Citi now allows you to accumulate limo rides earned through the Prestige card

If you’re a Citi Prestige cardholder in Singapore, you’ll likely be familiar with the card’s complimentary airport limo service. This one gained some notoriety in 2019 for hiking the minimum spend needed in each quarter to activate a pair of free transfers from S$1,500 to S$20,000 (no, it wasn’t a typo).

There was some reprieve earlier this year when the bank reduced the spend requirement from S$20,000 to S$12,000 per quarter, but this still left it as the most expensive among the five cards in town offering such a perk.

Key facts

Here are the basics of the Citi Prestige Airport Limousine Service.

This is one of the few cards not applying either a midnight surcharge or a Sentosa surcharge on the complimentary limo bookings, though that doesn’t detract from its steep spend requirement for the benefit to kick in!

Earned rides can now be accumulated

In what is no doubt a nod to the COVID-19 situation, with air travel at an almost complete standstill for over two months now, Citi is allowing its Prestige cardholders to ‘accumulate’ their rides earned in each quarter and use them at a future date.

Here’s the change to the terms and conditions, which previously read:

“For the avoidance of doubt, cardmembers cannot bring forward their entitlements or accumulate their spend beyond the Programme Period. Cardmembers must make Qualifying Charges and utilize their entitlement(s) within the same quarter.”

This term now reads:

“Cardmembers can bring forward their unused qualifying entitlement(s) from each quarter and utilize their qualifying entitlement(s) within the year in which the qualifying entitlement is given.”

Note: Here it seems Citi is using the accounting version of the term “bring forward” (i.e. “to carry over”) rather than perhaps the more usual version “to move to an earlier time or date”.

Citi defines the quarters as follows:

• Q1: 1 January to 31 March
• Q2: 1 April to 30 June
• Q3: 1 July to 30 September
• Q4: 1 October to 31 December

The total number of accumulated rides will still need to be used by the end of each calendar year, or they will be forfeited. In effect therefore, you can only carry forward rides earned in each of the first three quarters of the calendar year and use them in one of the subsequent quarters.

You still cannot carry rides earned in any quarter to a subsequent programme year, even those earned in Q4.

Q1 Limo Rides If you have unused limo benefits from Q1 2020, Citi has confirmed to us that these can be ‘reactivated’ and used any time in 2020.

Technically the Citi Prestige limo benefit ends on 31st December 2020, but the deal is likely to be renewed on similar terms next year.

Full terms and conditions for the Citi Prestige limo benefit can be found here.

Credit cards with limo benefits

We’ve updated our comprehensive guide to Singapore credit cards which provide free limo rides with your spending to reflect this latest change for the Citi Prestige card.

There are five cards in total and as you’ll see, there’s quite some disparity in how generous each one is.

Summary

If you’re sitting on a pair of complimentary airport limo transfers earned in Q2 2020 (Apr-Jun), or you will be by the end of this month, don’t worry.

You can now keep these as accumulated benefits and redeem them before 31st December 2020.

Rather than a COVID-19 one-off exemption, Citi has changed the terms and conditions for this benefit, suggesting they will keep it this way if and when the programme is repeated in 2021 and beyond.

That’s good news for those who spend a lot on their Citi Prestige card (and you still have to spend a lot!), but don’t necessarily travel overseas every quarter.

(Cover Photo: Shutterstock)