Basic Information
The Citi Prestige Card is one of the top travel credit cards offered by Citibank. This card is often seen as the next step up to their mass offerings like the Citi Rewards Card and the Citi Premiermiles Card.
In this post, we’ll walk through an in-depth review of the Citi Prestige Card and determine if it’s the right credit card for you.
Earning Miles
| Earn Rates |
|---|
| 1.3 mpd on local spend |
| 2 mpd on overseas spend |
The Citi Prestige Card features a fairly modest 1.3 mpd on all local spending and 2 mpd on overseas spending. There are no bonus categories to earn more miles with the card, and it’s rightfully so.
Cards typically in this tier do not come with amazing earning rates as their main selling point is their benefits.
Transfer Partners
Citibank has one of the most diverse transfer partners in the Singapore market and the Citi Prestige card is no different. At the time of writing, there are a total of 10 airline travel partners and 1 hotel partner for Citibank credit cards.
| Program | Transfer Rates |
|---|---|
| British Airways Executive Club | 25,000:10,000 |
| Cathay Pacific Asia Miles | 25,000:10,000 |
| Etihad Guest | 25,000:10,000 |
| EVA Air Infinity Mileagelands | 25,000:10,000 |
| Air France KLM Flying Blue | 25,000:10,000 |
| IHG Rewards Club | 25,000:10,000 |
| Qantas Frequent Flyer | 25,000:10,000 |
| Qatar Airways Privilege Club | 25,000:10,000 |
| Singapore Airlines Krisflyer | 25,000:10,000 |
| Thai Airways Royal Orchid Plus | 25,000:10,000 |
| Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles | 25,000:10,000 |
One of our favourite partners from the list has to be EVA Air where we can redeem 25,000 Infinity Mileageland miles for a 1-way business class flight from Singapore to Japan. Apart from the just released HSBC TravelOne Card, this is an exclusive transfer partner of Citibank.
Pooling of Points
Unfortunately, points earned across different Citibank credit cards do not pool together. Therefore, if you have points split between different cards, you’ll have to redeem them separately (and pay multiple miles redemption fees). You’ll also have to take note of the transfer blocks of 25,000 Citi Points, which makes redemptions just a bit more difficult.
It currently costs S$27 (including 8% GST) for each points transfer.
Complimentary Lounge Access
As a cardholder of the Citi Prestige Card, you’ll be automatically enrolled in a Priority Pass membership. The membership provided by Citi Prestige grants you unlimited access to participating lounges with 1 guest.
This is one of the most generous allocations in the market. Moreover, this membership also grants you access to Priority Pass Restaurants which card issuers like American Express explicitly do not. Singapore’s Changi Airport recently added 4 new restaurants to the network, making this card one of the best cards in Singapore for lounge access.
4th Night Free Hotel Stays
By making your hotel reservations of at least 4 nights with the Citi Prestige Card, you’ll be reimbursed the cost of 1 night at the hotel. This can effectively decrease the overall cost of your trip, given that accommodation costs typically take up a large share of the pie. Reservations have to be made through the Citi Prestige Concierge and they have to be fully prepaid at the time of booking.
Although this sounds good in theory, there are many factors that might affect the actual savings that you might receive.
Firstly, the prices of the hotels that you get through the concierge might not be the lowest available. There are different platforms to make a reservation at a hotel these days and hotel OTAs like Agoda are pretty aggressive with their price cuts.
Secondly, you miss out on any rebates that you might get with cashback portals like Shopback or credit cards with higher miles earn rates. Those can already reduce the overall cost of the reservation significantly.
Thirdly, you’ll only be able to fully optimise this benefit if you’re always doing 4-night stays at a hotel. Anything less, and you won’t get the benefit. Anything more, and you’ll still only receive 1 night for free.
Lastly, you’ll only get reimbursed based on the nightly average price of the room, excluding any fees, taxes or surcharges imposed. This can significantly reduce the amount of rebates you’re receiving.
Therefore, it sounds like this is a great benefit to have on a card, it might not be as lucrative as one might think in practice.
Complimentary Airport Limousine Transfers
You’ll get 2 complimentary airport limousine transfers per quarter if you spend a minimum of S$12,000 on the card within the same quarter. I doubt this is a benefit that many will take advantage of, given the high spending requirement.
