Compare the Features and Benefits of Citi Rewards+® and
American Express® Green Card

The Citi Rewards+ card comes with no annual fee but offers a unique value proposition among the sea of rewards credit cards on the market. In fact, it’s the only credit card to automatically round up to the nearest 10 points on all purchases made with the card. This can be vastly beneficial for small purchases you make on the card, as you’ll get to supercharge your ThankYou points® earning ability with the Citi Rewards+.

The card’s only bonus categories are gas stations and grocery stores, which will be useful for most households. You’ll earn 2x points on the first $6,000 spent every year in these categories combined, which breaks down to roughly $500 in monthly spend. If you exceed this spending cap, you’ll only earn 1x points per $1 spent.

Redeeming your ThankYou points is easy through your online Citi account, where you’ll get the best redemption value from travel or gift cards at 1 cent per point. While other rewards like “Shop with Points” or redeeming for a statement credit may be enticing, these redemption options present a poor value at just 0.8 cents and 0.5 cents, respectively. (Note: When we value the “minimum” redemption value of this card in our calculator at 1 cent per point, we are assuming you will take the maximum redemption option of gift cards.)

No matter how you redeem your points, you’ll get to earn 10% of all the points you redeem every year — up to the first 100,000 points annually. That’s a nice little boost to your ThankYou points balance.

Not only is the Citi Rewards+ a good choice for everyday purchases, but it also makes for a great supplementary card to any other Citi rewards cards you may have in your wallet since you can pool your points together.

If you already have the Citi Premier, a popular travel rewards card, you’ll earn 3x points on restaurants, supermarkets and gas stations, air travel and hotels, and 1x point on all other purchases. That’s where the Citi Rewards+ comes in: you can use the card for small purchases or non-bonus categories to take advantage of that favorable 10% automatic round-up feature.

Plus, if you also have a Citi Premier, you can cash out all of your Citi ThankYou points for 1 cent each or transfer them to ThankYou airline and hotel transfer partners.

(Please note: Without also holding a Citi Premier or Citi Prestige card, you will not be able to transfer these points to Citi’s ThankYou® airline and hotel transfer partners.)

Finally, you’ll have peace-of-mind with important coverages like purchase protection and extended warranty that can come in handy when your eligible card purchases are damaged or stolen.

American Express seems to have positioned the Green Card to more directly compete with high performing mid-tier cards like the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card and Citi Premier card, offering a few more direct benefits than each of them in exchange for a $150 annual fee (vs. $95 on those other cards). (Rates and Fees)

The American Express Green Card is a Powerhouse for Travel, Transit and Dining

Whereas the The Platinum Card® from American Express is all about the benefits (elite statuses, statement credits galore, etc), the American Express® Green Card is all about the 3X Membership Rewards points on all things travel (including Transit!) plus 3X on dining – all for a relatively low annual fee of just $150 (Rates and Fees). It’s great for frequent travelers, especially if you don’t already have a card that earns at least 3X on travel purchases.

And it does have a couple of benefits that can cover the annual fee. If you don’t have access to CLEAR (which lets you go ahead of most other people at airport security in select airports / terminals), this card will cover $189 in CLEAR fees which is enough for a whole family to have a membership. And you also get up to $100 in credits for airport lounge access with LoungeBuddy.

It’s worth considering this card in combination with other American Express cards. One solid Trifecta that maximizes points would be an Amex Gold Card, an Amex Green Card, and The Blue Business® Plus Credit Card from American Express. You’d use the Gold for Dining and U.S. Supermarkets, the Green for 3X points on travel and transit, and the Blue Business Plus for 2X on other eligible purchases (up to $50,000 a year; 1X Membership Rewards points per dollar thereafter).

In another Trifecta replace the Gold Card with a Platinum Card and enjoy all the perks and benefits of the Platinum card while putting all non-airfare travel and transit charges on the Green Card and the rest on your Blue Business Plus.

In short, I don’t think anyone should have the Green Card as their sole credit card, but I do think it has a nice place among a handful of American Express cards that earn Membership Rewards points.

Keep in mind that American Express Membership Rewards points never expire and combine among all of your Membership Rewards-earning cards. All points earned from various American Express cards have the same transfer partners.

The Amex Green Card Functions as a Credit Card

The Amex Green card is part of the same family of Amex proprietary cards formerly referred to as charge cards. However, the Green Card has a built-in Pay Over Time feature, making it function in many ways as any other standard credit card. Unlike a typical credit card, the Green Card allows you to carry a balance for certain charges, but not all.

What this means: Amex generally limits a cardmember to 5 credit cards (personal and small business combined), while they have a limit of 10 on proprietary Amex cards (formerly known as Charge).  This means that even if you already have 5 Amex credit cards, you would still be eligible for a Green Card.

Bonus Eligibility: They still state that if you had the Green Card before, you are not eligible for a welcome bonus on this card. So you’ll be eligible if you have less than 10 Amex charge cards and have never had the Amex Green card before.

Rates and Fees for the American Express® Green Card