Citi Driver’s Edge MasterCard helps with Gas Prices

I just read about the Citi Driver’s Edge Platinum Select MasterCard over at MyMoneyBlog. It has a number of features that look fantastic:

• You get rewards just for driving. You’ll earn $1 in Drive Rebates for every 100 miles you drive—up to $500 in Drive Rebates a year. Drive 20,000 miles a year? That’s $200 a year just for driving! To track miles and get rebates you just mail in your receipt whenever you get an oil change or other receipt.

• 6% cashback on gas for the first year. Obviously driving a lot = $$$ for gas. Assume you get 20 miles per gallon. Driving 20,000 miles, that’s 1,000 gallons. At $3 a gallon, that’s $3,000. Times 6%, that’s another $180 cashback on gas alone. (My take on this is that at $3.00 a gallon it is a savings of 18 cents per gallon.)

• You also get 6% back at supermarkets and drugstores for the first year (3% after that). You earn 1% on everything else. Here is Citi’s example chart of how this could add up:

• There is a cap of $1,000 per year.

What’s the catch? If you don’t make a purchase in a year the rebate will expire and points must be redeemed within 5 years.

The DriveRebates are redeemable as straight cash only towards car expenses. But that’s any car expenses - buying a car, leasing a car, oil changes, new tires, repairs, etc.

They can also be converted to ThankYou points. So, $100 in Driver’s Edge rebates can be converted to a $100 Gift Card at Target, Chevron, Gap, etc.

Looks like this might be the card I need for my monthly expenses. Time to retire the current card.