Citi Diamond Preferred Card Review
Editor’s Note: Thank you for your interest, this offer expired and is no longer available. Check out our current list of the best credit cards available today.
When looking for a new credit card to place in your wallet, there are a variety of factors you should always consider. First of all, credit cards are not for everyone. In order to take advantage of the rewards that some credit cards provides, you should honestly evaluate whether increasing your use of credit cards will lead to increased spending. Besides the personal factors, credit cards come with a variety of interest rates, introductory offers and rewards programs and finding the one that suits your needs can sometimes be difficult.
The Citi Diamond Preferred Card is one of Citibank’s most popular credit cards. This card brings a few different features to the table, including a low interest rate and an excellent balance transfer and purchase APR option.
The Citi® Diamond Preferred® Card currently offers an introductory rate for 18 months on both purchases and balance transfers. The 0% introductory APR on balance transfers requires a balance transfer fee of either $5 or 3% of the amount of each transfer. Once the introductory rate expires, purchase and balance transfer APR’s will vary with the market based on the Prime Rate, and is currently between 11.99% – 21.99% depending on your credit history. The better your credit, the lower the APR you’ll receive.
The rewards program bundled with the Citi Diamond Preferred Card is almost nonexistent, so this should not be your everyday credit card. They do offer special access for Citi cardmembers to purchase presale tickets, preferred seating, VIP packages and other unforgettable live entertainment experiences through Citi Private Pass. While most credit card rewards programs offer points or cash back, this program does not.
The benefits of this card lie in the introductory offer, so keep that in mind. If I were to use this card, it would be to transfer a balance from a high-APR card or to purchase items I knew I wouldn’t be able to pay off within the next month.
Outside of the excellent purchase and balance transfer offer, the Citi Diamond Preferred Card also comes with a few perks that most other credit cards include. Some of the most prominent are $0 liability on unauthorized purchases, Citi® Identity Theft Solutions and no annual fee. The card also offers some perks that you may not find elsewhere such as you can learn how to get a lower price after you purchase an item utilizing Citi® Price Rewind. And when making arrangements for a trip use their 24/7 concierge service to help book your hotel rooms, flights and more.
The Citi Diamond Preferred Card may not be the best overall package, but for consumers who need to stretch important purchases over time and for whatever reason can’t save for the purchase in advance, the zero APR introductory period makes this one of the best cards for keeping interest expenses low. If you’re in need of a long balance transfer offer or are thinking of making a big purchase soon and can take advantage of 18 interest-free months, consider the Citi Diamond Preferred Card.
Article comments
Got an offer for this card along with a $100 statement credit if $600 in purchases are made within the first three months (I need a snowblower anyway.) That put it over the top for me–$100 free, which is roughly equivalent to what I’d get from my 1% cash back rewards card after spending $10,000. That’s about what I spend in a year. Plus 0% interest for 21 months. Meaning I can carry that cash in my 2%-yielding credit union savings account for a year and a half at zero opportunity cost.
It seems that there will be no benefit to using this card after the 21-month intro period, but that doesn’t bother me much. It’ll just get the “one tiny purchase every six months to keep it open” treatment from me after that.
Sounds like a slam dunk to me, if you’re disciplined. Not a problem for me. I’ve paid for everything I possibly could on a credit card since I was 20 (15 years ago) and haven’t paid a penny of interest, ever.
Great card if you’ve got say $6000 of credit debt you’re paying down and don’t want to pay interest on it. So instead of paying a boatload of interest every month you pay the one time transfer fee of 3% which is $180.00 on $6000 of debt. Not bad of a deal at all. You can stop spending on the credit card, setup a proper budget and probably pay it down by the end of the 21 months which is an amazing amount of time to have 0% (free money).
Do it for the balance transfer, it’s definitely worth it, and simple to do if you’ve good credit.
25% of my income comes in March & December and we wanted to replace our windows this summer, this card was an excellent option to buy now and make payoff in chunks with a year and half to pay off instead of having larger loan payments above our heads. We had no credit card debt, so the balance transfer feature wasn’t anything i was after.
Have had this card for some time and was using when things were a bit tighter, financially, as a just in case we can’t pay the bill in full one month type of card. Now things aren’t as tight so I’m going after cash back and have been using the BOA card for the past three months to rack up $$$’s instead of points.
while i would pass on this card, as the rewards are, as you said…hard to find, there is no doubt that many people will be all over this card for the extended introductory rate. 21 months is a VERY long time. while “Ceecee” does bring up a good point about the balance transfer fee above, 3% is on the low end these days, and i think many people will be “glad” to pay that for the 21 month intro rate.
thank you for the review!
That balance transfer fee snags a lot of people who don’t read the fine print. It makes the transfer sometimes not worthwhile. Think I’ll pass on this card.
Yes… free money for 21 months…. If you can’t budget to save your life… then it isn’t worthwhile.