The Offer
- Some Citi Sears cardholders have received a targeted spending bonus. Some of the offers are as follows:
- Get 10% back in statement credit when you spend $400 or more on eligible online purchases from 11/1/20 until 1/31/2021. Maximum of $100 back per month
The Fine Print
- Must activate offer
Our Verdict
Citi Sears offers stack, so this deal becomes even better if you have any of the following deals:
- [YMMV] Citi Sears Spend Offer: Earn Up To 20%/20x
- [YMMV] Citi Sears Spend Offer: Earn A Statement Credit Up To $90
There is a reason why this is rated the top store credit card.
Just received the following —
For total eligible gas station, grocery store and restaurant purchases of $800 or more made each month from 1/1/2021 (or the date you activate this offer, whichever is later) through 3/31/2021, you’ll earn 10X Bonus ThankYou Points (up to a maximum total of 20,000 Bonus ThankYou Points each month). Only purchases made after activation will apply toward receiving your Bonus ThankYou Points.
I received the same offer for spending $200+ In online purchases to receive 10x back up to 5k points per month. Too bad the no fee Visa cards from Staples are in store only. The Amazon balance reload works for sure? Any other suggestions or places to buy large cards?
Not sure about online VGC places, but Amazon balance reloads definitely work for these “Online” promos.
Also wondering if Walmart Pay would work which is what we use to pay in-store at Walmart by adding the card to one’s Walmart account and using it in-store through Walmart Pay. I know BofA cash rewards card codes Walmart Pay in-store purchases under online shopping category and these qualify for the 3% cashback.
Below T&C’s just says online purchases with a bunch of exclusions.
Eligible online purchases are those made via a computer network but not all online transactions will be considered an eligible online purchase. Eligible online purchases do not include the following types of purchases in the following categories: subscription, membership or recurring purchases; utilities, cable/satellite and telephone; insurance; medical and healthcare providers; government services, taxes and tolls; education, including schools or other teaching institutions; contractor, professional, financial, legal, personal and business services; repair services, direct marketing; purchases that are manually keyed by a merchant; or online purchases made through mobile/wireless technology depending on how the technology is set up to process the purchase. Merchants must submit charges under the appropriate merchant code or industry code to be an eligible online purchase. We do not determine whether merchants appropriately identify all transactions made on a credit card, however we reserve the right to determine which purchases qualify for this offer.
Citi is very sensitive in terms of gift card purchases, especially on Giftcardmall. Spending large amounts will most likely get your account flagged for manual review. The same goes for large spends at grocery stores (although less so). Walmart Pay should theoretically work since they are charging your card online without the card present, but of course the “however we reserve the right to determine which purchases qualify for this offer” clause can always apply if they choose to exclude Walmart that doesn’t say WALMART.COM.
I would keep an eye on the posted MCC and make sure it does not post as Professional Services or the like since that is part of the exclusion.
I guess it will not work. I have previously done the same GCM online OD/OM promotion using one of Citi’s own MCs. I just checked how the transaction coded. Bummer it says “Services – Business Services, Not Elsewhere Classed”. So, most likely this purchase will code the same way.
T&C’s clearly seem to exclude – contractor, professional, financial, legal, personal and business services and several other exclusions.
I guess better luck next time for me now. Will have to now keeping looking for other avenues to meet the monthly $500 spend limit to get the $75 credit.
I’ve been using Walmart Pay with gift cards regularly, but haven’t used it with a credit card in a while. Last time I did it with a Discover card some months ago but it shows up as the local store and from what I remember I don’t think it coded as “Online”. Discover doesn’t seem to keep this info for very long as transactions older than a few months seem to lose all of the extra data like category and payment method. I think your best bet would be to do a test run with another Citi MC and get the payment method type from that.
EDIT: Checked my transactions real quick and WM Pay coded as “In person” for payment method using my Chase Freedom Visa. Dunno if it’ll be any different with MasterCard.
Did you go in the store to complete the transaction?
I didn’t know you could complete it at the self checkout
Can you try a WM Pay under $500 or below whatever limit it is before it tells you go to go into store to complete and see if it codes in store. My bet is it wont.
Not sure if we’re talking about the same thing, sorry. I meant to say I got some WM gift cards at a large discount from other promos that I use as payment with Walmart Pay. I haven’t tried actually purchasing gift cards using Walmart Pay.
I’ve had the same fraud alert issue. It’s to be expected. It’s a CITI thing more than anything. At first I wouldn’t get the text and email alerts so I went to the car, called them, got it cleared and actually kept them on the phone. The fraud alert triggered again and they cleared it, and it hasn’t really happened since.
$500 or more tends to trigger it, and now I just get the text alert to approve.
I got this offer today and spend $2500/mo on gift cards so I get the max $250 back + other stacked offers cash back + SYW points + no interest financing for a year. Credit line at 15k right now and hoping to increase it soon.
I got the email this afternoon, only 5x TYP on $500+ spend per mo, with a cap of 7500 TYP per mo (Nov, Dec, Jan).
Seems Citi is offering many different offers simultaneously.
I got a slightly different version:
Activate your offer now to start earning
15X
Bonus ThankYou® Points on eligible
online purchases.2
For total eligible online purchases of $100 or more made each month from 11/01/20 (or the date you activate this offer, whichever is later) through 1/31/21, you’ll earn 15X Bonus ThankYou Points (up to a maximum total of 4,500 Bonus ThankYou Points each month). Only purchases made after activation will apply toward receiving your Bonus ThankYou Points.
I am guessing you don’t use this card much and your credit line is relatively small. That’s generally when they offer the larger multiples, versus the 10x but for a larger amount.
I got the email this afternoon, only 5x TYP on $400+ spend per mo, with a cap of 6000 TYP per mo (Nov, Dec, Jan).
