Citi Rewards card review: 4 miles per $1, and what decides whether you get it

The Citi Rewards card pays a high rate on a specific set of purchases and a low one on everything else. The catch is working out which is which: the same sofa from the same shop can earn roughly seven times as many points on the website as at the counter, and nothing on an instalment plan.

Here's what counts for the high rate, the monthly cap, the rounding, the points' expiry, and a worked year you can redo with your own numbers.

The Citi Rewards card at a glance

Figures from the 10X Rewards terms (effective 1 April 2024), the Cardmember's Agreement (in effect from 1 May 2025), the Citi product page and Citi's points transfer page, checked 1 Nov 2026.

How many miles does the Citi Rewards card earn?

The card earns Citi ThankYou Points. Citi's points transfer page converts 25,000 points into 10,000 KrisFlyer miles, so one point is 0.4 of a mile.

Clauses 12 and 13 of the 10X terms set out two rates: - 1 base point per $1 on qualifying purchases. That's 0.4 miles per $1. - On a 10X purchase, 1 base point plus 9 bonus points per $1, so 10 points. That's 4 miles per $1.

A $50 online grocery order is $50 × 10 = 500 points, which is 500 × 0.4 = 200 miles. A $50 dinner at a restaurant is 50 points, which is 20 miles.

Bottom line: the gap between the two rates is ten times. So the question isn't what the card earns. It's how much of your spending is 10X.

What counts for 10X

Clause 6 gives two kinds of 10X purchase.

1. Shops whose main business is clothes, shoes and bags, by merchant category code, the four-digit code the shop's bank gives it (MCC): department stores (5311), clothing stores of every kind (5611 to 5699), shoe stores (5661) and luggage and leather goods (5948). These count in store or online.

2. Online retail purchases, meaning purchases made on a website or in an app that the merchant's system flags as online, "excluding mobile wallet and travel-related transactions". The terms add that the online flag is set by the merchant and its bank, not by Citi.

The travel exclusion is a long list of codes: airlines (3000 to 3350, 4511), car rental (3351 to 3500, 7512), hotels (3501 to 3999, 7011, 7012), passenger transport and railways (4111, 4112, 4789), cruises (4411), travel agencies (4722, 4723) and travel-related direct marketing (5962). The miles cards post put it briefly: booking your flight online with this card doesn't get the bonus. It earns 1 point per $1.

Bottom line: "online" means the merchant's flag. Food delivery, ride-hailing and online groceries are named on Citi's product page as examples that count. Paying in an app with Apple Pay or Google Pay is a mobile wallet transaction, which the online bonus leaves out.

Why a showroom sofa earns far less than the website one

A furniture shop isn't on the clothes-and-bags list, so at the counter it's an ordinary purchase. On the shop's own website, it's an online retail purchase, which is 10X. Same model, same price. Take a $1,400 sofa:

Miles are points × 0.4.

Three things are going on: - The cap. $1,400 × 9 = 12,600 bonus points, but the bonus stops at 9,000 a statement month (clause 13). So the website sofa earns 4,160 miles, not 5,600. - The online flag. If the shop's payment page is processed as an online transaction, it's 10X. If you paid in the app with a mobile wallet, it isn't. - Instalments. Clause 5 of the 10X terms leaves out "instalment/easy/extended/equal payment plans", and the Equal Payment Plan terms in the Cardmember's Agreement (clause 11) say purchases on it earn no rewards. "No interest" can also mean no points.

A department store works differently. A sofa bought in person on a department store's furniture floor would earn 10X, because the store's code is 5311, even though a sofa from a furniture shop's counter wouldn't. The shop's code decides, not what you bought.

Bottom line: before a big purchase, check three things: what kind of shop it is, whether it's being paid as an online transaction, and whether it's on an instalment plan.

The $1,000 cap is per statement month

The 9,000 bonus points are counted per statement month, the period between two statement dates, not the calendar month. Clause 13 includes its own example: an $800.99 department store purchase and a $550.24 shoe purchase in the same statement month earn 800 + 550 = 1,350 base points, plus bonus points that would be 12,150 but are capped at 9,000, for 10,350 points.

Base points have no cap. So past $1,000 of 10X spending, the card keeps earning, but at 1 point per $1, which is 0.4 miles.

Bottom line: the cap resets on your statement date. A big online purchase a few days later lands in a fresh month.

