CONFIRMED: Citi Custom Cash Gone + NEW Southwest BONUSES

It's gone. A couple of days ago we reported on a rumor that Citi would discontinue the custom cash credit card, one of its most popular cards, and those rumors have turned out to be true. We will talk about whether current members of the card are affected and what Citi might do next. Then we also have new bonuses on the Chase Southwest credit cards and also how you can earn yourself an easy 40,000 chase points for referring someone to your Chase card. Hey credit warriors, welcome to the show. My name is Ben Hedges, aka The Credit Shufu, and on this channel I cover US credit cards, personal finance, and luxury travel. If you like the sound of that, please subscribe, but let's get into it. Oh, and this video is brought to you by Silo, the brokerage where you can earn credit card-style points on your investments and get your Amex, Platinum, and Gold for free, but more on that later. Now, the Citi custom cash earns 5% back on your biggest spending category per month from a list of popular categories that include gas, dining, supermarkets, and several more. But if you look at the landing page for the Citi custom cash now, it just says not available. This happened yesterday afternoon at about 4.30pm or so eastern time. Because of the leak that we reported on earlier in the week that, you know, people knew this was going to happen, it looks like a lot of people were able to apply and get the card just in the nick of time before it closed to new applicants. There are also people who already had the card, but are saying that they got in and product changed or applied for another one before the card closed. Like this person now has three. He says, I got my three, now I just wonder how long until they're all turned into stratas. By stratas, he means the Citi strata card, which is their most basic no annual fee card that earns thank you points. And then a person replies saying, exactly, this is the first step because we already know they're going to nerf the 5% cashback at some point down the road. So people are already talking about what Citi might do. So let's talk about that. Since this person originally said they had three custom cash cards, and yes, you could indeed have more than one, this is a common strategy. Actually, Richard Debs, who I interviewed a year or two ago, was using this very strategy. I had a Citi custom cash card that I was using for gas. So it was my 5X gas card. And then I was able to product change my second premier card to a custom cash. So now I have two custom cash cards. I actually have three custom cash cards. And that's through product change, right? Well, the second one is through a product change. The third one I'm an authorized user on, but it's all in the family. This way he could get 5% on $1,000 worth of grocery with two of the cards, and then he would use the other card for 5% on $500 worth of spend in another category. And probably a lot of people are doing this. And since you don't have to remember to activate the categories, like with the Chase Freedom or Discover It, and the categories are super popular ones, very broad, I suspect that Citi was actually losing money on this card. So like people on Reddit have said, the first step is closing it to new applicants, and then after that, probably nerfing some of the benefits. So what could Citi actually do? Well, one option, like that person on Reddit said, is to first wait until publicity dies down, and then quietly convert all current card members to an alternative no annual fee card that Citi actually makes a profit on, like maybe the Strata. Or they could start playing with the card, reducing the number of categories that trigger the 5%, make you have to activate the category so that some people forget and then just earn 1% when they think they're earning 5%. I think that's a trick that Chase and Discover use. And their categories actually on Chase and Discover, they're often for like specific stores rather than really broad things like dining, gas, etc. like you have with Citi. So the Chase and Discover categories, not all of them, sometimes you do have dining or gas, but sometimes you have like, you know, Norwegian Cruise Line or things that are really specific. Or lastly, Citi could just leave it as it is and just let everyone who already has it enjoy it and just hope that over time, people close the card or they product change out of it and the pool of card members becomes smaller and smaller. It's a real shame this is happening though, since this was a way that you could really earn a lot of Citi points. You know, it's cashback, but you can also transfer them to points. Let me know what you think will happen in the comments below. Alright, let's move on to some big credit card bonuses. But first, over the past year, you've probably heard me talking about Silo, the investing platform that enables you to earn points on your stocks. It's what Bilt has done with earning points on rent, but for investing. Now we have an exciting update about Silo that I know viewers of this channel in particular will find interesting. Silo is rolling out a new status program that will cover your American Express gold and platinum card fees. If your account with Silo is big enough, you unlock status benefits at $750,000. They'll cover your American Express gold card fee and also your Costco executive membership fee every year. And at $1,000,000, they'll cover the $895 annual fee on your Amex Platinum too. They even say that if you are in the Chase or Citi credit card system instead of Amex, you should reach out to them because they may very well pay the annual fee on one of those cards instead. And don't forget, this is in addition to up to 250,000 points on your portfolio balance every year and up to a 250,000 point welcome bonus in the first year. So a total of potentially 500,000 points in your first year. That bonus runs until the end of May. Currently, points are redeemable for cash back at one cent per point, but they do have transfer partners coming this summer. While credit card companies give you points for spending money, Silo has turned this concept on its head and gives you points for saving and investing money. So if you want to get your Amex Gold and Amex Platinum for free whilst earning points on your portfolio, click the link below or go directly to silomarkets.com slash Ben to get started by the end of May. All right, so next story. Chase just came out with new bonuses on its Southwest Airlines cards. Here are the details. Southwest Plus card. This one has a $99 annual fee. You can earn 80,000 points after you spend $1,000 on purchases in the first three months. The Southwest Premier. This one has a $149 annual fee and you can earn 85,000 points after you spend $2,000 on purchases in your first three months. And then the Southwest Priority that has a $229 annual fee and you can earn 90,000 points after you spend $3,000 on purchases in your first three months. Now, these are high bonuses with the top one being close to a hundred thousand points and actually probably after you do the spending, depending on the categories and stuff, you would have pretty much a hundred thousand points. And the reason this is significant is that the points that you get from the bonus on the cards do count towards the Southwest Companion Pass. That is a special pass that gets you two for one flights for you and a companion. How many points will you need for that exactly? Well, you need to earn 135,000 points in a calendar year. So if you get this card or one of these three cards and you get the bonus and then you do a bit of additional spending or earn some points from flights and stuff and you do manage to get 135,000, you will get the Companion Pass for the rest of 2026 and all of 2027. And since we're only halfway through 2026, you have plenty of time to do it. So I would say that this is quite a good opportunity. The only downside of the Companion Pass is that you have to fly Southwest. But seriously, this could be a great deal for a couple or someone who's planning a big trip to go on with a friend that includes multiple flights. All right, let's now move on to the last topic of the day, how you can easily get 40,000 Chase points. So right now, Chase just increased the referral reward on their business cards from 20,000 to 40,000 points. So if you just go to chase.com slash refer a friend and you enter your card's info on this page, you can get to this. Or actually, it's easier if you just search refer your Chase card on Google and you choose the sponsored result. You can pick the card that you want to refer people to and it then prompts you to sign into your account and you can then refer people to that card or you can pick another card. The specific deal we are looking at is 40,000 points for each referral up to 200,000 per year on the ultimate rewards points earning business cards. You can see here that the person applying can get 100,000 points on the Inc Preferred, 750 bucks on the Inc Unlimited, etc. So if I was to max this out on both my Chase business cards, because I have two, that's going to be 400,000 points. Cash value of that is $4,000 and it could be worth even more when redeeming for business class flights. So if you want to help me get there and have been thinking about getting a Chase business card anyway, I'll put my link for these down below. OK, I'm being a little cheeky. My link really is down below, though, if you want it. But alternatively, if you have a friend with a Chase business card, you can help them out, too, by applying through their link. All right, guys, that is the video for today. Thanks for watching. Happy Friday. And don't forget, if you want to get your Amex Gold and Platinum for free while also earning points on your stock portfolio, use my link silomarkets.com slash Ben to get started by the end of May. Please subscribe if you're new. We'll see you next time. Bye bye.