 3/8/24 Walmart charge was indeed my 6th charge over $60 since 3/1/24, thus, this was the statement credit for the "make 6 charges of at least $60/month and get a $50 statement credit). OK.
8) NOW I will explain the 2/24/24 posting date. That happens to be my statement OPENING date (since the previous statement closed on 2/23/24).
So I believe the above scenario describes what you were trying to say.
I also believe (I stated incorrectly that these would post on my statement CLOSING date, and that was incorrect, it turns out it's my statement OPENING date). And, unfortunately unless you have access to the LIVE website, (or you made meticulous notes), you can't really look at the statements (PDF/paper), or Quicken, to see the TRANSACTION date.
Thus, I feel it's quite possible that ALL my statement credits that posted on my Statement Opening date were not reflective of the TRANSACTION date (although I have now added a column in my spreadsheet for the transaction date and post date of the statement credits).
So, it would seem, that the statement closing date (for me) is important as the Opening Statement date is when credits will post (but not the transaction date). Although it's a bit odd that they do things this way, IMO (applying a credit with a vastly different post date vs. transaction date).
I'm assuming that the statement closing dates vary for individuals (ie, not everyone has a 22-25 closing date?). So I'm sure for some, the posting dates will "always" be the first of the month (in my case I won't say they are ALWAYS the opening date, as I have a few statement credits that have posted--meaning the actual post date--not the transaction date-- on dates other than the Opening Date, but it's not many that it happens to).