Each purchase rounds down to the dollar

Clauses 12 and 13 say points are worked out on each purchase, rounded down to the nearest $1. On a 10X purchase, the cents that get dropped can cost up to 10 points each time.

Bottom line: the advertised 4 is the rate on bigger purchases. A month of small deliveries and short rides earns closer to 3.5. Still high, just not 4.

Points that expire

Unlike Citi Miles on the PremierMiles, ThankYou Points don't last forever. The product page says they're valid for 60 months from your card's approval date. The terms count in blocks of 60 months: points earned in one block have to be used within it, with a short grace period after.

Points can be used in a few ways. On Citi's own figures, 25,000 points transfer to 10,000 KrisFlyer miles, and "Pay with Points" uses 440 points for $1. So 25,000 points are either 10,000 miles or about $56.82 off a bill.

Bottom line: points earned in your card's fourth year have less time left than points earned in its first. Note your card's approval date somewhere you'll see it.

The annual fee

The fee is $196.20 including GST, and the product page says the first year is waived. It doesn't say how the fee is treated after that, and there are no renewal points listed for this card.

Bottom line: ask Citi how the fee is treated before the second year starts.

What doesn't earn points

The 10X terms (clause 5) list what doesn't count at all: bill payments, education, government payments (tax, fines, postal services, parking), insurance, payments to banks and brokerages, non-profits, gambling, top-ups to payment apps and prepaid accounts, transit-related transactions, and the codes and merchants on Citi's exclusion list (such as utilities, property rentals, hospitals, BUS/MRT, EZ-Link and YouTrip).

Bottom line: the MRT gantry and insurance premiums earn nothing here.

How it compares on miles per $1

Cards that pay about 4 miles per $1 on a category, as at 24 Oct 2026, from each bank's terms:

All four earn about 0.4 miles per $1 outside their bonus (0.33 for HSBC to KrisFlyer). The miles cards post shows what happens past the cap, and why splitting spending across two capped cards changes the total.

A worked year

Say Joanne is 29. Each month she spends about $700 online (food delivery, rides, online groceries and some shopping) and $100 on clothes in shops, so $800 of 10X spending, plus $500 on other things in person: restaurants, a hawker centre, the pharmacy. Made-up example.

That's 102,000 × 0.4 = about 40,800 miles. Converted in four blocks of 25,000 points, 100,000 points become 40,000 KrisFlyer miles, with 2,000 points left over.

What it costs her: two transfers at $27.25 each, $54.50, and from the second year the $196.20 fee. So in a year with the fee, $250.70 for about 40,000 miles, roughly 0.6 cents a mile.

If her online spending rose to $1,500 a month, the extra $700 above the cap would earn $700 × 1 = 700 points a month, 280 miles, instead of 2,800.

Bottom line: swap in your own online spending and your own in-store spending. The calculator page does the same sums for a few typical months: Citi Rewards on the card rewards calculator.

Three things to remember

1. 4 miles per $1 online and at clothes, shoes, bags and department stores. 0.4 everywhere else. The kind of shop, and the online flag, decide.
2. The bonus stops at $1,000 a statement month, and travel bookings, mobile wallet payments and instalment plans don't get it.
3. Points round down per purchase to the dollar, and they expire after 60 months.

Ethan's rating

7.0out of 10

Earn rate

• Very low
• Low
• Moderate
• High
• Very high

Effort to earn

• Effortless
• Easy
• Some effort
• Shiong
• Very shiong

Value for the fee

• Way overpriced
• Overpriced
• Fair
• Good value
• Great value

Against other miles cards

1.48 miles per $1 on averageMiles cards: average miles per $1 on the same $1,500 month of everyday spending, worked out by Sum's card calculator.

• Bottom
• Below average
• Average
• Above average
• Top

Where it earns

• DiningFair
• GroceriesFair
• TransportGood
• OnlineBonus rate
• TravelLow
• OverseasLow
• Everything elseLow

One person's opinion, from the terms in this review. Your own spending decides what a card is worth to you.

Track it in Sum

Import your card statements. The card optimiser reads each purchase as the bank's terms do: online or in store, the shop's category, and rounding down to the dollar. The tracker for a capped card shows how much of the $1,000 is used, which is the number that matters on this kind of card.

Ethan

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