Originally Posted by Raiyn
The thing that cracks me up is that in the first part of the commercial they show a couple of Fuels, but when they show you what you can get with your points it's a POS comfort bike. Talk about bait and switch.
I looked at the Citibank rewards site, and they have 4 bikes up there:
1) A 20" Huffy Axis (11,000 points - $110 - Froogle search - $79.99)
2) A Trek 3500 21 speed (35,000 points - $350 - Froogle search - $250)
3) A Trek 7200 (41,000 points - $410 - Froogle search - $310-320)
4) A Trek Y1 (discontinued? 71,400 points -$714 - not found on Froogle or eBay, but ePinions showed it as $599 in 2001).
Depending on the level of bike you want, I guess they're OK, but they're not a good bargain if you consider what it would cost to pay cash, but if you're not using the points, why not? You're better off doing one of 2 things:
1) Using one of their gift cards (available in $25 and up increments - but they are best used in $50 and $100, since those correspond best to the # of points required).
From LL Bean, you COULD get:
A shaft-drive bike ($679)
A K2 ZED 1.0 ($309)
Or a K2 T:9 Women's bike ($299)
Gift cards from Sears could get you an assortment of department store Schwinns or Mongoose bikes (although they DID have a tandem....but at $300, ya gets what ya pays for).
Citibank has a "suggest your own reward", where you can find an item to pay points for it, regardless of the retailer.....I've got enough to suggest a decent bike, but I don't know if I want to do that, or search around for the best deal and just pay cash.