Citi Driver’s Edge MasterCard helps with Gas Prices

I just read about the Citi Driver’s Edge Platinum Select MasterCard. It has a number of features that look fantastic:

• You get rewards just for driving. You’ll earn $1 in Drive Rebates for every 100 miles you drive—up to $500 in Drive Rebates a year. Drive 20,000 miles a year? That’s $200 a year just for driving! To track miles and get rebates you just mail in your receipt whenever you get an oil change or other receipt.

• 6% cashback on gas for the first year. Obviously driving a lot = $$$ for gas. Assume you get 20 miles per gallon. Driving 20,000 miles, that’s 1,000 gallons. At $3 a gallon, that’s $3,000. Times 6%, that’s another $180 cashback on gas alone. (My take on this is that at $3.00 a gallon it is a savings of 18 cents per gallon.)

• You also get 6% back at supermarkets and drugstores for the first year (3% after that). You earn 1% on everything else. Here is Citi’s example chart of how this could add up:

Any catches?

• There is a cap of $1,000 per year.

• If you don’t make a purchase in a year the rebate will expire and points must be redeemed within 5 years.

• The DriveRebates are redeemable as straight cash only towards car expenses. But that’s any car expenses - buying a car, leasing a car, oil changes, new tires, repairs, etc.

• They can also be converted to ThankYou points. So, $100 in Driver’s Edge rebates can be converted to a $100 Gift Card at Target, Chevron, Gap, etc.

Thanks to MyMoneyBlog for pointing me to this card. Have signed up and this will now be my regular card for monthly expenses.