Comprehensive Citi Prestige Review – Valuable Perks Despite Pricey $540 Annual Fee – Beragampengetahuan

For many years, I have been fascinated with what we are able to get with the use of credit cards. In this Citi Prestige Review, I take a closer look at why this credit card is so highly sought after by many.

Scorned by many who despised the use of credit or future money, I hold the view that these plastic and metal cards are simply tools that we can put to good use to enhance our travel experience.

Thinking back, I can’t remember how I first came to know about Citi Prestige. I think it must have been travel bloggers who introduced me to the world of reward points.

In this article, I hope to shed some light on the Citi Prestige (Singapore) and what we are actually benefitting from when we own this credit card. Perhaps this information will help you to decide if you would to apply for this rewarding card that comes with a hefty annual fee.

Look & Feel Of The Citi Prestige Metal Card

My first impression of the Citi Prestige credit card was rather muted.

Although Citi Prestige is marketed as a metal card, it looks almost identical to the Citi PremierMiles credit card.

Upon closer inspection, it feels a just tad heavier than the regular plastic credit card although there is a noticeable difference in weight.

Citi Prestige Minimum Income Requirement – $120,000

First things first, the eligibility for Citi Prestige is an annual income of S$120,000.

Before you think that this is practically impossible to hit, the annual income is referring to gross income before CPF and can include both ordinary wages (OW) like monthly salary and additional wages (AW) such as allowances, performance bonuses, variable bonuses, mid-year bonuses and year-end bonuses.

Well, you get the idea of when is the best time to apply.

To lower the difficulty level, you might want to include side-hustle income that you are able to provide documentation proof for if needed, which can be taken into consideration as well.

In my experience, it does somewhat depend on the bank officer who is handling your application. Mine called to clarify some details during the application process but it eventually went through.

Applying For Citi Prestige As A Secured Credit Card?

I have read about instances of people who successfully applied for Citi Prestige as a secured credit card by depositing a sum of money into the bank.

However, these were quite some time ago and I’m not sure if it is still possible to do it.

The best move is to try calling Citibank’s customer support and ask if you’re interested in exploring this option.

The Annual Membership Fee Is $540

The first payment of the annual fee happens during the credit card application and in return, there are usually welcome bonuses (ThankYou Points) or gifts to choose from for the first year. Also, the annual membership fee is non-waivable.

Breakdown of Citi Prestige $540 annual fee –

• Annual Fee = $500
• 8% GST = %40

In my case, I took the iPad welcome gift what was available when I applied, which kind of offset the cost. Besides, it is a great tablet for reading comics or watching Netflix to keep ourselves entertained at home.

The iPad eventually ended up with my wife so, happy wife, happy life.

For subsequent years, renewal of the annual membership will be rewarded with 62,500 ThankYou Points (25,000 miles) worth $500 if I value them at 2 cents per mile.

This is acceptable to me, and it has already covered the base cost of the Citi Prestige Credit Card before we ever consider the benefits that come along with this credit card.

I suppose most people would first take a look at the benefits provided by the credit card to determine if it is worth paying the $540 annual fee.

Miles Earning Rate & Potential

I am mainly interested in the travel-related perks so these are the basics I’m interested in.

• 3.25 ThankYou Points (1.3 miles per dollar) for every S$1 spent locally
• 5 ThankYou Points (2.0 miles per dollar) for every S$1 spent overseas
• 1 Citi ThankYou Point = 0.4 KrisFlyer Mile

Considering the above, it will function well as a general-purpose credit card for me because there are far better credit cards that can earn at 4 miles per dollar.

Foreign currency transaction fee charged by Citibank comes in at an hefty 3.25% for overseas spend so it might be worthwhile to consider the use of Trust Bank or YouTrip because they are able to consisting achieve rates that are very close to mid-market (Google) rates.

Miles Earning Boost With Citi Prestige Relationship Bonus

Before signing up, it is helpful to know that Citi Prestige is a one-of-a-kind credit card that rewards your banking relationship.

