Citi Rewards Card extends 16,000 miles sign-up bonus (2024)

Back in 2022, Citi upsized its usual 10,800 miles sign-up bonus for the popular Citi Rewards card, with a generous 16,000 miles offer, subject to a retail spend of S$800 in the first two full calendar months of card membership, for new-to-bank credit card applicants.

The deal has now been extended again for those who apply between now and 31st October 2024, so if you’re new to Citi or you cancelled your last Citi credit card over a year ago – it’s a good time to consider this offer.

Unfortunately new-to-bank status is still a must for this deal.

The offer still excludes those who have held any Citi credit card as primary cardholder in the last 12 months prior to application date, but you may now find that you can take advantage between now and the end of October 2024 if you’ve previously had a Citi card and your 12-month wait (without one) is coming up.

16,000 miles sign-up bonus

The sign-up bonus for the Citi Rewards card for those not currently holding a Citi credit card and having not held one in the last 12 months prior to application date, is worth 16,000 miles.

It requires a minimum spend of S$800 in the first two full calendar months starting from the end of the calendar month of card approval.

16,000 miles when you spend

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For example, if you are approved for the card on 20th August 2024, the qualifying spend period is from that date until 31st October 2024 (two full calendar months from 1st September 2024).

Bonus miles are awarded within three calendar months of the end of the qualifying spend period (i.e. by 31st January 2025 in the above example).

Pro Tip: Try to get your card approved towards the beginning of a month (e.g. early September) to give yourself almost three months to meet the minimum spend.

This card also features full fee waiver for the first year of membership as standard.

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Spend exclusions

As usual with these promotions, your S$800 qualifying spend must fall outside the following excluded categories:

• Equal Payment Plan (EPP) purchases.
• Refunded / disputed / unauthorised or fraudulent retail purchases.
• Quick Cash / Ready Credit PayLite and other instalment loans.
• Paywise / cash advance / quasi-cash transactions, balance transfers, annual card membership fees, interest or goods and services taxes.
• Bill payments made using the card as a source of funds.
• Late payment fees.
• Any other form of service / miscellaneous fees.

Citi PayAll transactions are counted as eligible spend, but do note that PayAll transactions where you opt not to pay the 2.6% processing fee do not count towards the minimum spend requirement for the sign-up bonus.

Existing Citi customers

If you are an existing Citi credit card holder, or had a Citi credit card account which was terminated in the last 12 months immediately prior to application, you unfortunately won’t be eligible for this sign-up bonus.

Pro Tip: If the one-year anniversary of your last Citi credit card cancellation comes up partway through this promotion period, wait until a year has passed then sign up to qualify for the 16,000 miles bonus.

One exception is if you are a supplementary cardholder with Citi in Singapore, but not the main cardholder on any such account (in the last 12 months), you will be eligible for the sign-up bonus when you apply as a main cardholder.

How it works

Provided you are eligible, and you apply for a Citi Rewards card on or before 31st October 2024, which is subsequently approved within 30 days, you will be awarded 40,000 bonus Citi ThankYou Points (TYPs) provided you spend at least S$800 on the card in the qualifying spend period, as defined above.

These are true bonus points, since you’ll also accrue Citi ThankYou Points at a rate of 1 per S$1 (or 10 per S$1 in eligible bonus categories) for your first S$800 spending on the card as usual, on top of that.

Remember that Citi ThankYou Points transfer to airline miles at a 2.5:1 ratio, which is why the 40,000 TYPs bonus is actually only worth 16,000 miles.

Earn rates

The Citi Rewards card earns just 0.4 miles (1 Citi ThankYou Point) for every S$1 spent both locally and overseas, though the real key to this card as you’ll see from our full review is the 4 miles(10 Citi ThankYou Points) per S$1 spent on shoes, bags and clothes at online or retail stores, or department stores, both locally and overseas.

Since March 2019, Citi also added online retail transactions (excluding mobile wallet top-ups / payments and travel-related transactions) to the list earning at the 4 mpd rate. That’s a very useful category as it includes things like online food delivery, Amazon purchases, Grab and Go Jek rides, etc.

The 4 mpd bonus rate applies for up to S$1,000 of monthly spend, so unfortunately it doesn’t work well for large one-off purchases.

For all the eligible MCC (merchant category codes) and exclusions, see our detailed review of this card, which is fee-free in the first year.

