For the longest time, the Citi Rewards card allows cardmembers to earn 4 mpd on online and offline shopping, both locally and overseas. Specifically, they included a ‘shoes, bags and clothes’ clause for the 4 mpd eligibility on online spend, but in reality, the scope of eligible spend categories wasn’t that restrictive.
Now, Citi Rewards has officially expanded the eligibility to earn 4 mpd on all online spend, with the exception of travel-related expenses, and mobile wallet transactions. Here are some of the relevant travel-related MCCs that are effectively excluded from the 4mpd earn rate.
This puts the Citi Rewards card almost on par with the DBS WWMC, with the following exceptions:
- DBS WWMC allows you to earn 4 mpd on all online spending, whereas Citi Rewards excludes travel and mobile wallet spending; and
- DBS WWMC has a cap of S$2000 for the 4 mpd earn rate per calendar month, whereas Citi Rewards has a cap of S$1000.
This is a great move by Citibank, which is definitely welcome by most in the business of earning miles. Although, this effectively excludes earning 4 mpd on GrabPay top ups using the Citi Rewards card, a trend that we have been noticing of late. Instead, you can fall back on the Amex KrisFlyer cobrand cards to earn anywhere from 3.1-3.3 mpd for Grab transactions, which includes top ups. Also, given that Citibank issues both Visa and Mastercard versions of the Citi Rewards card, you can effectively double the cap on the amount of miles you can earn using the card when you apply for both versions.
