Originally Posted by toomanybooks
Citibank now has a debit card that gives "Thank you" points, redeemable into various things including miles. Not too generous (1 point per $3 for "PIN"-type transactions, 1 point per $2 on signature transactions), but something.
My closest Citibank did not know of restrictions, but called and found, as I recall, that there is a limit of something like 20000 points a year on the PIN-type and 75000 on the other, but you might want to check. Fairly new program, some confusion.
Some stores, of course, don't take credit cards, so this might be a good backup for anybody.
Well, Citi has a debit card that gives AA miles 1 to 1, but it is a royal pain. You cannot spend more than $2500 in a day regardless of balance. I wanted to spend $20k+ for baseball season tickets (we have 8 seats), and I was forced to have my season ticket rep charge $2000/day for 2+ weeks. I had to leave room each day for other monthly charges that go through.
In addition, you don't get credit for the total of all purchases each month - each charge gets its own miles. It's not a big loss, but it still stinks. For example, my T-Mobile Hot Spot charge of $29.99 gets me 29 miles - not 29.99. Instead of losing 1 mile each month ($4,345.87 would net 4345) you can lose one mile for every transaction ($4345.87 in total spending might net 4320 miles). This probably cost 300-400 miles each year, but it adds up.
Sam