Credit card offer - talk me out of it?

[geekette]

I saw a credit card offer over on the travel miles forum (offshoot of MMM), but there wasn't much discussion about it.  It's a Citi Thank You card, but the main draw is $650 toward a smart phone.  Caveats include $95 annual fee, 15 days of AT&T service (can cancel after that), and $2k minimum spend in 3 months (and the smart phone purchase can count toward that). 

I figure for $200 max, I could get $650 toward an unlocked smart phone (that I don't really need, but could easily sell).

Am I missing something?

[tvan]

The one thing I would check is of you can have only 15 days of AT&T service.  I thought they were all contracts?

[tvan]

Also can you get a phone that's compatible with Google Fi?  Then switch to Fi.

[geekette]

No contracts anymore, although they have the "Next" plan, which spreads payments out over 24 months.

I'm not interested in Google Fi (perfectly happy with my $10 Airvoice plan), but Google Fi is only available on a few Nexus phones.  I don't see them listed on AT&T's site. 

[Paul der Krake]

Lots of people in the cards forums are talking about it, the main drawback is that AT&T will do a hard pull for the privilege of selling you postpaid service.

Depending on your situation, you may care about this a lot, or not at all.

[Travis]

This entire card's purpose seems to be for paying your AT&T bill with a couple related perks thrown in (that suspiciously look geared to get you spend more money on AT&T).  Are you an AT&T customer?

[geekette]

Nope.  This just looked like a good way to come out positive while spending what I normally spend.  Looking further, it's been out for a while, so it probably won't disappear soon. I'll probably wait until someone in the family would actually like a new phone and see if it's still available.

[lauren214]

I saw a credit card offer over on the travel miles forum (offshoot of MMM), but there wasn't much discussion about it.  It's a Citi Thank You card, but the main draw is $650 toward a smart phone.  Caveats include $95 annual fee, 15 days of AT&T service (can cancel after that), and $2k minimum spend in 3 months (and the smart phone purchase can count toward that). 

I figure for $200 max, I could get $650 toward an unlocked smart phone (that I don't really need, but could easily sell).

Am I missing something?

I think you could achieve the same goal with the discover it card if you wanted to get an iPhone 6/6+/6s. Say a $650 phone. You get the card, then buy the phone through the discover portal and get 10% back (5% offer, doubled in the first year). Then put the card on your phone on Apple Pay and through the end of this year you get 22% cash back (!!!) whenever you use it in store anywhere (up to 10,000 in spend, so up to 2200 back). So if you spent a couple grand stocking up on stuff you're going to need in the next year anyways, you'd cover the cost of the phone and anything over that would just be profit. And the card doesn't have an annual fee.