One of my absolute favorite credit card perks is price protection, and specifically Citi’s Price Rewind feature. Basically, if you buy a product with your eligible Citi credit card and the price decreases over the next 60 days, Citi will refund you the difference. The devil is in the details, so here’s the longer version:
- Buy a product with your eligible Citi card.
- Go to citipricerewind.com and search for/log your purchase with the date, item, purchase price, and vendor. You also need to upload a copy of the receipt.
- Citi will automatically search for 60 days from the purchase date to find a lower price. They do a decent job at this. OR you can find a lower price on your own and submit it manually (screen shots and links to the item).
- Once reviewed/approved, Citi will either send you a check for the difference or give you a statement credit at your option.
- The benefit was reduced in 2019. You can now receive a maximum discount of $200 per item and $1,000 per year, per eligible card.
When this benefit first came out, I was extremely excited because the benefit used to be $500 per item and $2,500 per year. I was in the market for a high end TV, and I immediately realized that I could buy the TV from a reputable dealer (Amazon, Best Buy, etc.) and then match the price to a not reputable dealer (ABC TV and others that you’ve never heard of but have websites with TVs for sale). There was not, and still isn’t, any restriction regarding authorized retailers. The price match was completed easily and I got a check for $500 from Citi shortly after buying from a local Best Buy. Huge win, if you ask me.
That can still be done, though the limit is down to $200. I’ve thought about how to “game” it more to maximize this benefit to not just save money, but also earn more miles. Here’s what I’ve come up with:
- You have to buy something you actually want to buy. This isn’t a buy-and-then-refund scheme or something without cost. It’s for things that you actually buy.
- I generally want to buy from a reputable retailer, so I won’t buy from a store I’ve never heard of. This makes sure the item I get is authentic and new.
- I want to pay as high of a price as possible for my item, knowing that any lower price will be refunded to me upto $200/item.
- I want to find the biggest shopping portal bonus possible for the item while taking into account #1-3 above.
Doing this will allow me to earn the most points/miles and not have to pay a higher price in the end. This might be difficult to understand right now, so let’s take an example.
Today Frequent Miler posted on increased Memorial Day shopping portal bonuses for Alaska, American, and United Airlines. Bonuses from 10x to 20x at big retailers should make your eyes light up, especially when given the chance to earn valuable Alaska Airlines miles. So, how can we maximize this benefit?
A simple example is Dell.com. It’s probably the worst shopping website I’ve seen in a long time. It took me months to figure out how to utilize my Amex Business Platinum credit because the website’s search function is inaccurate, the filters are nearly useless, it has an “infinite scroll” so you can’t do a manual search, and the prices are often 50% higher than Amazon for tech stuff. Amazon itself isn’t even the cheapest place to buy these items, so that says a lot.
But hey, Dell.com is a 10x store this weekend and I don’t really care about the price since Citi Price Rewind has my back. I’ll keep this example simple. Let’s say I want to buy a hard drive, and I know the exact one.
Note: I’ve included links to the products below but prices change, so pricing could be different if you’re reading this a few days after I’ve posted. I’ve included screenshots with prices as of today.
Dell.com has the below listing:
The price is $149.99. With the Memorial Day bonus, that means 10x will net me 1,500 Alaska miles.
But wait, Amazon has the same product for just $119.99.
We all know that Amazon purchases are essentially 1x. Ordinarily the price difference of $30 is not worth the 1,500 miles. That would be like buying Alaska miles at 2 cents apiece ($30/1500 miles = 2 cents/mile). You can often buy Alaska miles cheaper when the airline sells them directly.
But remember, for the purposes of this price match, that doesn’t matter. Citi will refund that $30 anyway, making the 1,500 miles, in a way, free. Or at least a bonus.
But wait…it gets better. Earlier I mentioned there really isn’t a restriction on the reputation the retailer has for the purposes of the price match. I found the same product even cheaper at a website I’ve never heard of called Provantage.
I don’t know anything about this website, and I would never buy from them. Thankfully that doesn’t matter for this price match. Here’s how it would break down:
- I go through the Alaska Airlines portal to Dell.com
- I buy the product from Dell.com for $149.99 (plus taxes and whatnot) using my eligible Citi credit card
- I log the purchase at citipricerewind.com. Either I try my luck at letting it find something cheaper, or I manually submit the Provantage link and screen shot showing $107.61
- Once Citi approves (this could take a few weeks) they will send me a check or statement credit for the difference of $42.38.
- I will get my 1,500 Alaska Airlines bonus miles.
It’s that simple.
I wouldn’t necessarily call this a way to manufacture spend, since you should only be doing this with items you’re actually going to buy anyway. But it is definitely a way to maximize your points/miles earning AND minimize your spend. It’s the exact definition of a win-win in my book.
There are certainly other ways one could game this, but I won’t go into that as it starts to border on insurance fraud. I’m recommending this simply as a way to earn more miles/points (or cash back if that’s your thing) for things you would normally purchase anyway. See this post by Doctor of Credit for a current list of cards that offer some form of price protection.
The Citi Price Rewind benefit more than pays for the cost of annual fees on all my Citi credit cards with the savings and the extra miles. The next time you look to make a purchase, or the next time you see a massive shopping portal bonus, start doing some research online for items you were already going to buy. Your mileage accounts will increase at a much faster rate as a result.