EXPIRED This article relates to an offer or promotion which has now expired.
No sooner were we reporting that Citi had extended its sign-up bonus on the PremierMiles Visa card for another two months, a new offer for existing cardholders has been launched this morning.
Lunar New Year Promotion
Citi’s Lunar New Year promotion awards you with 38,888 Citi Miles (transferable into 38,888 KrisFlyer miles plus many other frequent flyer miles) for a spend of S$8,888 between 1st February 2019 and 31st March 2019.
The offer is only for Citi PremierMiles Visa cardholders, Amex is not included.
A fee of S$288 is payable if you enrol and successfully complete the spend in the two-month period. Here are the basic terms and conditions for the promotion:
- SMS “38MILES(space)Last 4 Digits of your Citi PremierMiles Visa Card” using your registered Mobile Number to 72484 to enrol.
- Spend a minimum of S$8,888 from 1 Feb 2019 to 31 Mar 2019. A programme fee of S$288 will be charged within 2 months from promotion end date, subject to terms and conditions.
- Only applies to Citi PremierMiles Visa Main Cardholders with card open date before 1 Aug 2018.
The 38,888 miles you will be awarded under this promotion include the normal miles earning rate on this card, and assumes the basic earn rate of 1.2 miles per dollar spent locally rather than 2.0 miles per dollar spent overseas.
That means the bonus is actually 28,223 miles, since you would usually earn at least 10,665 miles for a spend of S$8,888 assuming local spend.
Qualifying spend for this offer excludes specific categories. The program fee will be charged and bonus miles awarded, assuming you met the spend criteria, 2 months after the end of the promotion.
The full terms and conditions for this offer are available here.
It is worth it?
Assuming you have sufficient spending to do over the next two months (it’s quite a high amount for most people), you are ‘buying’ the 28,223 bonus miles here for S$288, a rate of 1.02 cents per mile.
That equation shifts slightly if you’re already using a card with a higher earning level for general spend. Take the BOC Elite Miles card for example, which earns 1.5 miles per dollar spent locally.
Assuming local spend you would earn 13,332 miles using BOC, reducing the effective bonus miles under this promotion to 25,556 (an effective cost of 1.13 cents per mile). That’s still quite good however.
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Summary
This one is not quite as good as the 31,200 bonus miles for a spend of S$9,000 over a 2-month period in 2017, for an administrative fee of S$238 (0.8 cents per mile), but it is still a nice offer for this card that some high spenders will be able to take advantage of.
Unfortunately it is not open to new or recent applicants who also picked up the 21,000 miles sign-up bonus, or apply now and do so.
Remember that you must have held the PremierMiles card before 1st August 2018 and successfully enrol by SMS to be eligible for the offer.
seems targeted. I did not receive such invitation.
FYI, I received invitation after 6 pm yesterday.
Omg… I’m currently on vacay and spent 10k on my card YESTERDAY (31 Jan!) For the time period, presume they look at SG time zone not time zone of destination? Do my purchases still count if I have not signed up? (Also is this invitation-only)?
The terms and conditions state that:
“Qualifying Spend will be determined by its transaction date based on Singapore Timing (UTC+08:00) and Citibank bears no liability for any late submission or transaction posting of any purchase by any merchant that might affect the Promotion.”
So yes it has to post between 1st Feb and 31st Mar 2019 to qualify unfortunately.
Your purchases do count if you sign up for the promotion later than the purchase itself (provided the purchase is eligible). You must however enrol before the end of the promotion period. The T&Cs explain:
“For clarity, if the Eligible Cardmember fails to (1) meet the minimum Qualifying Spend of S$8,888 (or its equivalent in foreign currency) on his Eligible Card within the Promotion Period, or (2) fails to enroll for the Promotion during the Promotion Period (whether before or after he meets the minimum Qualifying Spend of S$8,888), the program fee will not be debited to the Eligible Cardmember’s Eligible Card account and the Bonus Miles will not be credited to the Eligible Cardmember’s Eligible Card account.”
As for the invitation-only aspect, see my response above to freedom. We are waiting to hear but 95% sure if you successfully enrol by SMS you will be eligible. Citi is even advertising this offer on the homepage, unlikely to be a targeted promotion in this case.
Thanks Andrew this is super helpful. And great scoop!!