December 26, 2024: The Citi Custom Cash® Card offers an easy-to-earn sign-up bonus of $200 cash back after you spend $1,500 on purchases within the first 6 months of opening your account.
If you’re collecting Citi ThankYou Points, you definitely want to have one (or several) Custom Cash cards in your wallet. And you can earn a new cardmember bonus on the first Custom Cash you get. Here’s what you need to know about the Custom Cash welcome bonus offer:
Best bonus: Online 20,000 point Citi Custom Cash® Card welcome offer
Annual fee: annual_fees
Best sign-up bonus: bonus_miles_full Learn how to apply.
This bonus is marketed as cash back, but earned as ThankYou® Points.
My take on the Citi Custom Cash® sign-up bonus
The Citi Custom Cash® card is an essential card if you are collecting ThankYou Points. Even if you’re pursuing a cash back strategy, the card can earn 5% cash back rewards in several useful categories. (The card appears on our best-cards lists for gas, groceries, drugstores, home improvement stores, and several other categories.)
I don’t know of any previous increased welcome offers on the Citi Custom Cash® card, so now is as good a time as any to get the Custom Cash. While you can get the sign-up bonus on the Custom Cash more than once, if you’re invested in the ThankYou® Rewards program, you will probably only get the bonus on this card once.
That’s because you can only be approved for a new Custom Cash card if you do not already hold the card. But you can get a second, third, or more Custom Cash cards by downgrading other Citi Cards. Like you might expect, you can get a Custom Cash by downgrading a Citi Strata Premier℠ card, but many American Airlines cards can also be downgraded to the Citi Custom Cash.
My verdict: If you don’t already have the Citi Custom Cash® and aren’t trying to keep yourself under 5/24 for Chase applications or have another reason to limit your card applications, now’s a good time to apply for this card. Once you have opened your first Custom Cash and earned a welcome bonus, you should use downgrades from other cards to get additional Custom Cash cards.
Bonus eligibility: One bonus per 48 months
Citi’s bonus rules are fairly simple to understand. You can only earn a bonus if it’s been 48 months since the last time you received a bonus on the same card. Here’s what the terms and conditions say for the Citi Custom Cash®
Bonus ThankYou Points are not available if you received a new account bonus for a Citi Custom Cash® Card in the past 48 months or if you converted another Citi credit card account on which you earned a new account bonus in the last 48 months into a Citi Custom Cash® Card.
Citi Custom Cash® sign-up bonus terms and conditions.
There is a small nuance to these terms that you might miss, and which is important if you’ve ever had the card before. Citi’s eligibility window for bonuses is 48 months since you last received a new cardmember bonus. Most cardmembers will receive a new cardmember several months after opening the card, so your card open date isn’t necessarily the best indicator of when you might have received a bonus.
Add to that the fact that you have six months to earn the bonus on the Custom Cash, and it is possible to have opened a Custom Cash close to five years ago and still not be eligible to receive a bonus. If in doubt, and you’ve had a Custom Cash before, check your account history to see when the points were awarded, add 48 months from the statement closing date when you were awarded the points, and then add a few months as a safety buffer.
Frequently asked questions
Can you get more than one Citi Custom Cash℠
Because the Citi Custom Cash℠ earns 5% cash back rewards in one category each month on up to $500 of spending, you might want to get another Custom Cash either to increased your spending capacity in your favorite category or to access 5% rewards in additional categories. While you can only get one Citi Custom Cash as a new cardmember, you can get multiple Custom Cash cards by downgrading other cards.
How much is 20,000 ThankYou® Points worth?
The 20,000 ThankYou® Points you’ll get with a new Citi Custom Cash℠ card are worth $200 toward cash back redemptions. However, you can get even more value out of them if you also hold a Citi Strata Premier℠ card, which enables point transfers to all of Citi’s travel transfer partners.
