Citibank Invents "Pretend Rate" For Credit Card

Here's how — make your payment on time every month.

Each month you do, you will receive a credit on your billing statement equal to 10% of your total interest charge on purchase balances. This can help offset the increase in your purchase APR. Start earning interest back in December and January, and you will see the full credit on your statement no later than February 2010 and monthly after that.
If in any month you do not pay on time, you may not be eligible to continue to participate in this program.

Citibank is raising the interest on our paid-on-time, good status gold card to 29.99% on November 30, 2009. BUT, they'll give us a rebate on the last 10% of the rate 90 days later on a rolling basis if we continue to pay on time. So charging something, leaving it on the account will incur 29.99% interest on December 1st, but we'll get the 10% part of that back in March, and every month after that.


This seems very convoluted and is definitely annoying. For us, it means that we have a 19.99% rate, but with a 90 day perpetual delay. Fortunately we have a small balance on this card. We've decided to just pay off the card and stick it in a drawer before November 30th. This is too stupid to deal with.