The Citi Double Cash is one of the most flexible rewards cards out there — you can earn cash back now, and redeem for travel later

• We don't know when we'll be able to travel again, which means now is an ideal time to be flexible with your credit card rewards. 
• The Citi® Double Cash Card is a great option because it earns cash back, but if you pair it with another Citi card that earns ThankYou points, you have the option to redeem your cash-back for travel.
• You could pair the Citi® Double Cash Card with either the Citi Premier Card (with a $95 annual fee) or the premium Citi Prestige® Credit Card (with a $495 annual fee and lots of travel perks).
• The Citi Citi® Double Cash Card earns 2% cash back on every purchase — 1% back when you buy, and another 1% back when you pay your bill.
• See Business Insider's list of the best rewards credit cards.

No one knows what the world will look like in a month or a year. So what should your credit card rewards strategy look like when it's impossible to know how soon our economy will recover and travel will become safe again?

The answer is to be flexible. When you have a credit card that you can use to earn either cash back or travel rewards,  you'll know that you'll have excellent options regardless of which is more important to you in the future. By earning either cash back or travel rewards, the Citi® Double Cash Card may be the best rewards card available for use during the current crisis.

How the Citi Double Cash card works

With this card, you earn 2% cash back — 1% cash back at the time of purchase and another 1% cash back when you make a payment, with no limits. But instead of receiving cash back, you also have the option to convert each dollar of rewards to 100 points in Citi's ThankYou Rewards program, so you can receive up to 2 points per dollar spent.

ThankYou points can be redeemed for 1 cent each toward travel reservations, gift cards, and merchandise. But there's little point in doing so when you could have just received the equivalent amount as cash back. However, those who also hold either the Citi Premier Card or the Citi Prestige® Credit Card will also have the option to convert their points to frequent flyer miles with airline partners.

There are currently 15 airline transfer partners including Air France/KLM, JetBlue, Qantas, Singapore Airlines, and Virgin Atlantic. And while foreign travel is likely to recover after only after domestic travel does, keep in mind that nearly all of these foreign frequent flyer programs offer awards on domestic flights operated their American partners. For example, Qantas miles can be redeemed for flights on American Airlines, Singapore miles can be redeemed for United flights, and Virgin Atlantic miles can be redeemed for Delta flights.

The Citi® Double Cash Card doesn't offer a sign-up bonus, but it does feature 18 months of 0% APR financing on balance transfers (then a 13.99% - 23.99% (Variable)), with a 3% balance transfer fee ($5 minimum). It does have a 3% foreign transaction fee, but these days, that doesn't really matter.

There's no annual fee for the Citi® Double Cash Card, but if you eventually want to transfer your points to miles, there's a $95 annual fee for the Citi Premier and a $495 annual fee for the Citi Prestige. You can wait until you need to transfer your points to miles to get either of these cards that give the ability to do so.

Read more:Business Insider's Citi Double Cash card review

Other cards that allow you to redeem travel rewards for cash back

The Chase Ultimate Rewards program allows you to redeem points for 1 cent each towards cash back. The Chase Freedom® and Chase Freedom Unlimited® cards work much like the Citi® Double Cash Card in that they are cash-back cards that allow you to transfer your points to travel partners only when you have another premium rewards card with an annual fee, like the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card or the Chase Sapphire Reserve®.

Each Chase Ultimate Rewards point is worth 1 cent. There's no Chase card that offers 2 points per dollar spent on all purchases, but the Chase Freedom® offers you 5x points on up to $1,500 spent in combined purchases in featured categories (then 1x), which include groceries in Q2 (April, May and June) of 2020.

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