Citi PayAll offering 1.8 mpd earn rate – buy miles for 1.2 cents each

Citi’s ‘PayAll’ facility has been a bit quiet on the promotion front recently, following a 2.2 mpd earn rate offer between April and August this year, but is now back with another miles earning offer, allowing you to settle a range of bills or invoices with your Citi credit card.

These promotions are great for expenses where the merchant or service provider does not necessarily accept credit cards as a payment method, and like similar offers before it this latest one covers all payment types.

Citi has a range of options for its PayAll programme, including tax, insurance, charity and transport payments, not to mention payments to friends or family members for ‘services rendered’, given that the bank doesn’t request evidence of your payment.

1.8 mpd bonus offer

Between 18th October 2023 and 29th February 2024, Citi is offering eligible cardholders the option to earn 1.8 mpd for up to S$120,000 spend using PayAll, with an additional S$50 eCapitaVoucher for those who’ve never made a PayAll transaction before.

Your minimum aggregate total spend using the service during the period (regardless of the number of transactions) must be at least S$8,000 on a single eligible card, to trigger the enhanced earn rate on all S$1 – S$120,000 processed, again on a single eligible card.

Eligible cards are:

• Citi ULTIMA Card
• Citi Prestige Card
• Citi PremierMiles Card
• Citi Rewards Card

Offer details

If you’re a Citi credit card holder with one of the eligible cards listed above, you’ll be entitled to earn 1.8 mpd instead of your card’s usual earn rate for any PayAll payment made between now and 29th February 2024, subject to your total payments on a single card across the four months of the offer being more than S$8,000.

There’s no need to set up recurring payments or meet a minimum / maximum number of transactions. Provided you hit S$8,000+ total spend across multiple payments on a single card – you’re included.

The upper limit for bonus miles earning is a generous S$120,000 spend per customer.

Even if you already participated in the recent 2.2 mpd Citi PayAll promotion earlier this year, you’re eligible once again for this new deal.

Bonus miles and the new cost per mile are as follows for the miles-earning eligible cards in the promotion:

Card	Earn rate	Cost per mile (2.2% fee)
Citi ULTIMA	1.6 mpd 1.8 mpd	1.22¢
Citi Prestige APPLY	1.3 mpd 1.8 mpd
Citi PremierMiles APPLY	1.2 mpd 1.8 mpd
Citi Rewards APPLY	0.4 mpd 1.8 mpd

Note that to qualify for the promotion, your Citi PayAll Payment set-up date(s) must fall within the promotion period of 18th October 2023 to 29th February 2024. The successful charge date must be on or before 6th March 2024.

Since April 2023, a 2.2% fee is now in effect for all PayAll transactions.

If you set up any payments recently that haven’t been processed yet, but which will fall in the promotion window, you’ll need to cancel them and set them up again for the amount to qualify towards the minimum spend, and for the 1.8 mpd deal itself.

Full terms and conditions for this promotion, which includes some payment illustrations, can be found here.

This could be a great way to settle your income tax payment or other large expenses at a cost per mile of just 1.22 cents, which is likely to beat most card payment providers and other bank offers during this period.

If you’re planning to be a big spender on PayAll during this promotion and you hold more than one Citi card (for example the PremierMiles and a Citi Rewards card), do also note that the S$120,000 total transaction limit is per customer, not per card, so unfortunately you can’t double your cap.

You can set up PayAll payments via the Citi Mobile App, by clicking the ‘Payments’ icon.

Do note that the bonus rate will not reflect at the confirmation stage, since those miles / points will come in later than the base points (and are subject to the minimum aggregate spend condition).

Just use one card during this promotion

Remember only PayAll spend on single card counts for bonus points or bonus miles earning during this promotion.

For example, if you make S$10,000 of PayAll payments using your Citi PremierMiles card and S$9,000 of PayAll payments using your Citi Prestige card during the promotion, only the card with the most accumulated spend will benefit from the 1.8 mpd offer, in this case the PremierMiles card, despite the minimum spend having been met on both cards.