Still pretty sweet since it stacks with other offers, and I’m burning a hole at Amazon….
What is your CL on that card?
Here’s the one for Sears MasterCard:
Activate your offer now to start earning 10X Bonus ThankYou® Points on eligible online purchases.
For total eligible online purchases of $200 or more made each month from 11/01/20 (or the date you activate this offer, whichever is later) through 1/31/21, you’ll earn 10X Bonus ThankYou Points (up to a maximum total of 5,000 Bonus ThankYou Points each month). Only purchases made after activation will apply toward receiving your Bonus ThankYou Points.
keeping fingers crossed….
Just got targeted for 1 offer since I got this card in July 2020. Hope more of these targeted offers come my way. Sad to see I am not targeted for any of the recent ones.
Generally speaking, they send offers once a quarter (although some are sent mid-quarter). So being targeted once since July 2020 sounds correct to me. Sometimes you may not get your email right away, since they send these emails in waves. If you don’t get your email this wave, you most likely will get it a month or so later when they send the second wave.
Earn 15% back in statement credits** (up to a maximum total statement credit of $75 each month) when you spend $100 or more on eligible ONLINE purchases each month with your Shop Your Way Mastercard® from 11/1/2020 (or the date you activate this offer, whichever is later) through 1/31/2021. Only purchases made after activation will apply toward receiving your statement credits.
Also there is a whole bunch of exclusions that don’t qualify as online purchase.
Eligible online purchases are those made via a computer network but not all online transactions will be considered an eligible online purchase. Eligible online purchases do not include the following types of purchases in the following categories: subscription, membership or recurring purchases; utilities, cable/satellite and telephone; insurance; medical and healthcare providers; government services, taxes and tolls; education, including schools or other teaching institutions; contractor, professional, financial, legal, personal and business services; repair services, direct marketing; purchases that are manually keyed by a merchant; or online purchases made through mobile/wireless technology depending on how the technology is set up to process the purchase. Merchants must submit charges under the appropriate merchant code or industry code to be an eligible online purchase. We do not determine whether merchants appropriately identify all transactions made on a credit card, however we reserve the right to determine which purchases qualify for this offer.
Congrats! 🙂
Load up your Amazon balance, pay your utility bills, insurance, taxes, etc? You can also buy gift cards or egift cards for in-store use if you are desperate, or wait until a fee-free VGC/MGC deal…
“Eligible online purchases do not include the following types of purchases in the following categories: subscription, membership or recurring purchases; utilities, cable/satellite and telephone; insurance; medical and healthcare providers;”
So, Amazon reload should be fine. But utility bills, insurance may not qualify? Also, fee-free VFC/MCGC’s that Staples & OD/OM frequently run are all in-store, while the offer says only eligible online purchases qualify.
lol, forgot to read… here’s the full T&Cs (same for both the Sears MasterCard and the SYW card):
“Eligible online purchases are those made via a computer network but not all online transactions will be considered an eligible online purchase. Eligible online purchases do not include the following types of purchases in the following categories: subscription, membership or recurring purchases; utilities, cable/satellite and telephone; insurance; medical and healthcare providers; government services, taxes and tolls; education, including schools or other teaching institutions; contractor, professional, financial, legal, personal and business services; repair services, direct marketing; purchases that are manually keyed by a merchant; or online purchases made through mobile/wireless technology depending on how the technology is set up to process the purchase. Merchants must submit charges under the appropriate merchant code or industry code to be an eligible online purchase. We do not determine whether merchants appropriately identify all transactions made on a credit card, however we reserve the right to determine which purchases qualify for this offer.”
Amazon does have a variety of gift cards that can be used in-store though…
Oh huh, just realized this new “Online” offer seems a bit more restrictive than the one I got a couple months ago. The previous one allowed basically anything coded as an “Online” purchase to work but now I can’t pay most common bills anymore. Oh well.
Also as a separate tip, you can also enroll in these offers directly on the Sears card online account. If you are targeted, you should see a huge “CONGRATS! YOU HAVE SPECIAL CARD OFFERS.” banner on the front page. Clicking the link will allow you to activate the offer there (for some reason, clicking the email link will not have the status reflect on the website, although they are the exact same offer). You will need to disable adblockers for you to see this huge ad, but might be worth a try if you think you might have lost or deleted the email.
Here’s a direct link to the page: https://citiretailservices.citibankonline.com/RSnextgen/svc/launch/index.action?siteId=PLCN_SYW&langId=en_US&pagename=authenticate#specialoffers – if you already enrolled or is not targeted (yet), there would only be a big Earn Shop Your Way Points banner there…
Thanks a lot. I got the card on May 2020 and haven’t got any offer yet till now. After clicking your link, I find there is “10% off for selected Home Appliance for $599 or more at sears(must be made in a single transaction)”. No interesting. But I will keep an eye on it. Thank you for help.
The offers page can be a bit buggy and may need a few refreshes to get stuff to show besides the Sears specific offers. Try Shift+Refresh 5-6 times and see if you see anything, and disable your ad blocker if you have one.
And may l can I ask for the target offer email address? What is the sender address? I want to make sure those emails are not blocked in gmail.
For SYW:
[email protected]
For MasterCard:
[email protected]
I do appreciate your help. Thanks a lot.
ACTIVATE YOUR OFFER NOW TO START EARNING 15% BACK IN STATEMENT CREDITS ON ELIGIBLE ONLINE PURCHASES.
For total eligible online purchases of $100 or more made each month from 11/01/20 (or the date you activate this offer, whichever is later) through 1/31/21, you’ll earn 15% back in statement credits (up to a maximum total statement credit of $75 each month). Only purchases made after activation will apply toward receiving your statement credits.