Citi Custom Cash® Card review: Innovation or inconvenience?

The Citi Custom Cash Card is an excellent choice if you want to concentrate spending in a flexible high-spending category each billing cycle for maximum rewards. Plus, you can earn a welcome bonus with a reasonable return on the amount you're required to spend. It also has a solid intro APR period for both purchases and balance transfers.

Rewards: Earn elevated cash back within a wide variety of categories 

The Citi Custom Cash earns 5 percent cash back on up to $500 (then 1 percent back) of purchases in your top eligible spending category each billing cycle, plus unlimited 1 percent on all other purchases. The 10 eligible categories that earn you 5 percent rewards are:

• Restaurants (excluding third-party dining services)
• Gas stations
• Grocery stores
• Select travel
• Select transit
• Select streaming services
• Drugstores
• Home improvement stores
• Fitness clubs
• Live entertainment

Through June 30, 2025, you can also earn 4 percent cash back on hotels, car rentals, and attractions booked on Citi Travel℠ portal. This adds an extra layer of rewards to the card, which can be especially valuable if you plan on traveling during that period.

Welcome offer: Lengthy timeframe to earn bonus

New cardholders can earn $200 cash back after spending $1,500 in purchases in the first six months, which comes in the form of 20,000 ThankYou points.

Although the Citi Custom Cash card’s spending requirement may be difficult for some spenders, an offer worth $200 is on par with the sign-up bonuses on the most popular cash back cards and you get quite a bit of time to meet the spend requirement compared to the typical three-month timeframe. 

However, the current $1,500 spending requirement is double the card’s previous offer and higher than competing no-annual-fee cash back cards, which often require a $500 to $1,000 spend.

Here’s how the Citi Custom Cash card’s bonus stacks up with competing rewards cards based on return on spend:

Intro APR: Decent offers on par with competing cards

Like many no-annual-fee cash back cards, the Citi Custom Cash offers a solid 0 percent intro APR on new purchases and balance transfers for 15 months and a 19.24 percent to 29.24 percent variable ongoing APR. This interest rate is reasonable for a rewards card, with its low-end APR slightly below the current average interest rate.

The only fee worth watching out for is the 3 percent foreign transaction fee in case you plan to travel abroad. This fee is standard for cash back cards, though, so it shouldn’t be a deal-breaker.

Rewards redemption: Flexible options with equal value

The Citi Custom Cash offers well-rounded redemption options. You can redeem ThankYou points for cash back in the form of a direct deposit, check or statement credit, but your points must equal at least $5 in cash back to redeem for a check. Alternatively, you can redeem your points for gift cards, booking travel through Citi or eligible purchases on Amazon via Shop with Points.

Since you earn ThankYou points instead of automatic cash back, your point value varies depending on the redemption choice. Unlike some rewards programs that reduce your rewards’ value toward cash back, the Custom Cash card’s cash back redemption options will get you an equal 1 cent value per point. You’ll also get 1 cent per point for gift card redemptions and travel bookings through Citi.

But if you pool points with the Citi Strata Premier℠ Card, Bankrate’s latest point valuation estimates that your points may be worth around 1.6 cents each on average through certain Citi airline or hotel transfer partners.

Rates and fees: No annual fee means no yearly cost

While the rates and fees on this card are typical, there's no cost to carrying this card since there's no annual fee. With no yearly cost, an annual fee won't eat into any rewards you might earn either. 

The Citi Custom Cash Card offers several fantastic advantages, but if you value a card with a diverse set of benefits, this card's short list of perks might disappoint. And if you’d benefit from earning rewards on more than one category at a time, this card isn’t the right choice for you.

Cardholder perks: Doesn’t stand out compared to similar cards

The Citi Custom Cash Card is a World Elite Mastercard Mastercard, meaning you’ll have Mastercard’s highest tier of benefits, which don’t offer extensive purchase protections and travel perks. These features could make a slight difference if you’re deciding between the Custom Cash and a typical no-annual-fee cash back card with minimal benefits, so check with your issuer first to see if your card specifically qualifies for choice features like:

• 24/7 World Elite Concierge assistance
• $3 off Peacock Premium or $5 off Peacock Premium Plus each month (offer expires March 31, 2025)
• $5 Lyft credits after three rides each month (offer expires Sept. 30, 2025)
• Two months of free Instacart+ delivery and $10 off your second order each month (offer expires March 31, 2025)

Even though its Mastercard benefits and standard Citi benefits can slightly set the Custom Cash apart from other no-annual-fee cards with even fewer additional features, the Citi Custom Cash card’s benefits just aren’t remarkable enough to give the card an edge.

