http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/finance/695680

link to old thread discussion above. I wanted to revive this because I wanted to know if someone knew the rules of when and how they apply vehicle related credits. CoastieRob, if you know - please reply to this thread. I've had the card about 18 months now, never really meticulously tracked my rewards built up, just once to make the sure 6% was being applied correctly to the right categories.

Several months ago I was rear ended and the other driver's insurance company cut me a check which I pocketed almost $1k from by going through a friend service manager. But the best part was the ~$1200 repair charge on my DE card was immediately followed by an $800 credit! So it felt like i made a pretty penny by being the victim of an accident. Whats funny was that it actually put my rewards account in negative for a few months until I built it back up into the positive (no idea why). Since then I've had maintenance repairs, oil changes several times. Never saw another DE credit until a few weeks ago when exactly my last oil change amount (minus tax) was credited to me.

Which got me thinking because I wasn't seeing consistency here. My first credit was for a major repair which drained my rewards account below zero. I always submit the maintenance/mileage forms every time I charge anything of the sort to my card and the system seems to arbitrarily choose if it will apply the credit - several times I submitted a $30 oil change and I don't see a credit even tho >$100 is built up in my rewards account. Then a few weeks ago the last form I submitted after my oil change got credited.

Here is a related quote from the linked thread: 'YMMV' is tacked on the end I'm guessing because CoastieRob was seeing inconsistency as well.

CoastieRob said:FreeJason said:jmz668 said:WalStMonky said:Well, this puts the non-promo rebate between 2 and 6%. I think this card is going to the top of my AOR list. With the 500/500 cap it's likely I'll never have to put it away. Then if I can just get my car to break down so I won't have to suffer any more TY points...
Can you use the rewards on service on more than one car? I.e. my wife's and mine?

They only allow one car per account. So you would need to apply and use two seperate accounts.

Maybe they have changed their rules, but in the past on 2 occasions, my mom has used her DE credits to pay for a repair on my car. She calls the repair shop and puts the charge on her DE card. I get an extra receipt and fill out the form with my VIN # and all, she signs and we mail in. Credit has appeared on her statement both times. Both my mom and I each have our cars enrolled in the program. YMMV.

I might be wrong but I know that they add the drive miles dollars and the rebate dollars in the same number on the site. So if it says you have 234$ in rebates. 75 of that might be in purchase rebates and the rest in drive miles rebates. From what I have been told, you can only use your redemption when you have enough purchase miles in there to match your drive miles. Maybe you didnt have the purchase rebates to match the drive miles. Does that make since? I know before I had like 65$ in my account that I couldn't use because it was just drive miles.

xCarsonx said:I might be wrong but I know that they add the drive miles dollars and the rebate dollars in the same number on the site. So if it says you have 234$ in rebates. 75 of that might be in purchase rebates and the rest in drive miles rebates. From what I have been told, you can only use your redemption when you have enough purchase miles in there to match your drive miles. Maybe you didnt have the purchase rebates to match the drive miles. Does that make since? I know before I had like 65$ in my account that I couldn't use because it was just drive miles.

That does make sense - the total number doesn't indicate breakdown although you can see the breakdown for the current month. However, if only purchase rebates can be applied to the maintenance/repair charges, then what are drive rebates good for? Only to be used in their ThankYou network or something? Can we request cash checks rebates?

The drive rebates match. This is how it works for me. I usually earn around 100$ in Spending Rebates (SR). Then I mail in my latest oil change receipt. I always have more Drive Miles Rebates (DR) than SR. So Ill have 100$ in SR and 150 in DR. They let you match so I can cash out 200$ total rebates, which leaves 50$ woth of DR in my account so to speack. You cant draw that last $50 until i earn 50 in SR.

Its really not that complicated. Citi does a bad job of explaining it. I guess this allows people to not do it because they think its too complicated. Like a MIR or something.

i do about 25,000 miles a year so if this works.. it will be great...

couple months back i tried to redeem my Rebates for a Car service repair.. and it got denied.. something about my Purchase rebates needing to equal my Drive Rebates...

in reality, i dont use this Citi Drivers Edge card for anything..
for purchases i use my Chase Cash Rewards card...

they offered to send me a info booklet on the program.. i said no thanks.

i thought it was a scam. since Citibank like all the other banks are suffering in the stock market, i thought they were just trying to make it hard to redeem.

i was about to cancel this card until i saw you guys on FW... maybe i shud read more into the details of this program.

thx to all u Johnnyboy1016 and all u guys.

Terroristt said:in reality, i dont use this Citi Drivers Edge card for anything..

There's your problem. It's not a "scam", but they're not going to give you free money just for opening the card and never using it. I put gas and groceries on mine, and the purchase rebates from that are more than enough to keep up with the drive rebates. Makes oil changes essentially free.

MaddHatter said:Here's a question. I have plenty of SR, just need to update mileage for DR and ... ? To get a statement credit does the repair have to be on the DE card or just on the registered vehicle? My 6% just ran out and I exercised the 12 mo BT on it, so I can't put the wife's tires on the card. So then plan B would be... what, have them all converted to TYP?

Yes, i'm pretty sure the repair has to be on the DE card and for the vehicle registered to it... you pretty much can't get rewards since you did the BT, i remember i was tempted in the beginning as well because it's choose 1 or the other.

The mile submission form is a SCAM. I mailed the form and the bank just never recieve it. And I mailed it again! And no go! I called and the rebate department said I can fax it. When I faxed it, I called to confirm it. They gave me an excuse said that it takes 24 hours for somebody to put it in system. And the person said she doesn't have promission to check the fax machine. I called again after a day. Got the answer the bank didn't recieved it. I faxed again... and got the same excuse again....and again....