Citi Rewards Card
	First year free	4 mpd online	10 transfer partners
READ OUR REVIEW

Citi Rewards Credit Card
First year free	4 mpd online	10 transfer partners
READ OUR REVIEW

Another option with the Citi Rewards card is to pair it with a free Amaze card by Instarem.

You can only link a Mastercard to Amaze, so it’s the Citi Rewards Mastercard this will work with, not the Visa version.

Any spend made on the Amaze card comes with the same MCC as it would using your credit card directly, but codes as an online transaction, even for in-store spend.

That means you can use it for things like dining and shopping in Singapore or overseas and still tap into the card’s 4 mpd bonus category for online spend, provided you avoid travel-related transactions.

For example, you can earn 4 mpd at the likes of Cold Storage, 7-Eleven and Subway on your Citi Rewards card when paired with Amaze in this way.

This may be useful if you don’t maximise the $1,000 monthly cap in the regular online spend category directly with the card.

Total earning can be up to 19,200 miles

As you may have already concluded, you can actually do much better than Citi’s advertised “40,000 ThankYou Points (TYP)” welcome gift, by ensuring all your S$800 spend is in the 10X (4 mpd) category. For example:

• 800 TYP (S$800 x 1 on all spend)
• + 7,200 TYP (S$800 x 9 bonus category spend)
• + 40,000 TYP (welcome bonus)
• = 48,000 TYP total (19,200 miles)

This works out as an impressive 24 miles per dollar for that S$800 spend, provided you stick to the bonus categories.

However, it’s important to remember the bonus remains 16,000 miles whatever you do, since you’d get 8,000 of those ThankYou Points (3,200 miles) for S$800 spend in the bonus category using this card even without a sign-up offer running.

Citi ThankYou points are very flexible

One of the best things about Citi ThankYou points (and Citi Miles) in Singapore is the wide range of transfer partners compared with many other bank’s loyalty points.

You can transfer your miles into 10 different frequent flyer programmes and into IHG points.

Singapore credit card transfer list
to FFP and hotel partners

As you can see from the table above, Citi gives you a wide range of flight redemption options including Oneworld and SkyTeam carriers.

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.

A great use for Citi ThankYou points is a transfer to Qatar Privilege Club for a Business Class redemption on Qatar Airways from Singapore to Europe for 70,000 miles (e.g. Athens) or 75,000 miles (e.g. London), plus around S$300 in taxes and fees.

That’s at least 28,500 miles less than Singapore Airlines is now charging with KrisFlyer miles for Business Class saver awards on its Europe flights.

Qatar redemptions also get you access to Changi’s best Business Class lounge, reopened in 2022 and boasting à la carte dining, Champagne, and a selection of co*cktails from the Martini Bar. See our comprehensive review for full details.

It’s something definitely worth considering next time you can build it in to your travel plans.

Be careful – Citi ThankYou Points expire!

Citi ThankYou Points accrued using the Citi Rewards card “are valid for a period of 60 months”. That’s five years, which sounds very generous,but beware – it’s not as simple as the bank makes out.

In fact you have to accrue and redeem your points in fixed five-year periods, which is not really the same thing. For example, if you open your card account on 1st July 2020 your first 60-month reward period ends on 30th June 2025. All remaining points accrued on that date will then expire 3 months later, no matter whether you earned them five years ago or in the last week of June 2025!

We have a full article outlining how the policy works and how you also need to be careful when approaching your five-year expiry date to ensure you won’t be left with wasted ‘orphan’ expiring miles, which takes a little planning on your part!

This strange policy is quite unlike the Citi PremierMiles card (see our review) and Citi Prestige card (see our review) where the miles or points earned never expire.

Terms and conditions

Full terms and conditions for the Citi Rewards 16,000 miles sign-up bonus are available here:

Citi Rewards Welcome Offer T&C

Citi has extended its generous 16,000 bonus miles promotion for new-to-bank cardholders picking up its popular Rewards card for those applying between now and 31st October 2024.

This is a really decent offer, given the low spend requirement of only S$800 in the first 2-3 months.

Remember that to be eligible for the deal you have to be new to Citi credit cards in Singapore (or at least new in the last 12 months). Existing customers, even those holding other Citi credit cards, won’t get the bonus.

Also worth considering if you’re new-to-bank is Citi’s 30,000 miles sign-up bonus for its PremierMiles card, with the same minimum spend of S$800 in the first two months, also valid until 31st October 2024 for new Citi customers.

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