Does the Citibank SMRT card offer good rebates for travel related online spending?

This is one of those rare online shopping cashback cards with no minimum spend. However, you shouldn’t use this card for online travel bookings as it’s excluded from the online category. Also, when buying movie tickets or fast food online, your spending could come under online shopping rather than their original spend categories, for which you will earn 2.7% for a total spend below $300 or 3% for a total spend above $300. If monthly spending is at least $300, you enjoy up to 3% savings on online shopping 2.7% + 0.3% that is if monthly card spend is at least $300.

That’s where the Citibank SMRT Card stands out from the pack as this is a card for average Singaporeans who are not interested in cultivating a lifestyle to impress their peers, and also for young and budget-conscious families it also works as an all-purpose cashback credit card. The main drawback is that it doesn’t really reward you for some of the more extravagant expenses in life. For instance, air tickets and hotel stays are quietly excluded from their cashback offer for online shopping, as are all restaurant dining and entertainment.

When you get the card, it will automatically have EZ-Reload enabled on it. There’s no convenience fee for EZ-Reload auto top-up transactions, and you can get up to 1.7% or 2% (if you hit the min. spend of $300) in rebates. It used to be that one can exchange the SMRT$ (rebate) for vouchers to top up the EZ-Link card, but they stopped that. Now can only can use it to exchange other kind of vouchers like Giant and Popular.

Lately I noticed that the card allows for the exchanging of the rebate for cash rebate. This to me is the actual crowd pleaser as compared to exchanging for vouchers at shops that I don’t want to shop at in the first place. The cash rebate has to be done via SMS anyway and you can glance their product page for the exact details.

I am a fresh graduate and just started my first job, I signed up for this card due to the onetime $150 cash back reward for $800 spend within the first two months. However for its main monthly rewards, it is nothing to be pleasant about and the hotline is very bad, I even had to hold more than 20 minutes during non-peak hour.

I have held this card for quite a long time and one thing I like about the card is the fact that it is used for CapitaLand malls and they are almost everywhere. So I enjoy dining taking advantage of the 10x rewards merchants to accumulate the points faster. Imagine getting close to 6.5% rebates on dining. Not to forget their sign up bonus of $60 rebates in vouchers when you spend $1,500. That's a 4% rebate excluding the points you will earn which will convert into vouchers too.

The Citi SMRT card is a pretty decent card for spending but they unfortunately exclude travel related online merchants. This to me is the downside of the card and may be a reason to get another card for travel websites.

The welcome bonus with this card is quite mouth-watering. Simply spend S$1,500 in the first 3 months to receive 24,000 Membership Rewards points. That you will find to be enough points to redeem for S$110 cash credit. Plus you can see the points add up with 100% bonus points on all spend in your first 3 months of Card Membership. I have been using this card now for 6 months and am yet to find reasons to complain.

I have had this card for a long while. The good thing with the card is that AMEX have been waiving my annual fees which is probably why I still have the card. The pros with this card include – Great customer service officers that are friendly and will do their best to help you with prompt follow ups, direct credit of miles to your Krisflyer account, many small promos every few months with a fantastic sign up promo, no minimum spending and perfect for concert lovers as AMEX offers priority to provide tickets.

This card offers a few thrills if you are one for accumulating miles as you can earn 1.3 KrisFlyer miles for every S$1 equivalent in foreign currency spent overseas on eligible purchases up to S$3,800 each month. On such purchases above S$3,800 each month, you can earn 2 KrisFlyer miles. Furthermore the card allows earnings of 1.3 KrisFlyer miles for every S$1 spent locally in Singapore dollars on eligible purchases up to S$3,800 each month. On such purchases above S$3,800 each month, earnings are 1.4 KrisFlyer miles. Highly recommended for those who seek to accumulate miles.