Where Can I Use My Citi Custom Cash Card?

The Citi Custom Cash® Card from Citi, an advertising partner with Motley Fool Money, is a popular choice for anyone on team cash back. It's one of a few cards that earns 5% cash back, and that's on your top eligible spend category each billing cycle (up to the first $500 spent). No matter where you spend the most, you'll earn a high rate. If you're looking for the best cash back card, this one is worth checking out.

With any credit card, it's good to know where you can and can't use it. Fortunately, you shouldn't have much trouble using this Citi card.

Where you can use the Citi Custom Cash Card

The Citi Custom Cash® Card is a Mastercard. You can use it anywhere Mastercard credit cards are accepted.

Visa and Mastercard are the two most widely accepted types of credit cards. That's true in the United States and internationally -- Mastercard reports that it's currently accepted in over 210 countries. In most cases, if a business accepts credit cards, it will accept Mastercard.

Where you can't

There's one big U.S. store chain that doesn't accept Mastercard: Costco. Visa is the only type of credit card you can use at Costco warehouses because Costco and Visa have an exclusive partnership agreement. The same rule applies at Costco gas stations. You can pay with Mastercard online at costco.com, though.

If you're a Costco member, you'll want to find a great credit card offered through Visa to use there. Everywhere else, you can rely on your Citi Custom Cash® Card.

How the Citi Custom Cash Card works

If you're new to this Citi card, or if you don't have it yet, it's worth talking about its cash back program. Every billing cycle, you earn 5% cash back on your top eligible spend category each billing cycle (up to the first $500 spent) from a list of 10 categories. The eligible spend categories are:

• Restaurants
• Gas stations
• Grocery stores
• Select travel
• Select transit
• Select streaming services
• Drugstores
• Home improvement stores
• Fitness clubs
• Live entertainment

Let's say you go out to eat several times over the holidays and spend $500 at restaurants, your top spend category. You'd earn $25 cash back. The next month, you don't spend much at restaurants, but you spend $500 at grocery stores, your new top spend category. You'd earn another $25 cash back. That's the advantage of this Citi card compared to cards that have fixed bonus categories.

As you can see, the Citi Custom Cash® Card makes it easy to earn bonus cash back. Right now, it also has a sign-up bonus of 20,000 ThankYou® Points (which can be redeemed for $200 cash back) after you spend $1,500 on purchases in the first 6 months.

An easy-to-use cash back card

It's nice to have a credit card that you can use at most businesses. As a Mastercard, the Citi Custom Cash® Card fits the bill. It's also one of the more versatile cash back cards out there, and it can work well for just about anybody.

If you want to keep it simple with a one-card wallet, you could do it with this Citi card. Or you could use it in combination with other cash back cards. Maybe you already have a gas and groceries card that you use for those expenses. You could keep using it, and then use the Citi Custom Cash® Card in another category to earn 5% cash back on eligible purchases.

For a detailed look at the Citi Custom Cash® Card, check out our full review.