This morning, we were surprised by an email that we received from Citibank citing changes to the Citi Prestige Credit Card benefits. The following 2 changes to Citi Prestige will take place on 1st July 2025:
Changes to Citi Prestige Singapore from 1st July 2025
Firstly, with effect from 1 July 2025, the annual fee will be revised from S$545.00 to S$651.82 (inclusive of 9% GST).
However, with this increase, there’s also a change to the amount of miles that you would be receiving if you pay the annual fee.
Upon card membership renewal and payment of the annual fee, you will be entitled to a renewal gift of 80,000 Citi ThankYouSM Points (equivalent to 32,000 miles). This is enhanced from 62,500 Citi ThankYouSM Points (equivalent to 25,000 miles). Additionally, you can continue to enjoy premium travel privileges, rewards, and lifestyle benefits as part of the Citi Prestige Card program.
While this increase in annual fee is not unforeseen, we think that this is still an acceptable change given that the number of miles also increased correspondingly from 25000 to 32000, upon payment of the annual fee. Some closer inspection and calculations would reveal that this is a slightly better rate than what you would be paying today.
HOWEVER, the biggest change is…
Secondly, the unlimited Priority Pass access (with 1 guest) would discontinue on 1st July 2025 and be replaced with 12 Priority Pass passes instead.
This is of course a huge reduction in value of having this credit card. With the removal of the unlimited priority pass access, it puts Citibank’s Prestige Credit Card to be similar to that of DBS’ Vantage Card for the mass affluent market range of cards.
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For regular fliers like ourselves, this presents a huge decrease in value for the Citibank Prestige Card. While we do receive more miles with the higher annual fee (essentially purchasing slightly more miles at a slightly cheaper rate), the removal of the unlimited Priority Pass access removes the edge that this credit card has over other credit cards in the 120k annual salary range.
Still, it was not unanticipated for this change to eventually take place given that users were able to visit restaurants, spas and airport sleeping pods, on top of the traditional airport lounges. This limit to 12 Priority Pass lounge access will certainly change the way we travel in the coming years. Perhaps it is time to look at UOB’s VI Metal Card that still offers Unlimited + 1 guest lounge access at time of writing…🤔
