As I blogged earlier this month, I applied for Citi Dividend Platinum Select Card to take advantage of its 5% cash back feature on supermarket, gas station and drugstore purchases. I just received the card today with an initial credit limit of $2,800. I am going to use this as the primary card for my grocery shopping and gas refilling. I am anticipating an annual saving of at least $200 if I use the card wisely. (In my original story, I quoted an expected annual saving of $288, which I feel is unrealistic now. The card has an annual cash back cap of $300, so the maximal saving over an ordinary 1% cash back card is $240 even if all charges are in the 5% bucket of supermarkets, gas station and drugstores. I still think I will be able to achieve $200 saving if I consciously use this card only for grocery shopping and gas purposes.)

It's also worth mentioning that the Citi Credit Card site (www.citicards.com) also has some nice features I have not seen in other credit card sites like Bank One/First USA, Providian and MBNA. One notable feature is a customized email alert service, which allows you to receive email:

- everyday for current balance
- when a new statement is available online
- when balance is within a preset amount of credit limit
- when balance exceeds a preset amount
- when minimal payment is due within a preset number of days
- when account is past due
- when credit limit is reached
- everyday when a payment is posted

It looks like pretty cool!