The Citi® Double Cash Card – 18 month BT offer earns 2% cash back on everything (awarded as 1% when you make a purchase and 1% when you pay). While considered cash back, the cash comes in the form of Citi ThankYou® points, which you can combine with the Citi Premier® card to turn these points into fully transferable Citi ThankYou® points (giving you the ability to transfer your points to airline and hotel partners).

The earnings from this card could not be simpler.

All eligible purchases on this card net you 2% cash back. You’ll earn 1% right away, when the purchase settles, and 1% after you’ve paid your monthly statement.

You’ll see the cash back in your account as Citi ThankYou points, however they are mostly only redeemable for cash back unless you also have a Citi Premier card. That combo allows you to supercharge your cash back by allowing you to transfer the points to airline and hotel partners. Without a Citi Premier, you can transfer to JetBlue, Choice, and Wyndham at reduced rates or redeem for gift cards and statement credits.

Earns bonus points for spend in the following bonus categories:

The Citi Double Cash® Card isn’t a card loaded with features and benefits.

But it has one killer feature that makes the card a must-have for nearly everyone and that’s the simple fact that it earns 2% cash back on all of your everyday purchases. Technically, you earn 1% when you spend and 1% when you pay, but semantics aside, you’re earning 2% cash back on absolutely all eligible purchases.

And before we forget, it also comes with a pretty amazing intro offer for balance transfers, as outlined in the Key Facts at the top of the page.

You don’t have to think about bonus categories with this credit card. The answer to “what will I earn here” is always 2%.

Just one caveat: the Double Cash does not come with many expected benefits, like extended warranty or purchase protection. For those reasons, you may want to use another card for high value merchandise purchases.

That said, why is it a must have credit card for nearly everyone? Three reasons:

1) There is no consumer credit card issued by a major bank that earns a higher % of cash back with no annual fee. None.

2) You can use this as your one credit card if you are completely averse to using multiple credit cards (although you’ll need to be aware of the foreign transaction fees charged if you travel internationally). But even better is to use this as your “default” card. What I mean by that is you may have a card that earns 4X on dining and groceries and another that earns 3% on drugstores, but that’s it. What about an insurance payment? What about daycare?

On most other credit cards, if you aren’t spending in a bonus category, you only earn 1X or 1% back. For example, the Citi Premier Card pays 3X in certain categories (Air/Hotel, Gas, Restaurants and Supermarkets) and 1X in everything else. So you can “Double Up” by having both cards.

The Citi Double Cash card earns 2X Thank You® points on everything. If your purchase is in a Citi Premier card bonus category, go ahead and make the purchase with your Citi Premier card. If it’s in any other category, make the purchase with your Double Cash card. That way, you’ll get one percent when you make the purchase and another percent when you pay it. With a Double Cash card in your pocket, you can always take it out when you have no bonus category available, ensuring that you never, ever earn less than 2% back on any purchases.

3) While you’ll earn cash back rewards with this card, it earns it as ThankYou® points. If you only have the Double Cash alone, that keeps things simple. It’s cash! You can cash out as a statement credit, via direct deposit to your bank account, or by check.

Pair with a Citi Premier® card – a great credit card strategy

In that case, once again, you simply pair this card with a Citi Premier credit card. That would allow you to pool all of your ThankYou® points together and, because of the Premier, you’ll unlock access to all of the transfer options listed below, the best kind of credit card rewards:

What are some of the ways you can use Citi ThankYou® points for outsized value with a Citi Premier?

We outline all of that on the Citi Premier card page, since that is the card that unlocks these features. Please take a look at the Citi Premier review for everything you need to know about using Citi ThankYou® points.

The Citi Trifecta: Add the Citi Premier and then a Citi Rewards+ Card for a 10% Points Rebate

You can make your Citi Premier and Citi Double Cash rewards combo even more rewarding if you add in a no-annual fee Citi Rewards+ card.

Each calendar year, Citi will rebate back 10% of the first 100,000 ThankYou® Points that you spend, so you can get back up to 10,000 points per year Best of all, it isn’t tied in any way to your spending on the card. Just having it in your profile and linked to the same ThankYou account will ensure that you get the rebate.

Citi Application Rules

Citi won’t approve more than 2 cards in a 60-day period, although we recommend 65 days, just to be safe. This means that if you decide to apply for the Double Cash and combo with a Citi Premier and Citi Rewards+ card, you’ll have to pick one to wait and apply for on Day 66. We’d recommend getting the Rewards+ last, since the benefits are when you redeem.

Bottom Line

The Citi Double Cash is quite simply a card that should be in 99% of wallets. The 2% cash back on everything (1% when you buy and 1% when you pay your bill), with no annual fee, is too good to pass up, even if you are using it in conjunction with other credit cards to maximize your bonus categories – as you should be!