My Citi ThankYou Preferred Card
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Credit Cards with Drugstore Category Bonus: An Update

ByThe Miles Professor

I’ve done a bit of catch-up and research on credit cards that earn bonuses at drugstores. I previously signed up for the Citi ThankYou card, which earns 5 points per dollar at drugstores, grocery stores and gas stations for the first 12 months. In this post, I give an update on the availability for the Citi ThankYou card and also mention two other cards with drugstore bonus: Wells Fargo and Citizens Bank offering bonuses for 6 months and 3 months, respectively. While I personally don’t find cards without a sign-up bonus and a category bonus for such a short time span attractive, I decided to include them to give complete information on the available offers.

Citi ThankYou Card

Update: The offer for this card has expired and is no longer being accepted by Citibank. 

The Citi ThankYou card for 5 points per dollar at drugstores, grocery stores and gas stations has been slowly disappearing. It was previously available online, but has been restricted only to the bank branches after this past May. I wrote about finding the Citi ThankYou Card at the local bank branch a few months ago. At the time, the offer was readily available at most bank branches; you just had to go in and ask specifically for the offer.

Citibank has been making some recent (fairly positive) changes to its Citi ThankYou card offerings adding bonus categories for dining and entertainment. It looks like the plan is to do away with the drugstore, gas station, supermarket bonus. A few bank branches still have the brochure for the old offer available, but they are not being replenished. I picked up a brochure at my bank branch a few weeks ago (they are all already gone there so I cannot get more, unfortunately, as I know people will ask!) and mailed in the application for my mom. She was approved for the 5 point per dollar offer for the first 12 months, which I verified with customer service. Offer details:

  • 15,000 ThankYou points after spending $1,000 within 3 months.
  • 5 points per dollar at drugstores, grocery stores and gas stations for the first 12 months.
  • 2 points per dollar for dining and entertainment.
  • 1 point per dollar everywhere else.
  • No annual fee.
  • Points can be redeemed for airfare, travel, gift cards, mortgage payments (though the best deal is for airfare if you also have the Citi Thank You Premier card). You can check out my post: How To Book Flights With Citi ThankYou Rewards Points.

My thoughts: I got in on the 5 point per dollar bonus and definitely like Citi ThankYou points redeeming for domestic flights. Because I also have the Citi ThankYou Premier card, my points are currently worth 1.33 cents each towards airfare (soon 1.25 cents). So if you’re lucky enough to find one of the brochures in your branch, this may be an offer to consider.

The next two cards, Wells Fargo and Citizens Bank, have much shorter bonus spans on drugstores and no sign-up bonus. These two factors make the cards far less enticing as far as I am concerned, but I do want to include them for completeness.

Wells Fargo Cash Back Card

Wells Fargo has a cash back card that is offering 5% cash back on gas, grocery and drugstore purchases for the first six months. It earns 1% cash back everywhere else. Card details:

  • No annual fee.
  • 5% cash back on drugstore, grocery stores and gas stations for 6 months.
  • 1% cash back everywhere else.

I learned about the Wells Fargo card from FrequentMiler, who linked to the post about the Wells Fargo Card on PFDigest. The card in question is straight up cash. No award travel or merchandise redemptions involved. If you check out PFDigest’s more recent post, he goes over a few other card options from Wells Fargo.

I have not applied for this card, but reports are that Wells Fargo bank customers can submit an application online. Nick from PFDigest gave an update in the comments that he is not a Wells Fargo customer and was approved upon application, but many have gotten denied without prior relationship with Wells Fargo. It may help to visit the branch if you have one nearby!

My thoughts: 6 months is a bit too short a time horizon for me to sign up for a new credit card. It also only earns just 1% cash back on all other purchases so it’s not very useful to me after the initial 6 months. However, if you do bank with Wells Fargo and are looking for a no-fee card to build up your credit history, it may be worth considering.

Citizens Bank Cash Back Platinum MasterCard

The Citizens Bank Cash Back Platinum MasterCard is another pure cash back card where you automatically receive checks in increments of $50.

  • No annual fee.
  • 5% cash back on gas, grocery and drugstore purchases for the first 90 days.
  • 1% cash back on all other purchases. 

My thoughts: With only a 90 day 5 point bonus and no sign-up bonus at all, I don’t have much temptation to get involved with this card.

