Citibank Cash Back+ Credit Card: MoneySmart Review 2024

I have a soft spot for cash back credit cards. There’s none of that beating around the bush, trying to predict when your rewards points expire or getting slapped with fees for converting air miles. One of Citibank’s most fuss-free cash back cards is the Citi Cash Back+ Card.

It’s not to be confused with the plain old Citi Cash Back Card (without the plus), which is a very popular all-round cash back card in Singapore, but operates very differently.

In a nutshell, the Citi Cash Back+ Card falls under the “unlimited cashback card” category, offering 1.6% cash back on all purchases, with no minimum spending and no cash back cap. Let’s see how it stacks up.

Citi Cash Back+ Mastercard Review—Is it MoneySmart?
Overall: ★★★★☆ (3.8) Best for: Both small spenders (as there’s no minimum spend requirement) and big spenders (as cashback is unlimited) who want a fuss-free cashback card. The catch: Some cashback categories are excluded, such as healthcare, insurance premiums, bills and instalments.
Category	Our rating	The deets
Earn rates: Cashback	★★★★☆	– 1.6% unlimited cashback – No minimum spend required – Earn cashback on practically everything. Exceptions include: Annual fees, instalments, bills, payments to educational, governmental, and financial institutions, insurance premiums, and more.
Earn categories	★★★★☆
Annual fees and charges	★★★★☆	$196.20 (first year waived) First supplementary card free, $98.10 for subsequent supplementary cards.
Accessibility	★★★★☆	Minimum income requirement: $30,000 (Singaporeans and PRs) / $42,000 (Non-Singaporeans)
Extras/periphery rewards	★★☆☆☆	– Up to S$1 million coverage when you charge your travel tickets to this card – Get exclusive shopping, dining and travel deals with Citi World Privileges
Sign-up bonus	★★★★★	Sign-up reward: Earn 5,040 SmartPoints or S$300 cash. Plus, stand a chance to get a: – Rolex Submariner 124060 (worth S$15,521); OR – Apple iPhone 15 Pro, 128GB (worth S$1,664.25); OR – Sony PlayStation®5 (SLIM) Digital Edition (worth S$669) Gift requirements: Spend a minimum of $2500 within 30 days from card approval date. Valid till: 31 Mar 2024

See our credit card ranking rubric to find out how we rank credit cards.

Don’t miss our ultimate list of credit card reviews for the low-down on credit cards in Singapore.

 

Citi Cash Back+ Card terms & conditions

Citi Cash Back+ Card
Annual fee & waiver	$196.20 (first year waived)
Supplementary annual fee	$98.10
Interest free period	25 days from date of statement of account
Annual interest rate	27.90%
Late payment fee	$100
Minimum monthly payment	1% of current balance (+ 1% of any outstanding unbilled installment amounts and interest charges + late payment charge or $50 whichever is greater
Foreign currency transaction fee	3.25%
Cash advance transaction fee	$15 or 8%, whichever is higher
Overlimit fee	$40
Minimum income	$30,000 (Singaporean / PR), $42,000 (foreigner)
Card association	Mastercard
Wireless payment	MasterCard PayPass, Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, Google Pay

 

How the Citi Cash Back+ Card works

The card’s main benefits are the following:

• 1.6% cashback on everything.
• No minimum spending requirement
• No cashback cap
• Typical exclusions apply: you can’t get cashback when you pay your income tax, late payment fees, etc

The Citi Cash Back+ Card’s strongest selling point is that it’s very straightforward. You don’t have to worry about meeting minimum spending requirements or rack your brains trying to remember what it offers cashback for.

This is typical of all unlimited cash back cards: They’re easy to use because they reward you for all kinds of spending, but the catch is that the cash rebate is relatively low. For such cards, 1.6% is already fairly high in the market.

If you’re looking exclusively in that bag of cards, then the Citi Cash Back+ Card is a good contender. However, if you’re comparing cashback cards in general, then you’ll find that 1.6% is pretty low.

Other cash back cards that offer rebates for selected spending categories typically give a much better earn rate of 5% to 10%. Let’s take the Citi Cash Back (without a +) card for example—that one offers 8% cash back when you spend on dining, petrol and groceries.

 

Who should use the Citi Cash Back+ Card?

First of all, if you’ve already found a cashback card that suits your daily spending habits, you probably shouldn’t cancel it for the Citi Cash Back+ Card. You can continue using that—your usual card—for your typical expenses like dining out, grocery shopping and transport.

However, due to the lack of a minimum spending requirement, the Citi Cash Back+ Card is a good card to have on hand as a backup card to pay for things you just don’t have a better card for. Think super niche purchases, like repairs at the car workshop, dental appointments or music lessons, to name a few.

Additionally, once you hit your cashback cap for the month, you can switch over to the Citi Cash Back+ Card to continue earning rebates since 1.6% cash back is better than none.

If all that was mind-boggling and you don’t want to think about having multiple cards for different purposes, then this card could be great for you too. The Citi Cash Back+ Card is as straightforward and fuss-free as it gets: just swipe, earn some rebates, and that’s it.

