Last week I got this email message from CitiBank telling me all about the wonderful new benefits of using their little credit card. Here are the salient areas I want to talk about (and note the emphasized parts):
- Damage & Theft Purchase Protection: You may be covered for up to $10,000 per incident for 90 days from the date of purchase or delivery of the item purchased with your card. Please note, coverage provided by this benefit will be secondary (meaning if you have another insurance policy, this benefit will cover only the amount your other policies do not). Coverage won’t include firearms, ammunition, jewelry, watches, tires or items that are under the care and control of a third party including, but not limited to, the U.S. Postal Service, airlines, or delivery services.
- Citi Price Rewind: You may be reimbursed up to a maximum of $200 per item and $1,000 per calendar year. Program coverage won’t include consumables, tires, watches, firearms, or ammunition. You won’t be reimbursed if the lower priced item is found at a warehouse club where the merchant requires a membership fee.
- 90 Day Return Protection: You may be reimbursed up to a maximum of $300 per item and $1,000 per calendar year. Program coverage won’t include firearms, ammunition, tires, jewelry, furniture or appliances.
All these wonderful benefits will be mine after June 29 — which is kind of ironic because that’s the date I intend to cut up and cancel the card, after paying off the final balance.
And what does that final balance include, you may ask? Just the renewal fee for my annual membership at DFW Shooting Range.
Get a Wells Fargo card. They have publicly stated they will not exclude transactions, businesses, etc., which are related to firearms, ammo, etc. WF believes those kinds of policy decisions are the realm of government, not bankers.
Already have one.
Cool. Less than a month ago I started a new job with their wealth management division.
My Chase Freedom card just gave me $101 back on a firearm purchase. I’m a happy camper!
I recently acquired my Citi card through Costco. Doing so saved me some dough on a new set of tires. A bit later, using it added years to the warranty on a new TV. Fortunately, I’m in a position to pay off the entire purchase before the any interest is due. So, it is costing the slimey bastards money to do business with me.
And that’s the way I treat all credit card companies.
What do they have against jewelry and watches?
Nobody NEEDS to wear jewelry, and as for those scary-looking Tag Heuer assault watches…
Not a fan of Citi Bonkers at all however, I do see a little bit of logic in the items they exclude, first of all I don’t know of any store that want to take returns on ammunition and it is a consumable, at least it should be if you are doing you due diligence and getting out and shooting a lot. As for the jewelry, watches and guns, like gold, silver and stamps and coins they are fairly liquid portable assets. You might not get the price you want on any of these items but you can turn them to cash easily and then I suppose pocket the money and claim a loss.
Also, new in the box, never worn high end watches and NIB firearms bring a premium price. I don’t have any idea if other cards carry similar exclusions on special programs, and I do like my Wells Fargo and hope they don’t screw that up. So screw Citi Bonk anyway.
Discover offers their cash back in the form of gift cards. I take mine out as Bass Pro cards and they give you a 20% discount on the cards – a $50 gift card for your $40 cash back rebate.
I’ll admit that Bass Pro can be a bit pricey but on occasion you can score a good deal. Last summer I remodeled my kitchen. Discover did a 5% cash back on all purchases at home improvement stores. So I put all of my kitchen stuff on the card. Then DPMS offered a $75 rebate on their .308 AR10 clone. With the rebate and the 20% discount and a no sales tax promotion I walked out of that deal in pretty good shape.
You bought… an ASSAULT RIFLE? Somebody hand me my smelling salts… you know, the ones that smell of Hoppes #9.
My only dilemma is whether to overtly notify CitiBank that they have lost me as a customer, or simply to let them wither on the vine as they spend promo dollars telling me how lucky I am to be a cardholder.
Given my luck, if I were to cancel, then next week we’d learn that the CitiBank exec who dreamed up the antigun project had been apppointed VP In Charge of Venezuelan Affairs.