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.

The American Express Krisflyer Credit Card has an attractive sign up bonus and it is easy to use to accumulate on miles as no conversion into KF account is required, and monthly auto “sweeping” of miles help save in the conversion fee. I also have had good experiences with their customer care service as the call center service is absolutely awesome.

If you are like me an HSBC Premier client and also a frequent traveller that can maximize the number of priority pass visits, limo and meet-and-assist services as well as your supplementary cardholders too, then this is the card for you. The reduced general mile earn rate is worth the trade-off for the unlimited priority pass memberships, as well as the high number of limo and meet-and-assist services that you can use.

Unfortunately, the HSBC advance card is not an unlimited cashback card as they have a cap on the cashback per month, even for advance banking clients. Furthermore, if you are not an advance banking client, you would not get subsequent card fee waiver if you do not get to spend at least $12,000 in a year.

I love that I can enjoy Interest rates starting from 5.80% p.a. (EIR 11.38% p.a.) on their 12-month instalment plan which allows for fixed monthly repayments.The monthly repayment for your Cash-on-Instalments is fixed, allowing you to manage your finances with ease of mind. That works perfect for me as it helps me to be more organized and I give them thumbs up.

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.