 

Citibank Cash Back+ Card promotions

If you are not yet a Citibank credit card member, you get to choose between 5,040 SmartPoints or $300 in cold hard cash. Redeem your SmartPoints at our Rewards Store for items like:

• Apple 10.2-inch iPad Wi-Fi 64GB—Space Grey (worth $504, 5,040 Points)
• Nintendo Switch OLED Model, White (worth $500, 5,000 Points)
• ErgoTune Supreme V3 (Charcoal Black) (M) (worth $500, 5,000 Points)

Promotion valid till 31 Mar 2024. Note: Promotions change every few weeks, so keep a lookout on our credit card promotions page to view the latest ones!

On top of your welcome gift, sign up for selected Citi credit cards from now till 14 Apr 2024 and stand a chance to win one of these prizes!

• Rolex Submariner 124060 (worth S$15,521)
• Apple iPhone 15 Pro, 128GB (worth S$1,664.25)
• Sony PlayStation®5 (SLIM) Digital Edition (worth S$669)

 

Alternatives to the Citi Cash Back+ Card

Here are the Citi Cash Back+ Card’s closest competitors.

UOB Absolute Cashback Card: This card has the highest cashback in the market at 1.7%, and works exactly like the Citi Cash Back+ Card, but better because categories like insurance and bills also earn your cashback. The main downside is that it’s an Amex card, so you’ll be hard-pressed to find smaller merchants to accept it.

Maybank FC Barcelona: These 2 are almost the same. They work the exact same way, and offer the same 1.6% cashback on everything, no minimum spending requirement, no cashback cap. There’s an annual fee of $120.

Standard Chartered Simply Cash Credit Card: This card offers 1.5% cashback on everything, just slightly less than Citi’s. There’s also no minimum spending requirement, no cashback cap. The annual fee is waived for the first 2 years.

Amex True Cashback Card: Like the SCB Simply Cash Credit Card, this card gives you 1.5% cashback on everything. However, there’s an additional +1% cashback on foreign currency purchases, which could be useful. Again, no minimum spending requirement, no cashback cap. Annual fee of $174.40 waived for 1 year.

The Maybank FC Barcelona Card offers the same cashback amount, while the Amex True Cashback Card offers a more attractive 2.5% cashback on foreign currency purchases.

So, if you shop online or travel often, you would probably be better off going for the Amex card.

And as for the Maybank FC Barcelona Card, you can eventually switch to it if your request for an annual fee waiver for the Citi Cash Back+ Card gets rejected and vice versa—it’s always good to have options!

 

P.S. Here’s our MoneySmart credit card ranking rubric

In case you’re wondering, here’s how we decide on our credit card rankings.

Is that credit card MoneySmart? Our MoneySmart credit card ranking rubric
Category	Our rating
Overall	The average rating for the credit card on the whole, calculated from the ratings for the individual categories below. Plus, we’ll give you a one-liner on who we think the credit card is best suited for.
Earn rates: Air miles / Cashback / Rewards points	Air miles / Cashback / Rewards points. This category looks at the depth rather than breadth of earn rates. – 5 stars means this card’s got the highest earn rates within that credit card type. – 3-4 stars mean it’s average – 1-2 stars reflect earn rates that are below average.
Earn categories	This category looks at the breadth rather than depth of your earnings. – 5 stars: Earn with ANY spend. – 3-4 stars: Earn on a large number of categories (e.g. all dining, transport and retail, but not telco bills) OR earn on 1 very broad category (e.g. all contactless/mobile payments). – 1-2 stars: Earn a decent rate only on selected categories, such as fast food only.
Annual fees and charges	– 5 stars: $0 – 4 stars: $1-200 – 3 stars: $201-500 – 2 stars: $501-$999 – 1 star: $1,000 and up We dock a star if fee waiver is NOT allowed.
Accessibility	Minimum income requirements: 5 stars: Less than $30,000 a year 4 stars: Around $30,000 a year for Singaporeans and $40,000-$45,o00 for non-Singaporeans 3 stars: $30,000-$60,000 a year for Singaporeans, $40,000-$70,000 for non-Singaporeans 2 stars: $60,000-$120,000 a year for Singaporeans, $70,000-$120,000 for non-Singaporeans 1 star: $120,000 and up for either, or both Exclusivity: We dock 1-2 stars if there is/are another category/categories that make the card exclusive and very specific to a certain clientele.
Extras/periphery rewards	These include: – Travel benefits, such as airport lounge access – Lifestyle benefits, such as spa privileges – Dining benefits, such as complimentary AMEX Love Dining or Entertainer with HSBC subscriptions We count the number of benefits and award between 0.5 to 2 stars for each, depending on how good the perk is.
Sign-up bonus	5 stars: The gift(s), cash, or miles are the highest we see out there compared to other credit cards of the same type (miles, cashback, etc). Also easy to attain these welcome bonuses. 3-4 stars: Average but not disappointing sign-up bonus compared to other credit cards. You aren’t losing out. 1-2 stars: You are probably losing out in terms of the welcome bonus you’re getting; there are other similar credit cards with sign-up bonuses that are better or easier to attain.

Check out all our MoneySmart credit card reviews: The Ultimate List of Credit Card Reviews in Singapore.

 

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