Depending on how long we have been banking with Citibank via savings accounts or credit cards, we are rewarded with bonus Citi ThankYou Points.

Before you go all excited on this, know that the actual bonus is much less than what it seems at first glance

Years	Citigold	Non-Citigold
0 – 5 years	15%	5%
6 – 10 years	20%	10%
> 10 years	30%	15%

Assuming that we spend $10,000 in a year, but let’s not forget that 5 ThankYou points is equivalent to 2 miles.

Years	Citigold Base Rate 1.3 mpd	Non-Citigold Base Rate 1.3 mpd
0 – 5 years	1,500 points 600 miles (0.06 mpd)	500 points 200 miles (0.02 mpd)
6 – 10 years	2,000 points 800 miles (0.08 mpd)	1,000 points 400 miles (0.04 mpd)
> 10 years	3,000 points 1,200 miles (0.12 mpd)	1,500 points 600 miles (0.06 mpd)

I have been using a Citibank Credit for more than 10 years and therefore, I qualify for the highest non-Citigold tier.

But it is nothing much to shout about since it is only a bonus 0.06 miles per dollar.

Below is the screenshot from Citibank illustrating the same table.

Citi ThankYou Points Transfer Partners

Citibank has a wide range of transfer partners that is accessible from the Citibank website, which is great if we want to fly with airlines other than Singapore Airlines.

First, log in to Citibank and click on Rewards & Offers.

This will bring you the Citi Rewards and we can click on Travel > Points Transfer to see the full list of transfer partners.

The table below shows the full list of transfer partners at the point of writing.

Type	Airline / Hotel	Conversion Rate
Airline	BRITISH AIRWAYS EXECUTIVE CLUB	25000 Points = 10000 Avios
Airline	CATHAY	25000 Points = 10000 Asia Miles
Airline	ETIHAD GUEST	25000 Points = 10000 Guest Miles
Airline	EVA AIR INFINITY MILEAGELANDS	25000 Points = 10000 Infinity MileageLands Miles
Airline	FLYING BLUE	25000 Points = 10000 Flying Blue Miles
Airline	QANTAS FREQUENT FLYER	25000 Points = 10000 Qantas Points
Airline	QATAR AIRWAYS PRIVILEGE CLUB	25000 Points = 10000 Avios
Airline	SINGAPORE AIRLINES KRISFLYER	25000 Points = 10000 KrisFlyer Miles
Airline	THAI AIRWAYS ROYAL ORCHID PLUS	25000 Points = 10000 Royal Orchid Plus Miles
Airline	TURKISH AIRLINES MILES&SMILES	25000 Points = 10000 Miles
Hotel	IHG REWARDS CLUB	25000 Points = 10000 IHG Rewards Club Points

Do not be restricted to Singapore Airlines because often, we are actually able to source for Business Class flights with other amazing airlines that require only a fraction of what we would spend via KrisFlyer miles.

Citi Prestige Card 4th Night Free Hotel Benefit

One of the most interesting and extremely valuable perks is the 4th-night free benefit.

Citi Prestige allows for one complimentary night stay when booking a minimum, consecutive four-night stay at any hotel or resort.

• A stay is a minimum of four consecutive nights booked in the same hotel property.
• Back-to-back stays will not be honoured. “Back to back” is defined as consecutive stays:
  • In the same hotel, same city and
  • in a different hotel, in the same city
• “Consecutive Stays” is defined as
  • Any stay in which the check-in date is less than 7 days from the previous check-out date

Note that this includes only the price of the room and excludes the taxes.

To my disappointment, rules have been amended over the years to exclude pool villas and plenty of other bookings.

Bookings have to be made via the Citi Prestige concierge service and it would be prudent to compare prices against what we would pay if we were to make the reservation ourselves via travel aggregators such as Agoda or Expedia.

I will need to assess how we can utilize this in future because just once or twice would practically mean we have “earned” back what we spent on the annual fee.

Complimentary Travel Insurance

Simply by charging full travel fares to the Citi Prestige Card, we get to enjoy the following protection that is underwritten by AIG.

