Auto-renewing subscriptions you don't want to renew automatically?

[justvisitedyesterday]

Howdy,

Just a little trick for those pesky auto-renewing subscriptions you don't want to have to remember 1 month or 1 year later...

I have a Citi Double Cash card (2% back on everything) as my standard credit card between credit card bonus deals. 

One thing I don't think many people know is that Citi offers (on all their cards) a "Virtual Account Number" option that gives you unlimited custom numbers that you can add a $ and/or expiration date (12 month limit) to so any type of auto-renewing subscription will fail when they try to renew it, but satisfies the requirement to have a credit card for the first purchase or sign-up.

I've used it for magazine subscriptions, free trials, app subscriptions, website subscriptions, online purchase security, etc.

Once logged in click on "member benefits" --> "credit card security" --> "virtual account number" and then "advanced" to set limits.  I've only ever used the web browser but there's a desktop version if you use it a lot.

For others' benefit, do any other cards have this option?

Happy holidays...should have posted this on Black Friday, no?

[Nola584]

Thanks for posting- this is handy and I didn’t know it existed! I’d definitely prefer to do some extra work up front rather than risk forgetting to cancel.

[HipGnosis]

I wonder if that'd work for getting out of things that auto-charge that are hard to cancel; like gym memberships

[SmileAllDay]

Ohhhh nice, justvisitedyesterday. That's something I never thought of, and sounds more intelligent that my elaborate 'set calendar reminder to cancel' technique that has a 75% success rate. :)