Citibank quick cash with $100 gift card

[theblank]

Hmm, I'm not so sure. Firstly, with Citibank I absolutely wouldn't take the word of their Manila chat-bots or the 132484 CSR's over what their actual published T&C's say. The T&C's clearly say they are going to allocate payments to the outstanding FPO first, before other debt types subject to higher interest. They even highlight this fact with a "WARNING" sub-heading and they acknowledge this is against the law AND they offer a way for the customer to change this (that will cancel the FPO and disqualify you from getting the gift card which is the whole point).

I have had 12 of these plans (6 still active) and still use the credit card every month for purchases (obviously, otherwise i wouldnt be able to take up the offers). Never missed a gift card - albeit the latest one is 2 weeks late.

They made it so I can never successfully claim the free gift cards while at the same time making it very hard to work this out for 16 weeks before you find you're not getting the gift cards. In that 16 weeks I will have paid 4 lots of setup fees for FPO's that were never going to nett me any gift cards. Clever Citibank.

I just have my card set up to pay the full statement balance every month by direct debit and it works like a dream. I get the gift cards (albeit most recent one is late) and hasnt cost me a cent in interest fees, or whatever aside from the setup fee.

 

[Legoman]

Yeah I'm doing the same as you. I have DD payment on due date for full balance too, but I'm running $35,000 of PayAll payments through the card on top of using it and going for the quick cash gift cards as well. My card is basically credit limit maxed out the whole time bar about 5 days between my DD payment and the first new PayAll payment for the next month.

 

[theblank]

I am fairly sure I would have been due one about mid-late Dec and havent got it yet. I will wait another month and see.

no, I was wrong. my next gift card is not due until about 6th January, so I wont panic yet.
I did get 2 gift cards on the same day in November, one of those was received 1 month early. so that threw me.

 

[theblank]

Yeah I'm doing the same as you. I have DD payment on due date for full balance too, but I'm running $35,000 of PayAll payments through the card on top of using it and going for the quick cash gift cards as well. My card is basically credit limit maxed out the whole time bar about 5 days between my DD payment and the first new PayAll payment for the next month.

well i guess you found out you cant do both. Thanks for taking one of the team.

I too have missed out the last 2 gift cards through a combination of nearing/over limit, partial abuse of payall and having to make an early payment. As it turns out,
- i couldnt create the FPO because no available balance, so i made an extra payment
- then i couldnt create the FPO because i had already paid off the last statement balance early.

cant win em all. 12 gift cards, i think i am in front.

 

[Legoman]

I think I can run both, but you just have to be careful with the timing of payments, and of course it helps a lot if you have a credit limit > 35K. I still have three ongoing gift card quick cash FPOs which I haven't killed by making overpayments. I have killed two others though. So, effectively my two gift cards I am still valid for are going to end up costing me $45 each instead of the $22.50 it should have been. Not ideal, but $100 for $45 cost still puts me in front. Just got to be careful not to mess up again if Citibank ever decide to give me the quick cash deal again (currently not available to me on my app).

 

[Legoman]

Update: I was wrong. It's not possible to keep the quick cash gift cards going at the same time as PayAll payments > credit limit even if you very carefully time payments to the card to ensure it is never put into credit. Citibank appear to direct payments to paying off any outstanding FPO's if not first, then definitely not last either. This month as an experiment I took out another quick cash FPO at $22.50 cost, but this time when it came round to funding the scheduled PayAll payments, I was very, very careful not to put the account into actual credit at any point. Even despite this, Citibank have cancelled and paid out the outstanding FPO, hence wasting another $22.50.

Fortunately I have another card with a much higher limit that can withstand the draw on it in conjunction with multiple FPO's, so that one is still getting the free gift cards which will cover the loss of 3 x $22.50 on the other one, but lesson learnt. I will not attempt a fourth quick cash FPO claim on the other one, since Citibank's rules around allocating funds to early repayment and cancellation are too opaque and arbitrary to be trusted.

 

[DeKa]

I received another Gift Card today (for an FPO set up in November I think). The gift that keeps giving.