It’s therefore important to choose (and stick to) a single card for PayAll payments from now until the end of February 2024 if you’re participating in this promotion.

Remember that if you’re using a Citi ULTIMA, Prestige or PremierMiles card, the ThankYou Points or Citi Miles accrued will never expire, whereas if you use a Citi Rewards card the ThankYou Points accrued will fall under a (complex!) expiry system.

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 (e.g. 1 ThankYou point per S$1 for the Citi Rewards Cards).

The bonus miles, making up the applicable difference to 1.8 mpd (either in equivalent ThankYou points or Citi Miles) will be credited within 16 weeks from the end of the promotion period, which is by 20th June 2024.

That’s a heck of a long wait for the bonus miles – 8 months from now – and once again is the major downside of this promotion!

New customers: S$50 eCapitaVoucher

If you haven’t made a Citi PayAll transaction in the 24 months before the start date of this promotion (i.e. since 18th October 2021), you’ll also get a S$50 eCapitaVoucher via SMS or push notification, simply for making total payments of S$8,000+ through the platform during the promotion period.

That’s in addition to enjoying the enhanced 1.8 mpd bonus earn rate for the payment, which will also be triggered in this case.

The vouchers are also credited within 16 weeks of the end of the promotion period for those eligible – by 20th June 2024.

Is it worth it?

Yes! Being able to generate such a large quantity of miles at 1.22 cent, while not quite as good as the best ever PayAll 0.8 cents in 2021 and 2022, is still 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 216,000 miles for a fee of S$2,640.

PayAll also supports tax payments by instalment, so you potentially can spread the cost of your tax bill over this promotion.

Remember you can use PayAll to settle a range of bills and invoices, including Education Fees, Taxes, Rent and Insurance Premiums.

The full list as of October 2023 includes:

• Education Fees
• Taxes
• Rent
• Insurance Premiums
• Renovation Fees
• Property Agent Fees
• Wedding Expenses
• Condo Management Fees
• Child Care Services
• Domestic Helper Service Fees
• Donation or Charity Payment
• Electricity Bills

• Event Management Fees
• Membership Fees
• Maintenance Fees
• Medical Services
• Payment for Retail Goods and Services
• Parking
• Professional Services Fees
• Storage
• Travel Exprenses
• Transport Fees
• Utilities

Citi Miles / TYP are very flexible

One of the best things about Citi Miles (and Citi ThankYou points like you earn with the Prestige or Rewards card) in Singapore is the wide range of transfer partners compared with other bank loyalty points.

You can transfer your miles into 10 different frequent flyer programmes and on the hotel side into IHG points.

Here’s how Citi compares to other banks in Singapore.

Singapore credit card to FFP transfers

Our comprehensive guide 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 Qatar Privilege Club are also great options.

If you’re a Citi customer with one of the eligible cards for this promotion, then you should definitely be looking to capitalise on this deal between now and the end of February 2024 if you have sufficient spend to make, including the likes of a large tax or insurance bill.

Not only is 1.22 cents per mile a very competitive rate to buy miles, the promotion mechanics are relatively simple and the upper cap at S$120,000 is very generous, though many will lament the days of 0.8 cents per mile being available via PayAll in 2021 and 2022!

Unfortunately a minimum spend of S$8,000 applies to trigger the bonus rate, but if you have enough aggregate payments to make over the next few months that may be achievable. Just remember to use a single card for all PayAll transactions, and be patient – the bonus miles won’t credit until halfway through next year!

There’s an extra sweetener for those who’ve never made a PayAll transaction before in the form of a S$50 eCapitaVoucher for making S$8,000+ in payments during the promotion period, equivalent to completely cancelling any fee charged for the first S$2,270 of payments, if you put ‘face value’ on the reward.

(Cover Photo: mimisim / Shutterstock)