Is it recommeneded to have Citi Sears/Shop Your Way master card? The card generally gives 5% on gas, 3% on groceries/dining (cap 10k/year). It seems that the card sends out several spending offers regularly e.g. 10%/20% (requiring large minimum spend e.g. ~1k). Anyway, I do not shop at Sears and it is good to see whether the points can be redeemable with a reasonable rate.
How do you compare it to the typical 5% cashback cards in the market?
Fico8: EX~EQ~TU~810 (12 month goal~840).
@xenon3030 wrote:Is it recommeneded to have Citi Sears/Shop Your Way master card? The card generally gives 5% on gas, 3% on groceries/dining (cap 10k/year). It seems that the card sends out several spending offers regularly e.g. 10%/20% (requiring large minimum spend e.g. ~1k). Anyway, I do not shop at Sears and it is good to see whether the points can be redeemable with a reasonable rate.
How do you compare it to the typical 5% cashback cards in the market?
As some of you may have seen, I love my SYW card. It is not like other citi cards however. While my CC and DC are linked (automatically), and use/pool conventional TYPs, my SYW card is not linked (separate website login) and uses 'Shop Your Way points'. TYPs are 1c/p and can be used for statement credit - true cash back. The SYW card is 'almost' true cash back. You can use your points to buy things but the closest to CB is using them for gift cards. The gift card selection is incredibly generous and I can't imagine anyone struggling to find a gift card they will use. I select amazon cards so that I can upload the money once to my amazon account and forget about it. The rub is, I don't get 5% CB on the new purchases at amazon using the gift card. That makes this card a 4.75%/2.85%/0.95% CB card for me (instead of 5/3/1%). But, as you alluded to, there are always other offers that easily more than make up for this. Some offers are true CB such as statement credits. Some offers are for more points. Ideally, you would pick gift cards for retailers that you would otherwise only get 1% CB with (making it a 4.95/2.97/0.99% card) but, again, I choose ama out of pure convenience. The SYW points are 1000 per redeemable $1 so each $1 spend earns 10 points, not 1 pt like TYPs. Ex. right now I have 61,000 SYW pts (e.g., $6100 spend 'if' spent only at 1%), that would be worth $61 in gift cards. I also do not shop at Sears.
If you just want 5% CB on gas without doing any extra work, this is not the card for you. If you are ok with accepting 'almost' 5% on gas and you are ok with receiving gift cards and you don't mind using a separate SYW app and meeting monthly spend offers for even more rewards + cash, this card can be very fruitful.
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The card looked enticing. Anyway, I applied for the card and after reviewing the application by CSR over the phone, it got denied. I should receive the decision details in upcoming days by mail.
I was not expecting a denial with Fico8~810 and very low utilization ratio. I have 1 inq over the past 4 months (and over the past 12 months) and my last card was Citi/Premier. Maybe, I needed to wait at least 6 months before my last inquiry to provide a clean-sheet 
@xenon3030 wrote:The card looked enticing. Anyway, I applied for the card and after reviewing the application by CSR over the phone, it got denied. I should receive the decision details in upcoming days by mail.
I was not expecting a denial with Fico8~810 and very low utilization ratio. I have 1 inq over the past 4 months (and over the past 12 months) and my last card was Citi/Premier. Maybe, I needed to wait at least 6 months before my last inquiry to provide a clean-sheet
I don't know why you got denied. I recently got approved and my stats are far worse than yours in every conceivable way. I would suggest calling them and reconning.
Recon number 877-406-5657
I received the letter by email, mentioning that they could not verify some info due to fraud alert. Called recon and got approved 
I assume that the card should be able to get used as virtual CC, prior its arrival by snail mail. This card seems to be a good one to have in the wallet (physical or digital or both).
@xenon3030 wrote:I received the letter by email, mentioning that they could not verify some info due to fraud alert. Called recon and got approved
I assume that the card should be able to get used as virtual CC, prior its arrival by snail mail. This card seems to be a good one to have in the wallet (physical or digital or both).
Congratulations. I was pretty sure you were approval material
Agreed. I was scratching my head on this denial. Maybe this is a sign of the times with all this additional verification going on recently. Wonder what's happening behind the scenes.
I got 2 of those useless identity alerts in the last 10 days. Congrats @xenon3030
