No complaints with this card. The rewards rack up quickly and are easy to use in a variety of ways. Citi is always easy to communicate with if there are any questions or issues. Overall, it's a good card from a reliable lender.

This Citi rewards program is unlike any rewards program I've ever been a part of. It seemed as if all these rewards programs turned out to be not what I thought, but Citi thank you rewards turned out to be a pleasant surprise. I was earning points with every purchase and I quickly had a gift card which I could spend on anything. Citi ThankYou Preferred Card is a great card!

I recently got the Citi Thank You Rewards card with the 25,000 bonus points when you spend $2,000 in the first 4 months. The 25,000 bonus points can be used to get a $250 gift card of your choice. At first I was skeptical that we would actually get the 25,000 bonus points but lo and behold when last statement came out they were on there. I feel great knowing that I am earning one point for every $1 spent and that I can use it towards gift cards. We use credit cards anyway why not get rewarded for it. Great card to use and I can not wait to cash in my bonus points and get my gift card. I think we are going to go with the Longhorn gift certificate and even though it's a steakhouse, $250 is going to go a long, long way.

Man, I want to apply for like every single credit card that offers a semi decent initial bonus. I could get thousands of dollars that way, quit my job and just trade credit cards all day like some sorta personal finance day trader. Course that’s not realistic because I don’t really think I could subsist on credit card rewards and you can’t just apply for credit cards left and right since your credit score dips temporarily every time you apply. After a while you wouldn’t get approved for the cards offering truly lucrative initial bonuses and the plan would be shot. I guess what I’m saying in a roundabout way is that you shouldn’t just see the Citi ThankYou Preferred Card offering $250 in Gift Cards and jump at the offer. You should first do a little research to see if there are any better deals out there, especially if the card doesn’t have great ongoing rewards. That’s what I kept in mind when deciding whether or not to get the $250 gift card Citi ThankYou Preferred Credit Card, and here’s the pro/con list I used:

Pros

- No annual fee: Unless a card offers rewards lucrative enough that it’s still more valuable than the competition even with an annual fee, you should avoid these fees.

Cons

- $250 initial bonus: Since you can get $500 on travel with the Chase Sapphire Preferred and the Hilton Card gives you a bunch of free nights, getting $250 in the form of gift cards isn’t all that great.
- Base rewards: One point per dollar spent isn’t all that competitive, a number of cards give you 1.5% - 2% cash back on all purchases and others give much more on specific types of purchases.
- 0% rates: The Citi Thank You Premier Credit Card doesn’t offer any, so there’s no interest rate incentive to get it.
As you can guess, I didn’t end up getting the ThankYou Premier Citicard. It just doesn’t stand out relative to the other options I have and it would be a negative value proposition to get it.

Citi is saying Thank You for keeping up your excellent credit throughout the recession by offering you $250 in gift cards after you spend $2,000 during the first three months with the Citi ThankYou Preferred Card. Come to think of it they’re probably saying Thank You for spending that much too and giving them the interchange fees that result, but hey. A lot of credit card companies are offering these initial rewards bonuses for new customers, and since gift cards are established as the most popular presents (I don’t really know what this says about us), the Citi ThankYou Preferred’s bonus might seem pretty darn handy. But if you are opening a new credit card with just the initial bonus in mind you can do better believe it or not.

The Chase Sapphire Preferred would be a good card to target because it gives you either $625 in airline and hotel expenses or $500 cash. If you want a combo of a good bonus and ongoing rewards, it bears seeing what else the Citi ThankYou Preferred Card offers. Not too much it seems. Just 1 point per $1 spent and an “anniversary bonus” whatever that means. The ThankYou Premier Card doesn’t have a low introductory interest rate either. So I’d probably say that you should definitely explore other options before applying for this Citi Premier Card. I’d recommend the Capital One Venture Card, the Sapphire Card mentioned before and the version of the Citi ThankYou Premier Card that offers $500 in gift cards. Yeah, there are apparently two of these babies. The difference between them (besides the gift card bonus amount obviously) is that the version with the lower bonus does not have an annual fee ever and the one with the higher bonus has a $125 fee beginning in the second year. I’d say thanks but no thanks to the $250 version of the Citi ThankYou Premier Card as a result and why thank you to either the version with a better bonus or one of the other cards mentioned in this little review.