• Personal and accident benefits up to $1 million
• Overseas medical benefits reimbursement up to S$50,000
• Travel inconvenience benefits
  • Baggage Loss: Reimbursement of up to S$500 per article, max. of S$1,000
  • Baggage Delay: S$200 for every eight (8) full consecutive hours of delay, max. of S$400
  • Flight Delay: S$100 for every eight (8) full consecutive hours of delay, max. of S$400.

You can read this travel insurance document by AIG at the time of writing for the full set of Terms and Conditions.

Priority Pass Lounges – Unlimited Airport Lounge Access

The Citi Prestige credit card is one of the best credit cards when it comes to complimentary access to airport lounges.

Not only does it grant unlimited lounge access for the main cardholder plus he/she can also bring one guest into the lounge for free, which is amazing!

This benefit is pretty straightforward for Missus and me. We often use it when are taking budget or domestic flights and would like to find a peaceful and quiet place to chill and wait at the airport.

I know many people including myself probably don’t value a visit at USD$32 per visit, but let’s indulge me for a moment. For 8 visits, that’s about SGD$ 350 worth of visits right there.

Even Priority Pass values an annual membership at about SGD $600 if we’re calculative, but who’s counting?

By the way, Priority Pass has gone fully digital in May 2022 so there will be no more physical cards to manage.

Nowadays, all I have to do it to take out my mobile phone and show my in-app QR code to the staff manning the airport lounge and produce a boarding pass that confirms that I’m travelling on the same day.

Priority Pass Restaurants – Free Set Meals

A little-known perk is that Priority Pass allowances can be used at Priority Pass Restaurants!

Terminal	Restaurant
Terminal 1 Airside	Crystal Jade La Mian Xiao Long Bao
Terminal 2 Landside	Chutney Mary Indian Fast Food
Terminal 2 Airside	Kaveri Indian Vegetarian
Terminal 3 Airside	Kaveri Express Indian Vegetarian
Terminal 4 Airside	Crystal Jade Go

The number of restaurants available for this program is pretty limited at this point in time, but I’ll be sure to try it our when I get the chance to do so.

Each visit can be used at the restaurant to redeem one “set meal”. Considering that I am able to bring in one guest with me, that means we will be able to get 2 free meals per day.

With the Citi Prestige unlimited visits + 1 guest feature, this also means that after we have enjoyed our meal at the restaurant, we can still hop into a lounge to chill and relax there for free.

Pretty obvious that the value provided is really stacking up here.

In addition from the list of Citi Prestige benefits that I have listed above, Citi Prestige promotions contain some of the best value and most interesting experiences that one can imagine.

I have included some of the promotions that were emailed to me this year so that you can get a good idea of what to expect.

Haute Dining

These dining-related offers for Citi Prestige arrive in my inbox very frequently and are the most common type of promotions available.

I mentioned previously that I am not much of a foodie myself.

Take for instance, I can have the same boring breakfast – one egg and a cup of coffee – every single workday without seeing a need to change anything. Kopitiam food for lunch sounds fine to me too.

You, on the other hand, might find some of these offers rather enticing. I’m sure that might be the case as these regularly sell out when I bothered to check.

Here are some of the participating chefs and restaurants that appeared in my inbox.

From what I can remember, Iggy’s is a One-Michelin star restaurant so that gives an idea of what to expect.

To be clear, there isn’t any secrecy surrounding this as the same information is found on Citibank’s website.

These offers often sell out pretty quickly.

Here is a sample menu by Gemma Steakhouse –

Just to add on, the booking engine is managed externally by Hapz.

As some of these dining deals often sell out quickly, it would be a good idea to have certain dates planned out with your partner in advance to avoid disappointment.

The usual terms and conditions apply, but the most important are –

• Offer is only valid with payment using a Citi Prestige Card and
• Bookings are non-refundable.

One point to highlight is that the list of restaurants does change from time to time and isn’t restricted to a static list.

