During “The Great Recession“, one of my favorite credit card the “Citi Diamond Preferred” card seemed to have discontinue the Best Buy $100 gift card for 10,000 points option.  In fact, they seemed to discontinue most of the $100 gift cards for 10,000 points options!  Instead they seemed to be offering a $25 gift card for 3,5000 points and other less beneficial deals.  So as you can imagine, I was very disappointed!

Well, I’m happy to say that they have included the $100 gift certificates for most (if not all) of the companies in the program again, but you have to be on your toes!

If you just go to the thankyou.com site that Citicard uses, you have to dig a little to get to the $100 for 10,000 point option!  If you just glance at the gift cards offered, there only seems to be the “$25 for 3,500 points” option!  The trick is that you have to go to “View Details“, the click on the denominations pulldown box to select the $100 for 10,000 option!

Tricky Thankyou Rewards Site

So what did I decided to do with the now my now once again valuable points?

Well, now that I can get a decent value for my points, I decided to cash out 70,000 points for $700 so we can finally buy a 50 inch HDTV (note, I still have $500 leftover from the previous “thankyou rewards” order for Best Buy cards).

In addition, if things go as planned and the credit card companies don’t discontinue their rewards program, I should have enough points to buy a new computer system by the end of the year.

The best thing is that these purchases are effectively free!  The money I spend with my Citi Diamond Preferred card was on things that I would have purchased anyway!  By using my credit card, I receive a discount in the form of reward points with each purchase!

Now some may say, that they would rather have cash, and I’m definitely cool with cash!  But, at the same time, by using this rewards programs, I have to spend the points instead of saving the money like I typically would.  Now as long time readers may know…  I have an unusual problem with not spending money.  But by using the thankyou rewards program, I have to spend the points that I saved on fun stuff, or at least on something!  So for me, this is a win-win, because it’s spending without the money coming out of my checking account!

UPDATE:  I should mention that if you have this card or if you decide to go with this card, you should only use it to order gift certificates, and in denominations that are $100 for 10,000 points!  Any other options is subpar in my opinion!

Today (4/8/2011) I got replacement cards for my City Diamond Preferred card a year earlier than expected, and surprise, the card is now called “Citi Preferred”.  Apparently, the lost the diamond…

The new cards are blue instead of black.  So much for the cool looking black card.

I hope others that have a citi credit card that use the Thankyou rewards site find value in my little tip!  Do you have any additional tips on any credit card?

-MR

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