Many people recently asked me about an ad that they saw from Citizens Bank about a new credit card offering 10% cashback on all purchases.

Earning 10% cashback on everything would be pretty nice! Though, anyone who knows a thing or two about credit cards knows that giving this level of cashback is not possible (unless they somehow got taxpayers to pay for it).

So what is the catch? I looked a little deeper into the terms and saw that there are actually several catches:

Catch #1 - It’s only for the first 9 months.

They are only offering the 10% cashback for the first 9 months.I would say that this is more like a nice welcome offer, rather than a revolutionary 10% cashback card.

Catch #2 - Its capped at the first $1,000 you spend per month.

Offering unlimited 10% cashback for the first 9 months would have been nice enough as well. But this is not the case either. They are only offering the 10% cashback for the first $1,000 you spend per month.

Catch #3 - Deduct the 1.8% that the card earns in any case.

I wouldn’t call this a catch, but in reality, since this turns out to be just a welcome offer, we need to treat it like a welcome offer. 

When Chase for example offers 80k points on the card_name after spending $4,000 within the first 3 months, then those 80,000 points are bonus points on top of the regular points which that card will earn in any case through regular spending.

So even if the number 10% sounds good, in order to compare apples to apples, I would deduct the 1.8% that the card earns anyway. So you’re really only earning an 8.2% cashback bonus.

To sum it up

So to look at it in a more accurate light, it’s definitely not the revolutionary 10% cashback card they are trying to promote it as. It’s rather a card earning a $738 welcome bonus after spending $9,000 on the card within the first 9 months (split up in $1000 in spend per month).   

$738 is a decent welcome offer, but if you hop over to The Ultimate Credit Card Finder you can find many better offers with less spending required.