In the previous iteration, other 1-for-1 dining deals were –

• ART
• Rhubarb
• Riveira The Restaurant
• Shang Palace
• Shisen Hanten by Chen Kentaro
• VUE

As mentioned, regular emails would drop regarding 1-for-1 dining deals that get fully booked super fast.

Not much of a foodie so I haven’t tried this yet. Next time, perhaps.

Events

I don’t remember coming across many instances of event invites in earlier days possibly due to the ongoing pandemic, but these have since ramped up and these usually offer a exclusive or promo rate.

The different types of events include plays, sharing sessions, stand-up comedians and golf-related events.

Staycations

Prior to the opening up of global travel, this was definitely my favourite category as my wife and I went on staycations to scratch our travel itch.

Fullerton Hotel’s Marina Bay View Room which I got at $220 nett.

Grand Hyatt was going from $145 nett and Capitol Kempinski from $233 nett.

Shangri-La’s Valley Wing at $290 nett was an insane value considering the cheapest rack rate for May 2022 is about $743.

These are basically open secrets that can be found in forums or chat groups.

Also included in limited-time offers were Shangri-La Rasa Sentosa at $250 and St Regis at $690 for 2 nights. These offers were a lot more popular when we can’t travel, but I haven’t had much of these recently.

This was the latest staycation offer in April 2023.

Lowest rates apply for weekdays and things could obviously change as the situation around the pandemic evolves. Fastest fingers first.

Mastercard World Elite Benefits

Mastercard (along with Visa) is one of the largest payment networks in the world and there are three tiers of Mastercard credit card:

Each tier offers different perks and money-saving benefits.

You will notice that the bottom-right corner of your Citi Prestige card has the label “world elite” on it.

Citi Prestige cardholders belong to the Mastercard World Elite tier and enjoy a lot of perks that aren’t always well-known or advertised. The ever-changing full list of benefits can be referenced from the Mastercard website I have linked.

Is Citi Prestige Card Value for Money?

My most important consideration when I was getting the Citi Prestige was how it was going to fit into my existing plans, and not how I was going to use it after applying.

Instead of going along with the mentality of calculating how I was going to get back $535 of value in order not to lose out, I was thinking more of how much it can help me to shave off or negate my planned-for expenses.

In an average year, I’m estimating somewhere along the line of $1,500 to $2,000.

Just from browsing the official website, it doesn’t seem like much but Citi Prestige does represent excellent value based on my personal experience in the past year.

I now understand why Citi Prestige is so highly sought after, but it wouldn’t necessarily be the right fit for you if your lifestyle doesn’t overlap with the perks that it offers.

Are the rest of the $120,000 tier credit cards just amazing?

Let me know if you are generous enough to share your experience!

Citi Prestige Review – Takeaways

To end off my Citi Prestige review, I would continue to pay the pricey annual fee for this credit card because I will derive significant value from owning this card.

• Citi Prestige has an expensive $540 annual fee that cannot be waived
• The potential savings that Citi Prestige offers can far exceed the cost of the annual fee
• Unlimited Priority Pass access with one guest is a killer-feature
• Fourth night free on hotel stays makes it possible to recover the annual fee in a single overseas vacation
• Plenty of perks and promotions are good-to-have
• Your lifestyle and travel patterns determine whether Citi Prestige is a worthwhile investment

Interestingly, the Citi Prestige is no longer available for new applicants in the United States. It is possible that somewhere down the road, the Citi Prestige card might be discontinued permanently? Or perhaps, Citibank no longer wants to compete in the premium $120,000 annual income card space?

Of course, it could also be possible that Citibank is merely giving the card a significant update and holding off on new sign-ups when that is completed.

Time will tell.

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Hello! I Am Kevin

At the age of 30, I am the Personal Finance Blogger who laid claim to a negative net worth of minus $25,755 – and decided to turn things around.

My blueprint for financial independence can help give you a head start in your own FIRE – Financial Independence, Retire Early (optional) – journey. More tidbits about myself here if you’re curious.

I am married to a lovely wife and that means dual income with no kids. In my free time, I chase miles so that we can fly in business class. My hobbies include making coffee money off this blog and sharing everything I know with you.