2024.10 Update: This card does not have any welcome offer most of the time. Currently there’s a $75 welcome offer, which is the best ever offer on this card!
Application Link
Benefits
- $75 offer: earn $75 after spending $1,500 in the first 3 months.
- Earn 4% cash back at gas stations worldwide (including Costco gas station); 3% cash back at restaurants and eligible travel spending worldwide; 2% cash back at Costco and Costco.com; 1% cash back on other purchases.
- No annual fee if you are a Costco member.
- No foreign transaction fee.
Disadvantages
- You must have an active Costco membership in your name. We may cancel your Card Account and participation in this program if you do not maintain your Costco membership. You must maintain your Costco membership to redeem Costco Cash Rewards earned with the Card.
- No significant sign-up bonus.
- Only first $7,000 purchases per Annual Reward Year (12 billing periods in a row beginning with the one that includes January 1st) at gas stations can earn 4% cash back, after that you can only earn 1%.
- You will get your cash back as Costco annual coupon, although you can redeem them for cash at Costco, it is still a little painful.
Recommended Application Time
- [8/65 Rule] You can apply for at most 1 Citi card every 8 days, and at most 2 Citi cards every 65 days, whether approved or not.
- Citi values the number of recent hard pulls a lot, we recommend you apply when there’s less than 6 hard pulls in the past 6 months.
- We recommend you apply for this card after you have a credit history of at least one year.
Summary
This is a great no-annual-fee cashback card! Among no-annual-fee cards, the 4% cashback rate on gas (including Costco gas) is currently one of the highest. The 3% cashback on dining and travel is also pretty competitive. For readers who aren’t deeply into points or miles but prefer no-annual-fee cashback cards, this one is great for long-term use! However, this card doesn’t offer a sign-up bonus, so the best way to get it is by product changing or downgrading, rather than applying directly.
Note that although this is a Costco co-branded card, it’s not the best card for Costco purchases. Costco only accepts Visa credit cards, and the “Wholesale” category rarely gets high cashback rates from most cards. However, the US Bank Altitude Reserve (UAR) offers up to 4.5% rewards when using Apple Pay/Android Pay at Costco. The Chase Freedom Unlimited (CFU) gives 1.5x UR points on all purchases, which is roughly a 2.4% return rate. Cards like the Fidelity Rewards, which offer 2% cashback on all purchases, can be used at Costco and provide the same return rate as this card.
It’s worth noting that you need to be a Costco member to apply for this card, and the membership fee is either $60 (no extra cashback at Costco) or $120 (with an additional 2% cashback at Costco). If you’re not already a Costco member, is it worth getting one just for this credit card? Probably not, as the card’s benefits aren’t outstanding when you factor in the $60 membership fee. But you could try a year of membership to see if you become a Costco fan!