There is a huge opportunity cost given that the Citi Prestige Card has a relatively low mile earn rate. I would not recommend anyone trying to spend S$12,000 per quarter just to earn their complimentary airport transfers.
Complimentary Golf Games
For golfers, the card grants you a total of 6 complimentary golf games per year. This translates into 3 games in local golf clubs and 3 games in regional golf clubs.
| Local | Sentosa Golf Club Sembawang Golf Club Marina Bay Golf Club |
| Regional | Mission Hills Golf Club Dongguan Hillview Golf Club Horizon Hills Golf & Country Club Tropicana Golf & Country Resort Glenmarie Golf & Country Club Ria Bintan Golf Club Klub Golf Sukajadi |
There are terms of conditions that apply to each individual golf course. It’ll be good to check the link here before taking advantage of this benefit.
Travel Insurance
You’ll be covered up to S$1,000,000 when you charge your full travel fare to your Citi Prestige Card. This includes accident benefits, overseas medical benefits and even travel convenience benefits.
Travel inconvenience is what we want to focus on as that’s the most likely incident to happen on vacations.
| Protection | Details |
|---|---|
| Baggage Loss | S$500 per article, max of S$1,000 |
| Baggage Delay | S$200 every 8 full consecutive hours of delay, max of S$400 |
| Flight Delay | S$100 for every 8 full consecutive hours of delay, max of S$400 |
The travel insurance provided by the Citi Prestige Card is one of the most comprehensive travel protection offered by the Credit Card. Regardless, we’ll still recommend purchasing a separate travel insurance package and not solely relying on the travel protections provided by credit cards.
Access to Citi PayAll Service
By having the Citi Prestige Card, you’ll have access to the Citi PayAll payment facility. This allows you to pay for things you normally wouldn’t be able to pay for with a credit card or earn points with, such as insurance premiums, utility bills and tax payments.
There is a 2.2% fee on such payments, but you’ll also earn a base rate of 1.3 mpd. This effectively means that you’ll be purchasing miles for 1.69 cents per mile, which is pretty respectable depending on how much you value a mile.
There is currently an ongoing Citi PayAll promotion until 20 August 2023 where you’ll receive 5.5 Points (2.2 mpd) for all Citi PayAll transactions. This lowers the cost of mile purchase to 1 cent per mile, making this a really good deal. Do note that you’ll have to spend at least S$8,000 on Citi PayAll transactions on a single card to be eligible for this promotion.
Sign up Bonus
| Sign up Bonus |
|---|
| 177,500 Points (71,000 miles) after spending S$800 within 2 months |
There is currently a 71,000 miles sign-up bonus for spending just S$800 within 2 months of card approval. This bonus is eligible for anyone who is not currently a cardholder of the Citi Prestige Card, even if you are an existing Citibank credit cardholder!
This is an incredibly outsized offer and the highest we’ve seen in some time. I’d highly recommend going for it if you have already been eyeing the Citi Prestige Card. Do take note of the high annual fee though.
Eligibility
The Citi Prestige Card is available to anyone with a minimum annual income of S$120,000. This applies to both local Singapore citizens and foreigners.
Fees
| Fee Type | Amount |
|---|---|
| Annual Fee | S$540 |
| Foreign Transaction Fee | 3.25% |
The Citi Prestige Card comes with an annual fee of S$540. This fee is not waivable.
By paying the annual fee, you’ll receive a renewal gift of 62,500 Points (equivalent to 25,000 miles). If we strip off every other benefit that this card provides, you’ll be effectively purchasing miles for 2.16 cents per mile, which is not bad.
My Verdict – Should you get the Citi Prestige Credit Card?
Maybe. The Citi Prestige Card is a great card to have if you’re looking for a card with great lounge benefits and travel protection. The generous lounge allowances make the card one of the best credit cards to have if you’re looking to greatly elevate your travel experience.
The impressive sign-up bonus is also something to take advantage of given the low spend requirement needed to achieve the bonus.
However, this isn’t a card made for racking up a ton of travel miles. For that, we’d recommend its sibling Citi Rewards Card. It also isn’t a card for enjoying luxurious benefits, unlike the American Express Platinum Charge Card. The 4th-night free benefit and complimentary airport limousine transfer benefits also fall short of their promise to actually deliver anything useful to cardholders.
Therefore, we would only recommend the Citi Prestige Card to a very select group of people looking for very specific travel benefits.
