Best Buy runs one of the most popular electronics stores all over the American States. They offer the best price and it’s the reason most customers choose to apply for a Best Buy Citi credit card. If you’re a techie and trust Best Buy for your electronics, then, the Best Buy Citi credit card could be a nice option.

Best Buy shoppers can save money by earning points in rewards when they purchase a product with their credit card. If you’re looking at getting a Best Buy Citi credit card, it’s also a good idea to weigh both the benefits and drawbacks. This will guide you to make an informed decision about whether to apply for a Best Buy Citi Credit Card or not.

In this Best Buy Citi Credit Card review, we discussed in depth the benefits and drawbacks provided by a Best Buy Citi credit card. We equally discussed how to avoid paying interest rates.

Best Buy Credit Card Real Facts

Best Buy credit card is issued by Citibank. The card is offered to customers to encourage the easy and faster way of paying for the purchase of Best Buy products.

Best Buy offers two major types of credit cards. My Best Buy Standard Credit Card. This is mainly a store card that can only be accepted in Best Buy In-stores and the BestBuy.com website. The Best Buy Citi/Standard card has no annual fee.

The second type of credit card is My Best Buy Visa credit card. This card is an open-loop credit card, which means that it is accepted anywhere a Visa card is accepted.

The Best Buy Citi credit card can be applied for in two ways (in-store or online). Best Buy then determines which card you’re qualified for.

Read more on My Best Buy card type and how to apply.

Deferred Interest offer Risk

Best Buy usually promotes a no-interest fee with its credit card if paid in full on the due date. This is regarded as a deferred interest offer.

This sometimes sounds attractive and interesting but it’s important to understand the risk that comes with such a deferred interest offer.

In reality, interest is not completely waived on Best Buy Citi credit card, it merely sets aside the interest until later. This means, there are ongoing interest charges on the card waiting for a deferred payment. The Best Buy Citi credit card has a high-interest rate of 25.49%.

The waiver only holds if you’re able to pay off your purchase by the end of the deferred interest due date. But if there is any unpaid balance at the end of the deferred interest period, Best Buy will charge you the card’s full interest rate on your entire purchase, dating back to the day you made the purchase.

What are the Benefits of Best Buy Card

Rewards

One of the major benefits that come with the Best Buy Citi credit card is the rewards you earn as a member. Once you sign up for the card membership, you receive a 10% reward benefit on your first shopping. You will also get 5% rewards for being a regular Best Buy member and 6% back in rewards as an Elite Plus member.

The reward benefit comes from the discount you get when you purchase a product from the Best Buy shop. That’s to say you earn a point for purchasing a product, and when your point is up to 250points you earn $5.

5% Back in Rewards (6% for Elite Plus Cardmembers)

The Best Buy Citi credit card offers 5% back in rewards for regular Best Buy members and 6% for Elite Plus members. The reward is awarded on qualifying Best Buy purchases. However, Points are not awarded on promotional credit purchases.

You will get 2.5 points per $1 spent ( i.e 5% back in rewards) when you choose Standard Credit for our Best Buy Citi Credit Card. As an Elite Plus member, you get an additional 5 points per $1 spent (making it a total of 6% back in rewards) using Standard Credit on the Best Buy Credit Card.

10% Back in Rewards

As a Best Buy credit cardholder, you will earn 10% back in rewards on your first purchase. It is a normal practice when you use My Best Buy Citi Credit Card, you receive 2.5 points per $1 spent (5% back in rewards).

And if you apply and are approved for a new My Best Buy Credit Card. On your first day of purchases with the Credit Card within the first 14 days of account opening, you will get an additional 2.5 bonus points (that’s an additional 5% back in rewards, making a total of 10%).

3% Back in Rewards

A Best Buy Visa credit cardholder gets 1.5 points per $1 spent (3% back in rewards) on net purchases made at gas stations. Though, Offer may be withdrawn without notice.

2% Back in Rewards

You will get 1 point per $1 spent (2% back in rewards) on net purchases made at restaurants, bars, and grocery stores. This offer also applies to only a Best Buy Visa credit cardmember.

1% Back in Rewards

Get an additional 1 point per $2 spent (1% back in rewards) on net purchases outside Best Buy with the My Best Buy Visa credit card.

The annual fees of Best Buy Citi credit card are between $0-$59 depending on the credit type you are holding. Apart from reward bonuses, Best Buy also offers a special financing program for the purchase of products above a certain amount of dollars.

How to Redeem Your Rewards

Redeeming your Best Buy reward is fairly straightforward. You can at what points you want to redeem them. For every Best Buy point you accumulate, you will earn $0.02 each.

You can choose to set your certificate preferences to be automatically issued or manually issued. The lowest certificate can be issued at 250 points for a $5 or at 1,000 points for a $20 certificate preference.

Once your reward certificate preference is set, it will be emailed to you and must be used within the 60 days expiration due date after they are issued.

Flexible Financing program Offers

Best Buy Citi credit card offers special financing benefits on purchases over a certain dollar amount. The special financing option allows shoppers to pay off their balance in fixed monthly installments over a limited time period.

With the special financing offers, interest is deferred for a set period of time. If you pay off the purchase balance before the end of the financing terms, no interest will be charged on the purchase.

However, if you didn’t pay off your purchase balance by the end of the financing term, then the interest charged on each month’s balance will be owed at the APR for regular purchases.

Note that a product qualifies for a special financing offer when it is up to $199 and above.

What are the Drawbacks of Best Buy credit card

It can hurt Your Credit Score

Generally, all credit card application has some effect on credit score. Hence, the Best Buy Citi credit card is not an exception. Permit me to say that not the application of the credit card itself that hurt your credit score but the way you use the card.

You can hurt your credit score in severy ways. If you fail to pay your credit on time, you will be reported to the credit bureaus. Another way it hurts your credit score is the failure to pay the monthly minimum agreed amount.

More also, when you keep your credit balance above 30%, it lowers your credit score and they will report you to the credit bureaus

Attracts High-Interest Rate

A low credit score always attracts a high-interest rate. So the higher you keep your credit score the lower the interest rate.

The Best Buy credit card rate is somewhere between 25.24% to 27.99%. This interest rate is very higher. Although the rate changes from time to time.

However, this rate wouldn’t be any problem for a shopper who always pays off his credit balance in full on a monthly basis. But if you are the type who doesn’t pay off your credit balance in full every month, This is a very high and hurtful interest rate.

How to Avoid Paying Interest

This section will be interesting right. yes I know you wouldn’t like to run into debt. Now see how you can avoid paying interest on Special Financing Offers.

• Always make a monthly payment
• You must pay the entire promotional purchase balance by the end of the financing term. Or you will have to pay the interest charged on each month’s balance. Even at the Annual Percentage Rate (APR) for regular purchases.

You may have to pay more than your minimum due on your monthly credit card statement to avoid paying interest. If you have only one promotional balance, an easy way to do this is to divide the promotional balance by the promotional period and pay that amount each month. Learn More.