The Citi Cashback Trifecta

A credit card trifecta consists of getting multiple credit card from the same vendor to take advantage of the benefits they gain when used together. Often this comes in the form of an annual fee travel card like the Citi Premier, which allows pooled points to be transferred to airline and hotel loyalty partners. I am not a fan of this, I'd rather take the cashback and spend the value elsewhere 

So rather than a trifecta that consist of the Citi Double Cash, the Citi Custom Cash, and Citi Premier, I purpose removing the Premier and adding the Citi Rewards+ 

This removes the "Travel" out of the trifecta and keeps it all cashback, hence the name "Cashback Trifecta", When pooled with the Double Cash and Custom Cash, the redemption perk of Rewards+ begins to shine, all redemptions up to the first 100,000 points per year, receive a 10% rebate

This year I redeemed 45,000 citi thankyou points, from Sign Up bonuses for $450, the rewards bonus gave me 4500 points, when I redeem that for $45, I will get 450 points, and so on. This also means the double cash will end up effectively giving 2.22% cashback, while the custom cash will be at 5.55%. 

the Citi Premier would also become 3.33% Grocery/Gas/Restaurants, but considering I get 3% back in those categories on other non-citi no annual fee cards, I would have to spend $28,788 yearly on the Premier alone to cover the premier's annual fee and opportunity cost of not using my other 3% cards, which is not my natural spend at all

The Premier however does have a 60,000 SUB, so what it can do is use that to pay for its first year annual fee, then product change into a second Citi Custom Cash. Transforming the setup into a citi quadfecta that might look like 5.55% Gas + 5.55% Grocery + 2.22% Catch all, with no annual fees