Finance Review: Citi Dividend MasterCard

Stars: 5 out of 5

Pros: Cash back, no annual fee, great customer service

Cons: None

The Bottom Line:

No annual fee

Yet you still earn cash rewards

I use it daily

Cash Rewards? No Annual Fee? You'd Better Believe This is the Card I Use Daily

I've got more credit cards than I should have.  Some are store specific cards, others offer me rewards at certain places.  But the card I use the most often is my Citibank Dividends credit card.

There is one simple reason I use this card - cash back.  I get 1% back on every purchase I make.  And I get 2% back on purchases at gas stations, grocery stores, and drug stores.  Granted, I only spend money on one person, but even so my cash back adds up in a hurry.  Once I have $50 cash back sitting in my account, I call them or log into my account on-line and they send me a check in the mail.  And unlike some of my other cards, I can spend this money anywhere I want.  Usually, I just use it to help pay bills.  But whether I use it for something special or something I've already bought, it's nice to have the money.

Since it is a MasterCard, it works just like a normal credit card, and I can use it anywhere MasterCard is accepted.  I've found it is pretty much anywhere I want to use a credit card, fortunately, since I keep so little cash on me anymore.

The big reason I took this card instead of some of the other cash dividend cards out there is the lack of an annual fee.  Heck, I would rather have just a plain, ordinary credit card with no rewards at all then pay someone for the privilege of having a credit card.  Yes, I'd make enough back to justify it, but it just isn't worth it to me.

While the paperless option is offered, I still get my statements in the mail every month.  Thanks to the recent new laws that have been passed, I get my statement in the mail about two and a half weeks before payment is due.  There is always a minimum payment amount given, but I pay the balance in full.  I am not going to pay interest if I don't have to.  So I watch my spending to make sure I will have the money to pay it off when the balance comes due.

Now that's not to say I don't use their website.  While it could be a little more obvious where to go to do what you want to do, it is still fairly easy to navigate and find what I want.

Because of my excellent payment history, I have a low interest rate.  My current statement says it is 14.99%.  But there is a big warning at the top of the card saying that if I miss or am late with a payment, I will not only have a $39 late payment fee, but my interest rate will go up to the penalty interest rate of 29.99%.  Believe me, I don't want that to happen, so I make sure I pay it on time every month.

Like most credit cards, this one also offers cash advances.  I don't use those since you are hit with the interest from the day you get the cash.  My current APR for a cash advance would be 21.99%, so as you can imagine, I would only do this as a last resort.

I have been impressed with their customer service.  I actually lost this card one time.  As soon as I discovered it, I called and got a replacement card in the main a week or so later.  There was no hassle at all.

Another time, someone got a hold of my credit card information and made a bunch of bogus purchases with it.  They called me the very next day, before I even had time to discover it myself, to verify the charges.  They replaced the card again.  I had to fill out some forms and get them notarized, but they didn't hassle me at all about the charges, and I never had to pay.  That's the only time they've called me about fraudulent charges.  They have never questioned my real charges once.

Because of the cash rewards and their excellent customer service, I am very happy with this Citibank credit card.  I don't plan to get rid of it any time soon.