Citi is running a rare miles bonus for new customers signing up for its Citi Rewards credit cards during the first three months of 2019. The deal is only applicable if you don’t currently hold a Citi credit, or have not held one for at least 12 months. It’s worth 10,800 bonus miles and is good for applications made on or before 31st March 2019.
Note: Citi has extended this offer for applications made on or before 31st March 2020.
10,800 miles sign-up bonus
The sign-up bonus for the Citi Rewards cards for those not currently holding a Citi credit card and having not held one in the last 12 months prior to application, is worth 10,800 miles, provided you have S$3,000 of spending to do in the next 3 full calendar months from the end of the calendar month of card approval.
For example, if you are approved for the card on 18th January 2019, the qualifying spend period is from that date until 30th April 2019 (3 full calendar months from the end of January 2019).
This card also features full fee waiver for the first year of membership as standard.
As usual with these kinds of promotions, your S$3,000 qualifying spend must fall outside the following categories:
- Equal Payment Plan (EPP) purchases.
- Refunded / disputed / unauthorised or fraudulent retail purchases.
- Quick Cash / Ready Credit PayLite and other instalment loans.
- Paywise / cash advance / quasi-cash transactions, balance transfers, annual card membership fees, interest or goods and services taxes.
- Bill payments made using the card as a source of funds.
- Late payment fees.
- Any other form of service / miscellaneous fees.
Full terms and conditions relating to this offer for new Citi credit card customers can be found here.
What about existing or former Citi customers?
If you are an existing Citi credit card holder, or had a Citi credit card account which was terminated in the last 12 months prior to application, you unfortunately won’t be eligible for this sign-up bonus, with no alternative incentive offered.
If you are a supplementary cardholder with Citi in Singapore, but not the main cardholder on any such account, you will be eligible for this bonus.
How it works
Provided you are eligible, and you apply for a Citi Rewards card on or before 31st March 2019 (extended to 31st March 2020), which is approved within 30 days of application, you will be awarded 27,000 bonus Citi ThankYou Points once you’ve spent at least S$3,000 on the card in the qualifying spend period as defined above.
These are true bonus points, as you’ll also accrue Citi ThankYou Points at a rate of 1 per S$1 (or 10 per S$1 in eligible categories) for your first S$3,000 spending on the card as usual.
Remember that Citi ThankYou Points transfer to airline miles at a 2.5:1 ratio, which is why the bonus is actually only 10,800 miles.
We’ve incorporated this latest offer into our Top sign-up bonuses page for Singapore credit cards, showing which products will currently offer you the most generous miles boost.
Earning rates
The Citi Rewards cards earn a measly 0.4 miles (1 Citi ThankYou Point) for every S$1 spent both locally and overseas (i.e. transacted in foreign currency), though the real key to these cards as you’ll see from our full review is the 4.0 miles (10 Citi ThankYou Points) per S$1 spent on shoes, bags and clothes at online or retail stores, or department stores, both locally and overseas.
For all the eligible MCC (merchant category codes), see our detailed review of these cards.
Unfortunately in early October 2018 Citi amended the S$12,000 annual cap for bonus miles earning at the 4mpd rate with these cards with a S$1,000 monthly cap instead, meaning they no longer work well for large purchases.
Effectively this also reduced the realistic annual bonus points cap for this card. While before it was relatively easy to hit the annual 120,000 Citi ThankYou Points cap then stop spending on the card, you would now have to transact exactly S$1,000 in the bonus categories in each monthly statement cycle 12 times in a row, something you are highly unlikely to be able to achieve even with careful planning.
Flexible points
Citi has one of the widest range of frequent flyer programs for you to transfer your points into, including British Airways, Qatar Airways, Thai and Qantas, making these very flexible points to accrue. Given the card is fee-free, the bonus miles are effectively free, though for general spending you could be accruing 1.5 miles per dollar locally with the BOC Elite Miles card.
See our full review of the Citi Rewards cards for more details, including a full list of transfer partners.
| Citi Rewards Visa / MasterCard | ||
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Sign-up Bonus: | 10,800 miles |
| Annual Fee: | Free in Year 1 | |
| Cost per mile: | Zero | |
| Min Spend: | S$3,000 in 3 months | |
| Min Income: | S$30,000/yr | |
| Citi ThankYou Points credit to the following programs: | ||
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What about the Citi Rewards MasterCard?
The offer is good for both the Citi Rewards Visa and Citi Rewards MasterCard brands. As we mention in our review of this product, these are largely comparable however the MasterCard will usually give you a marginally better foreign exchange rate. Worth considering if your intention is to use the card overseas.
Both Eddie and I went for the MasterCard version last year to take advantage of the 8mpd rate using Apple Pay (now ended) during our round-the-world trip, and it’s worked really well for us.
Note that we’re not talking about Citi’s fee for foreign transactions here, which is set at 3.0% for both products, but the forex rate calculated by the network operator. MasterCard almost always comes out slightly on top.
Signing up for the MasterCard as well as the Visa card is also a good way to double your monthly cap when spending in the bonus categories with this card. You’ll then be able to achieve up to S$2,000 monthly spend at the 4mpd rates (max S$1,000 per card), though do note the 10,800 miles sign-up bonus will only pay out on the first card you are approved for.
Our summary
As far as current card sign-up bonuses go in Singapore, this isn’t the best on the market despite the bonus miles being ‘free’ if you have S$3,000 to spend in the next three months.
That’s because the Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer Amex Blue will still net you 12,500 bonus miles for an identical spend in the first three months of card membership, with their current offer also allowing you to replicate part of the bonus again in months 4-6 of card membership if you wish, for a total 20,000 miles bonus for S$6,000 spend. This card also comes with no annual fee in the first year.
Having said that, the Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer co-brand cards only allow you to credit into KrisFlyer miles, while Citi has a much wider range of airline partners globally, something to consider.
Do bear in mind though that to be eligible for the offer you also have to be new to Citi credit cards in Singapore (or at least new in the last 12 months). Existing customers, even those holding other Citi credit cards, won’t get the bonus.