A final warning

An offer for 5 points per dollar at drugstores, grocery stores and gas stations can be great for typical families with significant spending in these categories. While these cards offer a nice bonus, it’s generally not a good idea to abuse these perks. In the past, Citibank has shut down accounts with very high spending on reloadable cards. There have also been reports of freezing accounts with Wells Fargo. Do your research, earn points in moderation and make the right decisions for yourself!

Any cards with drugstore categories I may have missed?

23 Comments

    1. Right, that’s really what can make it worthwhile unless you buy tons of prescription drugs. I don’t know the answer but I buy lots of VRs and spread them out amongst many cards along with normal spend to mix it up. If all you do is VR on a card, you probably are asking for it, but then again the issuer, Citi in your case, may not care as long as they are getting paid the charge fee from CVS and that is another good question, no one seems to know the answer too.

  2. Hi MP, thanks for the link. About the Wells Fargo 5% card: I was not a customer of Wells Fargo at the time of my application and I applied online, but I was still approved. I’ve seen other reports of non-customers being approved, but I’ve also seen a rather high number of people being denied. All I can say is that it seems to be a YMMV sort of thing.

  3. The offer has been said to end 7/28, when the new categories came in for the TYP. So, was “a few weeks ago” before or after that!

    1. This was after that. I mailed in the offer 1.5 weeks ago for my mom and received approval a few days ago. I picked up the brochure mid-August in the branch. All terminology I’ve seen on the new categories so far have said “unless you are participating in a limited time promotion”, in which case I believe these categories may apply limited time.

  4. SIGH. i signed up for that citi offer, spent about 12k in the 1st statement period, and NO bonus points for drugstores. i had the banker confirm the offer when i signed up with it, so i thought i was good to go. now it seems i might miss 12 months of 5x goodness.

    1. I confirmed with customer service once the offer was approved and she read off the bonus categories without me prompting her. I suppose I’ll know for sure once the statement closes in about two weeks!

    2. I signed up in June and have been steadily receiving 5x at drug. Last statement closed last week and point posted correctly. 150K TY since June, roughly $10K/mo MS.

      1. The question is whether sign ups post Jul 28th will give the points. Before that, yes, should work fine.

        1. This is certainly important to verify. I will update the post once my mom’s statement closes as the final confirmation, but it feels good to me that the customer service agent could see the point earning rate of 5 points per dollar at drugstores, grocery stores and gas stations after I called post-approval :)

          1. Yes, I agree. The fact that the agent had the offer on the account means that almost certainly your mother did get the offer correctly. But always nice to see the points!

          2. Can you check if there was an offer code attached to the brochure? When I signed up, I had to ask an employee (probably an ubiquitous “Vice President”) who then pulled out a list of CC offers printed on a 18×24 plastic flyer that she had stuffed between her desk and the wall. Zero CC applications anywhere in public view – typical for Citi to be so pathetic based on my dealings with them so far.

  5. A similar card to the Wells Fargo is the TD Cash back card, http://www.tdbank.com/personalcreditcard/cashrewardscard.html. While this doesn’t have a drug store bonus, it sort of makes up for that in offering 5% on dining, groceries, gas and cable, phone and utility bill payment, for 6 months. So not good for VR purchase, but you can buy Visa/MC gift cards at supermarkets for just a bit more, and this also covers those other extra categories….

  6. I would just like to give an update on the situation. My mom’s points fully posted. Svetlana also applied for the card in September and her 5x points posted. We now all successfully have the Citi ThankYou card for the next year!

    1. Thanks for the update! So I guess that means we all have to visit Citi branches hoping to find one of the applications…

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  9. My happy run with 5x at drugstores is coming to an end this month. I just called CS and they told me my last day is 3/5. Any experience with how accurate they are with that? My statement closes on 3/18 so I wonder if it will be extended. Any thoughts? I need to hammer the GC’s and VR’s if I really only have 2 days left!

  10. “5 points per dollar at drugstores, grocery stores and gas stations for the first 12 months”.

    I own this card and I don’t receive 5 pts for any of these purchases. I receive 1 pt. I was very angry when I found this out.

    1. Sorry to hear that! Over the past year, the Citi ThankYou card has multiple offers and the 5 points were only available to those who specifically signed up for the offer that offered those bonuses for the first 12 months. Other offers were different and you must have signed up for a different offer.

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