My wife has this card and we love it. Racking up the 5% rewards is pretty nice...the rotating quarterly categories tend to make sense, too, which helps. I expected the categories to be for absurd things that you'd never use, but they're fairly logical most of the time. Overall: we're as happy as one can be with a credit card.

Can I cancel my current Citi credit card and apply for this? I've heard every time I cancel a credit card, my value credit scores will be deducted 2 points. Is that true? Damn... so tempting...

You may not cancel your current Citi card. I won't allow it.

Elpee, your credit score should goes up if you cancel credit card. they worry you could run away with all the credit card credit fully executed. My credit score is lowered with label "too many credit card".

Elpee - More credit cards is better in that part of your credit score is "amount of available credit utilized". For example, if you have 5 credit cards with $2000 credit limit each, you have $10,000 in available credit. Lets say you are responsible and charge $1500 worth of monthly expenses that you pay off at the end of the month. You are using $1,500/$10,000 (15%) of your credit. Now lets say you cancel two of those cards but keep your same spending/payment habits. Now you are using $1,500/$6,000 (25%) of your credit. This will decrease your credit score.

As bostonman points out, there are diminishing returns on more credit cards so find the sweet spot and stay there. Also, why not just get the new card, then cancel the old one so the credit is immediately replaced? Do you not think you will qualify for the new one while the old one is still open?

I was told by a few bankers that you would not want to cancel a credit card that you have used for a while. It was explained to me that if you used that card for many years that you built credit with it, then to cancel it would erase that. To me it sounds like crap, but I will need to get a house soon and I don't wanna mess that up.

Also has anyone that already has this card tried to get this deal? I assume its for new customers only, but I have only had the card for like 6-8 months, seems like I missed out on $300

I have this card. I applied over the phone when the deal was $250 back after $500 in purchases. Then later that day received an offer for $300 back after the first purchase. I called and asked if they would honor those terms, and they will. Still it is slow coming. Right now I am using it a lot because amazon is getting 5% back.
Having too much available credit is a problem for your credit score. The best thing is to pay off your cards in full each month and only keep one or two. Revolving debt hurts your credit score, but it is even worse than the credit score would indicate when applying for a mortgage.

After you qualify and receive the $300 cash back, can you then simply close the account without additional costs?

Having lots of available is good for your credit score, but actually using them is bad.
You also get a short-term point deduction for every credit card that you apply.
The length of the credit is also a factor, e, a credit card that you've had for 10 years is worth more credit-score-wise than a credit card that you've had for only one year.

My wife had the card and did not use it because it would not activate. She called and asked to get this deal and they said no. So she cancelled the card. They still will not let her get this deal. I think it really matters who answers the phone.

I did one of these a couple years ago and you usually have to maintain an account with them for at least six months or they will deduct the "free" money from your account before you close it. I couldn't find any details on this in this offer, but I'm going to go for it and just make sure I read all the fine print.

I got this one when it was $200 a few months ago, they had the points for $200 cashback on my second statement. It looks like a Discover card, but I think you earn points faster, but they limit at a certain point, while Discover gives more points the more you spend (annually).

Is there an annual fee? There has to some strings attached for this to good to be true offer.

^No strings or annual fee, you just pay a higher APR than non-reward cards. They're great for people with a $0 balance.

#3, Citi Chase.

This is an awesome deal. I wish I hadn't been using this card for the last 5 years so I could take advantage!

what are the odds that i had the application open earlier, closed the browser cause i wanted to check my other card's policy THEN THE PROMO IS OVER..

WTF IT WAS ONLY 10 MINUTES DIFFERENCE

try this (remove the *):

h*t*t*p*s://applynowdc1.chase.com/FlexAppWeb/renderApp.do?SPID=DN52

I got this card in the mail today. No where in the literature they sent does it state that I will get $300 after $500 in purchases after 3 months...

How did you get assurance that they will credit $300 when you met the purchase requirement?

Just ask about it when you call to activate. It works fine.