Costco Citibank Visa cards: Business vs Personal

Finance
#1

Costco members have access to a decent Citibank credit card. Details are here: https://www.citi.com/credit-cards/creditcards/citi.action?ID=citi-costco-credit-card-conversion

Neither card has an interesting signup bonus, unfortunately. (Both do offer 7 months at 0% on purchases. That makes these cards good candidates for conversions/downgrades from other citi cards. I don’t know how easy that is to do, but there appear to be data points about Citi letting that happen in at least some cases.

Two things are noteworthy about both flavors of card. First, both now have 24 month extended warranty protection–even when the product wasn’t bought at Costco, and even if the original warranty was less than a year. That’s fantastic protection, beating every other card that I know of.

Second, both cards offer 4% back on gas,at Costco as well as at other retailers, up to $7K a year. No other card I know of has a bonus for Costco gas.

There are two key differences between the cards…and if anyone can find others, I hope you’ll list them here.

First, the business card does NOT report to your personal credit, while the personal card of course does.

Second, only the personal card offers “CitiRewind”, citi’s price protection feature. That’s a big omission for the business card.

1 Like
#2

This is an automatically-generated Wiki post for this new topic. Any member can edit this post and use it as a summary of the topic’s highlights.

#3

The 2-year Extended Warranty is on all Citi cards, but the Costco card is the only Visa they issue.

1 Like
#4

Actually makes sense since the price protection excludes business use or resale purchases, and the business card is intended for only business purchases.

#5

Bend3r, I agree there’s an argument for the distinction–I’m intending to focus on which flavor it makes sense to apply for.

For completeness, we could add that the business flavor should be eligible for visa business cash back, and it would be the only Citibank card elligible for this.

It’s funny that Citi have aligned themselves both with Mastercard, and with Costco (who is strictly Visa).

#6

Thinking of grabbing this card but anyone know if the personal and/or business flavor support Quickbooks downloads (QBO)?

Chase business card as some hacked together QBO integration that doesn’t work properly.

#7

I can no longer use my CitiBusiness CC at Costco. For some reason my CitiBusiness CC changed from a Visa to a Master CC several months ago. You realize that Costco will only take a Visa card at their store.

I recently gained an Alliant CC, mainly because it is a Visa & I can use it at Costco. My real dislike of the Alliant CC is the limit they place on it as new card, $2500. But I will hopefully get a higher limit after 6 mo of use.

#8

That’s not a generic limit “they place” – it’s a limit they gave you due to lack of credit history as you described elsewhere.

#9

scripta, the limit they gave me, they state, is lack of credit history.

Yes, but they do not use my Citi Business CC as a “credit history”. I’ve had that Citi Bus CC for 15+ yrs but they choose not to use it as history, I cannot dispute this!

#10

If I recall correctly, Citi Business doesn’t report to your personal credit report, so Alliant’s decision to not rely on your history with Citi makes perfect sense to me. It’s a different bank and Alliant has neither a way nor a need to verify it.

My point was that the way you said it, you made it sound like $2500 was a generic limit Alliant sets on all new cards, which is not the case. Anyway, this is off topic.

To bring it back to topic, I do agree that Alliant is the best card to use at Costco for everything except things you’d like to give up 0.5% in cb (or 1% in the first year) in exchange for an extra year of extended warranty.

#11

Do note that Navy FCU ran a promotion through Dec 31 that doubled CB at all warehouse clubs, so 3% (or 4% if you can redeem towards travel on their flagship card).

Apparently they intend to run this promo again in Feb.

1 Like
#12

Discover also currently has 5% on Warehouse clubs if you take the extra step of ordering Costco Cash Cards online.

#13

FWIW I do this for in store warehouse purchases where I don’t need warranty, and use the Citi card for Costco gas and where warranty is important.

#14

Related question: is there any reason to use the Costco personal card over a Citi double cash card at Costo, save for the convenience of not having to carry a separate Costco memberhship card?

With Double Cash also adding 2 years to the warranty, I can’t think of one.

#15

The main advantage of the Costco card is the 3% at restaurants (there is also the 4% at Costco gas station, but I don’t drive enough to value it).

#16

Thanks Moosy, should have clarified that I meant using the card at Costco. Posted edited to better reflect this.

#17

Fair enough, I don’t see any added value. I use my Fidelity card at Costco because I get the cash back faster than the Costco one.

#18

I use the USAA limitless 2.5% card for regular purchases, and the Costco Visa for big ticket items due to the extended warranty. I use PenFed 5% cash back at the Costco gas pump. I am so glad they switched to Visa.

#19

Probably the first would be that 95% ( taking an educated guess here, but a very large majority ) of Citi Double Cash are MasterCard and not usable directly at Costco, which would be required for warranty coverage, etc. If you have a DC Visa, then you have a rare unicorn indeed. It appears Citi is exiting the Visa market on everything but the Costco card.

1 Like
#20

Good point loper.

Such a dumb confluence of events ( i.e. Citi negotiating an exclusive with Costco, along with Visa, even as Citi dumps Visa) that I forgot all about it.

You’d think Citi would prefer charges on their house card rather on their co-branded card, so unless Costco pushed for this in their negotiations…