Reward value: Can’t transfer to travel partners

Marketed as a cash back card, the Custom Cash actually earns ThankYou points, although they’re slightly different from the full-fledged ThankYou points you earn with the premium Citi Strata Premier℠ card. Points earned with no-annual-fee Citi cards can’t be transferred to Citi travel partners for a potentially higher value unless you also have the Citi Strata Premier℠ card and use it to redeem your Custom Cash’s points.

However, this probably isn’t a deal-breaker since no-annual-fee rewards cards typically don’t offer transfer partners. In fact, the Wells Fargo Autograph℠ Card is the only major no-annual-fee credit card that allows you to transfer rewards to partner travel programs.

Bonus categories: Low rewards rate outside of the bonus category

Here’s a look at how Citi defines some of the card’s bonus categories:

If you spent $500 in one of these categories each billing cycle, you’d earn at least $25 cash back, which comes to $75 per quarter or $300 per year (similar to other 5 percent rotating category cards).

Because of the low base rate, this card works better as a second credit card that allows you to maximize your cash back outside of categories that another card already earns bonuses on.

Bankrate editor Nouri Zarrugh another Bankrate expert, also recommends the Custom Cash for its high, flexible cash back rate in a choice category.

This card is so underrated! You can’t get a rewards rate this high in almost any of its eligible categories without paying an annual fee. If you stick to using it for only one category, I think this card is almost a must-have for building a multi-card strategy. I only use it for groceries — that way I always know which category is going to earn the top cash back rate. I juggle several cards, so having this card dedicated to only one type of purchase makes things a bit easier to manage.

— Nouri Zarrugh— Senior Editor, Credit Cards

Without the hassles of enrollment and rotating categories that several rival cards require, the Citi Custom Cash could be an easier way to maximize your rewards spending every billing cycle. However, credit cards with multiple bonus categories that suit your spending could be worth looking into.

Hands down, the best cards to pair with the Citi Custom Cash are the Citi Strata Premier and other Citi cards that earn ThankYou points since you can earn the most rewards possible from your spending and then transfer your rewards to Citi’s travel partners for a potentially higher value. 

The Citi Custom Cash card could be a great fit if you need an adaptable card to reap the best-in-class rewards rates on your main expenses, or even if you just want a back-up card to reward purchases in rare categories.

The Citi Custom Cash Card earns a high rewards rate on where you shop the most each billing cycle, with a wide variety of categories. It also delivers the highest available year-round rewards rate for a no-annual-fee card in key spending areas like groceries, gas and dining.

But for all of its strengths, the Citi Custom Cash card’s reward structure can prove limiting. Instead of a quarterly spending cap, you have a $500 spending cap per billing cycle in your top category, which could make you miss out on cash back if you can’t plan accordingly. 

However, this caveat makes it a great partner credit card. If you’re already a Citi cardholder (or plan on getting another), the Custom Cash is one of the most versatile supporting cards for generating extra cash back or ThankYou points thanks to its flexible redemption options. The Citi Custom Cash is a strong card for everyday spending in its own right, but pairing it with other Citi cards can really help it flex its muscles.

The information about the U.S. Bank Cash+® Visa Signature Credit Card and Chase Freedom Flex℠ has been collected independently by Bankrate.com. The card details have not been reviewed or approved by the card issuer.

We rate credit cards using a proprietary card scoring system that ranks each card’s estimated average rewards rate, estimated annual earnings, welcome bonus value, APR, fees, perks and more against those of other cards in its primary category.

Each card feature is assigned a weighting based on how important it is to people looking for a card in a given category. These features are then scored based on how they rank relative to the features on other cards in the category. Based on these calculations, each card receives an overall rating of 1-5 stars (with 5 being the highest possible score and 1 being the lowest).

We analyzed over 150 of the most popular rewards and cash back cards to determine where each stacked up based on their value, cost, benefits and more. Here are some of the key factors that influenced this card’s overall score and how the score influenced our review: