topic Re: Citi Doublecash -- does immediate payment make you lose the second 1%? in Credit Cards

Citi Doublecash -- does immediate payment make you lose the second 1%?

Anonymous — Fri, 19 May 2017 20:37:03 GMT

My apologies in advance if this has been talked to death with a definite answer. It's just that all my research seems to give me conflicting answers, and I have tried googling it, searches here on the Forum, etc.

So to flesh out the question in the subject line. Suppose my Citi Doublecash typically has a statement that prints on the 10th of the month. Suppose I have make no transactions for the last 90 days, and I paid the balance in full 70 days ago.

I then make a $300 purchase on May 15 and it posts on May 16. I realize I am certain to get the first 1% cashback. Suppose I pay the entire $300 balance off on May 17. (My balance is back down to $0) Will I still get the second 1% cashback as well?

If the fact that I am paying almost immediately creates a risk of not getting the second 1%, how long do I need to wait for there to be no such risk. Is 10 days enough? Do I need to wait till a day after the next statement prints?

Many thanks for any help, and also if anyone knows of supporting links or documentation for their position that would also help.

Re: Citi Doublecash -- does immediate payment make you lose the second 1%?

odd_dog — Fri, 19 May 2017 20:53:34 GMT

no, in fact paying before the statement cuts gives you the 2% right away when the statement cuts.....

Re: Citi Doublecash -- does immediate payment make you lose the second 1%?

Kforce — Fri, 19 May 2017 21:02:15 GMT

Each month, I charge, let pending charges post and pay before the

statement date and receive the full 2% on all credit charges.

If you pay after the statement cuts, you will see 1% and then get

the other 1% the following month.

The only way to not get full credit would be to push money that would pay

pending charges before they posted.They might even have a way to cover that.

Re: Citi Doublecash -- does immediate payment make you lose the second 1%?

Artemis092 — Fri, 19 May 2017 21:02:39 GMT

Just got approved yesterday for DC so this is good to know.

Re: Citi Doublecash -- does immediate payment make you lose the second 1%?

Anonymous — Fri, 19 May 2017 22:59:53 GMT

@Kforce wrote:

No
Each month, I charge, let pending charges post and pay before the
statement date and receive the full 2% on all credit charges.
If you pay after the statement cuts, you will see 1% and then get
the other 1% the following month.

The only way to not get full credit would be to push money that would pay
pending charges before they posted.They might even have a way to cover that.

Well, the common way to get (slightly) less than the full credit is to use the rewards for statement credit. Then you get 1.99% Similar with using statement credit with Chase Amazon, although there the hit is slightly bigger

Re: Citi Doublecash -- does immediate payment make you lose the second 1%?

iheartwings — Fri, 19 May 2017 23:04:45 GMT

@Kforce wrote:

No
Each month, I charge, let pending charges post and pay before the
statement date and receive the full 2% on all credit charges.
If you pay after the statement cuts, you will see 1% and then get
the other 1% the following month.

The only way to not get full credit would be to push money that would pay
pending charges before they posted.They might even have a way to cover that.

~~I respectfully disagree.~~ (Edit. I can't read. )

To answer CGID's question - you don't have to wait.

I pay my cards biweekly, and have some scheduled payments pushed from my bank for recurring charges.

For the statement generated in April, I had pushed funds from my bank to pay for charges that were still pending when the billing cycle closed, resuting in my account balance reflecting overpayment of $313.74.

Below is the purchase tracker for my account from my statement closing in April, where the reported balance was an overpaid one. You get 1% for purchases that post in during a billing cycle, and you get 1% for all payments within that billing cycle. I went through my transactions, and the eligible purchses and eligible payments equaled these amounts for that cycle.

Re: Citi Doublecash -- does immediate payment make you lose the second 1%?

python0704 — Sat, 20 May 2017 10:43:07 GMT

They provide a purchase tracker on the statement basically showing you purchase and payment total and their difference. If the difference reaches 0 then you won't get 1% for additional payment.

Redeemed CB as statement credit doesn't count as payment, but it reduced the amount you need to pay so it slightly reduced your CB in next statement. Redeem CB as direct deposit to a banking account solves this problem.

After a couple months with the card you probably won't care if you have to get all 2% of the purchase and the corresponding payment in this statement after it cuts. It's just personal preference. I'm perfectly fine that I get 1% for this statement's purchase and 1% for last statement's payment.

Re: Citi Doublecash -- does immediate payment make you lose the second 1%?

Anonymous — Sat, 20 May 2017 23:14:06 GMT

@python0704 wrote:

After a couple months with the card you probably won't care if you have to get all 2% of the purchase and the corresponding payment in this statement after it cuts. It's just personal preference. I'm perfectly fine that I get 1% for this statement's purchase and 1% for last statement's payment.

I have had the card for a couple years. But I will be needing to pay it $0 within the same statement cycle every month for the next six months as I prepare for a mortgage, and I wanted to confirm that I don't lose half of my cash back.

Like you, I don't care exactly when I get my cash back. I just want to make sure I get the full cash back.

Thanks to everyone for the very helpful replies. It sounds like it doesn't matter when I make my payments -- I will still ultimately get the full 2% back. Let me know if I am misunderstanding the apparently unanimous consensus.

Re: Citi Doublecash -- does immediate payment make you lose the second 1%?

Kforce — Sun, 21 May 2017 18:04:59 GMT

Unless I am interpreting this wrong.

You will lose if you push money to pay pending charges and the

payment post before the charges are posted in the purchase tracker.

This is one card that I never pay pending charges on.

The numbers to look at are the ending purchase tracker value and

your current balance. They should be equal. If your balance is less than

the tracker value you will lose 1% of the difference.

The easy way is to pay from the Citi page, it will only let you pay what has

posted. If you want to push money don't push more than the amount that

has posted

Re: Citi Doublecash -- does immediate payment make you lose the second 1%?

Anonymous — Sun, 21 May 2017 18:45:27 GMT

Hi Kforce. So to be safest, you are saying that I'd want to wait until a purchase has appeared in the purchase tracker.

Here are the sequence of events, each as a separate milestone:

(a) I make the purchase.

(b) It appears in my online portal as "pending"

(d) It appears on the purchase tracker

We all know that the events (B) and (C) can be separated by 2 days, 3 days, or even more.

But do (C) and (D) always happen at the same time -- or at worst separated by a few minutes? Or can they be separated by hours, a day, or even perhaps 2+ days?

I'd like to be able to simply look at my balance and see what has posted (on the primary screen) without having to cross check each posted purchase with the Purchase Tracker.

Re: Citi Doublecash -- does immediate payment make you lose the second 1%?

Kforce — Sun, 21 May 2017 19:14:50 GMT

I pay just like you said, look at my balance and pay it.

I have never tested it but believe (C) and (D) always happen at the same time,

or at worst separated by a few minutes. Have never had any issue with not receiving

the correct cashback but I don't pay more than has posted by pushing funds.

As an example in the above screen capture between me pushing the payment and

the statement date, later the same day, a pending charge of 27.80 posted.

They applied it to both my new purchase tracker and new statement balance.