Most of our readers are already familiar with Citi’s ‘PayAll’ facility, allowing you to settle a range of bills or invoices with your Citi credit card even when the merchant does not necessarily accept credit cards as a payment method, meaning you’ll earn miles for these transactions on payment of an administrative fee.
PayAll is effectively Citi’s way of muscling in on the alternative credit card payment methods, including ipaymy, CardUp and direct bank options such as UOB PRVI Pay and OCBC’s Voyage Payment Facility.
Last year Citi added an additional range of options to its PayAll programme, including insurance, charity and transport payments, not to mention payments to friends or family members for ‘services rendered’, given that Citi does not request evidence of your payment.
Between May and August this year, Citi is offering eligible cardholders the option to earn 2.5 mpd for their first S$120,000 spend using PayAll, with an additional S$50 cashback for those who’ve never made a PayAll transaction before.
Eligible cards are:
- Citi ULTIMA Card
- Citi Prestige Card
- Citi PremierMiles Card
Note that the Citi Rewards card, which was never a good option for PayAll anyway given the earn rate equivalent to 0.4 mpd, was removed from the PayAll programme earlier this month and is therefore not included in this offer.
2.5 mpd bonus offer
If you’re a Citi credit card holder with one of the eligible cards listed above, you’ll be entitled to earn 2.5 mpd instead of your card’s usual earn rate for any PayAll payment made between 1st May 2021 and 31st August 2021.
That’s right, no need to set up recurring payments or meet a minimum / maximum number of transactions. Any payment, any amount – you’re included.
Bonus miles are as follows for each eligible card:
| Card | Normal earn rate | Offer earn rate |
 Citi ULTIMA |
1.6 mpd |
2.5 mpd |
 Citi Prestige |
1.3 mpd |
|
 Citi PremierMiles |
1.2 mpd |
Bonus points or miles are capped at a very generous S$120,000 total transaction spend via PayAll during the promotion period, making this an ideal way to settle your income tax payment at a (probably record-breaking) cost per mile of just 0.8 cents.
| Card | Offer earn rate | Offer cpm |
| Citi ULTIMA |
2.5 mpd |
0.80¢ |
| Citi Prestige |
||
| Citi PremierMiles |
Terms and conditions for this promotion can be found here.
When are the bonus miles credited?
Initially you’ll earn the regular earn rate for your eligible Citi card when making PayAll transactions during the promotion period.
The bonus miles, making up the applicable different to 2.5 mpd (either in equivalent ThankYou points or Citi Miles) will be credited within 10 weeks from the end of the promotion period, which is by 9th November 2021.
New customers: Extra S$50 cashback
If you haven’t made a Citi PayAll transaction before the start date of this promotion (1st May 2021), you’ll also get S$50 cashback credited to your card account, simply for making any payment through the platform during the promotion period, in addition to enjoying the enhanced 2.5 mpd bonus earn rate.
You’ll receive this account credit in the same timeframe as the bonus miles – within 10 weeks after the promotion period ends.
Is it worth it?
Absolutely! Being able to generate such a large quantity of miles at 0.8 cents each is a fantastic offer.
At the top end, if you managed to max out the deal with S$120,000 of PayAll transactions during the promotion, you’d be generating 300,000 miles, enough for three return Business Class trips from Singapore to Tokyo on SIA, for a total fee of S$2,400.
For the income tax season in particular, Citi cardholders are being really spoiled here.
Remember you can use PayAll to settle a range of bills and invoices, with insurance and miscellaneous payments the latest two categories to be added.
Citi Miles / TYP are very flexible
One of the best things about Citi Miles (and Citi ThankYou points) in Singapore is the wide range of transfer partners compared with other bank loyalty points.
You can transfer your miles into 11 different frequent flyer programmes and on the hotel side into IHG points.
| Citi Miles / ThankYou Points credit to the following loyalty schemes: | ||
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For a full list of which credit card loyalty points balances transfer into which frequent flyer programmes or hotel loyalty schemes in Singapore, check out our comprehensive guide here. It also gives examples of some of the alliance and partner airline redemptions you can achieve that you might not have considered before.
As you can see from the table above, Citi gives you a wide range of flight redemption options including oneworld and SkyTeam carriers.
We’ve personally transferred Citi Miles into British Airways Avios (for good value intra-Asia Cathay Pacific redemptions) and Asia Miles (for the Qatar Airways Qsuite to Europe), but Turkish Airlines and the newly revalued Qatar Airways Privilege Club are also great options.
Summary
If you’re a Citi customer with one of the eligible cards for this promotion, then there’s no doubt about it – you should definitely be looking to capitalise on this deal between now and the end of August.
Not only is 0.8 cents per mile a ridiculously competitive rate to buy miles, the promotion mechanics are simple and the upper cap is very generous.
This could well be the perfect income tax settlement method for many of our readers this year, and is definitely how I’ll now personally be paying mine!
There’s an extra sweetener for those who’ve never made a PayAll transaction before in the form of a S$50 account credit for making any payment during the promotion period, equivalent to completely cancelling any fee charged for the first S$2,500 of payments.
Even if you don’t need the miles for flights given the high balances you may have accrued during the last year, buying miles at this rates should still be justifiable given the excellent cost. At this rate (0.8 cpm), you’d get your money back – if you needed to – even for a KrisShop purchase!
(Cover Photo: Konektus Photo / Shutterstock)