Citizens Bank Cash Back Plus World MasterCard – Up to 1.8% Cash Back on All Purchases

Citizens Bank just announced a new cash back credit card that promises to earn up to 1.8% cash back on all purchases with no annual fee and no foreign transaction fees.

The Citizens Bank Cash Back Plus™ World MasterCard® earns an unlimited 1.5% cash back rewards on all purchases. You’ll also earn a 10% Purchase Bonus on your cash back rewards when you make at least one purchase every month for six consecutive months or more, and another 10% Relationship Bonus when you directly deposit your rewards into a Citizens Bank personal checking, savings or money market account. When you take advantage of both the Purchase Bonus and the Relationship Bonus, your rebate effectively becomes boosted to about 1.8%.

Redeeming your Rewards
You can redeem your reward points in increments of 25 for $25 in cash back, either as a deposit to your Citizens Bank personal checking, savings, or money market account or as a statement credit. To redeem your rewards, you can either call 1-800-684-2222 or submit a request online at www.citizensbank.com/creditcard.

Who is eligible?
Headquartered in Providence, Rhode Island, Citizens Bank is the 13th largest retail bank in the U.S., with branches in 11 states in the New England, Mid-Atlantic and Midwest regions. While its service area is limited, anyone in the U.S. can apply for one of its credit card products. If you are seeking to open a new Checking or Savings account, however, you must currently reside within Citizen Bank’s service area. Citizens Bank operates under the Citizens Bank brand in Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont, and the Charter One brand in Michigan and Ohio.

This means that if you live outside one of these 11 states, while you can apply for the credit card, you won’t be able to take advantage of the 10% Relationship Bonus, which requires a checking, savings or money market account. That would limit your cash back to a maximum of 1.65%, assuming you take advantage of the 10% Purchase Bonus.

How does the card stack up to the competition?
The first obvious comparison for this card is to the Citi Double Cash card, which effectively earns a 2% rebate on all purchases. 2% is obviously better than 1.8%, but the Citizens Cash Back Plus card does have one thing going for it–no foreign transaction fees, whereas the Double Cash charges 3% of each foreign transaction purchase. Other than that, they both have no annual fee and have award redemption beginning at $25 with no limit to the rewards you can earn. If you live in the Citizens Bank service area and having a no foreign transaction fee card is important to you, the Cash Back Plus MasterCard is a very reasonable option.

For more information on the card or to apply, see www.citizensbank.com/cashbackpluscard.