My Best Credit Card: Citi Diamond Preferred

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Please see this new page about my best credit cards, the Citi Diamond Preferred card I reference below no longer exists with the beneficial properties that I wrote about. It was great until they retired it, then years later brought it back in an inferior form. I do not own the Citi Diamond Preferred card and I won’t because it’s not a good match for me anymore.

It use to be a great card for a lot of reason that are now struckout below, but sadly now is subpar compared to the ones in the link: best credit cards …

Citi Diamond Preferred

Citi Diamond Preferred

My best credit card is the Citi Diamond Preferred credit card offer by Citi.

As you can tell by the picture above of the card, it’s not all black.  But here is something you don’t know…  Some of the  non-black colors wear off the card shortly after you get it!  It wasn’t intentional on my part, it literally was just rubbed off from use.

So while it wasn’t planned, the card looks like a Black Card.  I always get a chuckle when a retailer or restaurant thinks that it might be something more than it is.  While this is a good card and on the higher end, it does have spending limits, unlike the American Express and Visa Black Cards.  More than once, I had to explain that it’s not like one of those very high-end cards!  I do get plenty of compliments on how cool it looks.

So, other than the fact that the card becomes mostly black shortly after using it a few times (including the text that identifies the type of card), why else do I value this card?

Let me say this upfront, I didn’t really give a rat’s arse about the color of the card!  I’m got in it for the excellent rewards program that they offered (one of the best).

List of cool benefits of the Citi Diamond Preferred Card:

5 ThankYou® Points for every $1 spent on purchases at supermarkets, drugstores and gas stations for 12 months; 1 point thereafter

1 point for every dollar spent on all other purchases.2 No matter what you are spending on, you’re earning ThankYou® Points

Rewards start at just 1,000 points2 . You’ll be rewarding yourself in no time

Annual Fee: No Annual Fee (for the most part)
Purchase APR: 0% Intro APR on purchases for 12 months; after that the variable APR will be 12.99%-20.99%, based on your creditworthiness

Diamond Perks: Access to Private Pass, which gives you the opportunity to enjoy a wide variety of exciting events and unique experiences

So has the card benefited me?  Yes, I’ve already earned and spent over $1000 dollars via the rewards program!  It’s still one of the best cards out there in my opinion!  I’ve never used the Diamond Perks, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have value!

What is your best Credit Card?

Don

16 thoughts on “My Best Credit Card: Citi Diamond Preferred”

  1. I had a citi card for about 10 years and then they did a few things that annoyed me. They made a few errors in their favor like charging interest when I paid in full. And it coincidentally happened to my husband too, so we both switched to a capital one card. I like it way better. I’m pretty loyal to my credit cards. I only have 1 and they get all my business for a long time.

  2. I think most of the credit card companies are pretty bad when you have to contact them directly about an issue. We’ve never had any problems with our citicard yet. But if we do, we will do the same you.

  3. I just don’t like messing with CC anymore. I think of them like cigarettes but do enjoy rewards from debit cards though now. The funny part is most of my hesitation with CC stems from the experiences of others 🙂

    • Hmm, I haven’t researched reward debit cards much! I’ll have to look into them!

      If they are competitive from a rewards perspective, I just might become a convert 😉

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    • Citi is tricky… if you buy the right gift card, the exchange is 1 point = 1 penny. But not all gift cards offer that conversion rate.

      So it varies, but so far I have mostly bought 1 point = 1 dollar gift cards…

    • I’ll have to look into that, we got a offer for that card in the mail just recently…

      I’ve learned that if you recommend it, it’s going to be good 🙂

  7. I use the Blue Cash for 5% cash back on Grocery, Gas, and Pharmacy, and 1.25% cash back on anything else. Then I use Citi Forward for 5 points for every dollar spent on Restaurants and Entertainment.

    My whole life is 5% off! 🙂

    • I’ll look into both, thanks for the info, sounds like a smart way to go about it!

      I’ve never heard of Citi Forward before. 🙂 But using it for in those special cases sure sounds like it makes sense!

  8. What a great post; even the comments on the post were exciting. 🙂 Thanks for sharing all the benefits. Think I could borrow that Black Card on my next vacation? Ha-ha. Just kidding.

    • 🙂 yeah, I was pleasantly surprised with the recommendations in the comments!

      I’m going to go check out the other cards too!!!

      pf readers/bloggers are the best!!!

      I wish I was rich enough to let you borrow the card (boy that would be nice.. Gates or Buffett rich!!!) 🙂

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