Upromise – Join millions of families who are discovering a whole new way to save for college

The CITI Upromise 529 credit card provides a straightforward 1% reward for most anything you buy with the card up to a yearly cap of $300. Then things get complicated:

• You can get an additional 10% reward for purchases on some 7,000+ grocery and drugstore brand-name items, but only if you buy from stores in the Upromise network and only if you use the stores' loyalty card in addition to the CITI Upromise Card. If the store you shop at has no loyalty card, you must be sure to register the CITI Upromise card as both a credit card and a grocery card on the Upromise website.
• An additional rebate of 2% from CITI is available for gas purchases (made with the credit card) at Exxon or Mobil locations. Neither the 10% grocery rebate or the 2% gas rebate fall under the $300 cap.
• Finally, rewards paid separately by the Upromise program (on the same 7,000+ brand items) are earned on top of the rewards paid by CITI. Importantly, you are not required to have the CITI Upromise credit card to earn these rewards.

There are two problems with the CITI Upromise credit card. First, the simple part of the reward plan (i.e. the basic 1% rebate) is relatively stingy. Why settle for a 1% reward with a $300 annual cap when a competitor offers a 2% reward card with a $1,500 cap? The answer should be that the supplemental rewards (10% groceries, 2% gas) offset the sub-par basic benefit.

But, and this is the second problem, the supplemental rewards structure is too limited and too complicated. Surely there are families' whose shopping and product preferences are such that the CITI Upromise card is the best option but, for most, a 2% rebate on everything will easily outpace a 1% reward plus the hit-or-miss supplemental product rebates offered by CITI. Other drawbacks:

• the grace period for paying balances in full is only 20 days – also stingy and,
• you must use the 529 plans offered through Upromise.

Summary: There are better 529 reward credit cards available. Much to their credit, Upromise does not require you to have the CITI Upromise credit card to participate in the other parts of their program. This allows savvy parents to utilize Upromise in conjunction with other 529 reward cards.