4th Night Free: Using Citi Prestige’s Hotel Benefit in Real Life

Citi Prestige comes with a rather lofty promise: get a complimentary night stay when you book a minimum consecutive four-night stay at any hotel or resort. Marketing fluff always sounds nice, but the devil is often in the terms and conditions. Is the Citi Prestige’s 4th night free perk actually good in practice?

Based on my personal usage

I’ve been overseas a little bit more in the past year so I’ve had some chance to exercise this perk. Unlike other travel bloggers who are whales and lions when it comes to their travel spending, I am a relatively low cost traveller. Accommodation for this budget cat would usually be a mix of Airbnb apartments and more affordable hotels, with a nightly budget of around S$80 to S$150 at most.

This also means that I am not currently playing the game of hotel loyalty programmes which always seem more catered to those who travel a lot more and are willing to splurge on fancier hotels during their trips. (I could be wrong and fully intend to study the hotel rewards game in greater detail soon.)

Compared to booking via travel portals and ShopBack

Most people probably book accommodation through travel portals or online travel agency (OTA) websites like Expedia, Agoda etc. and I’m no exception. One can also either use promo codes or ShopBack to increase the savings, and the discounts can be quite significant for such OTA websites.

Spending on such websites also qualify for miles across a variety of credit cards, with many popular 4 miles per dollar cards giving their earn rates on such expense.

For a real-world comparison, I am comparing Citi Prestige’s perk to booking through an OTA website with ShopBack’s cashback as well as using a 4 miles per dollar card to see if the hotel benefit gives any real savings.

Here are some of the bookings I’ve made in the past few months to get a realistic sense of how much savings I’ve gotten from Citi Prestige’s hotel benefit.

Hilton Da Nang

Back in 2022, Citi was still using Expedia for hotel prices and Hilton Da Nang was going for S$660 for 4 nights.

	OTA	Citi Concierge
Hotel Name	Hilton Da Nang	Hilton Da Nang
Price	S$660	S$660
ShopBack Rate (6%)	(S$39.60)*	–
Citi Prestige 4th Night Free	–	(S$145.25)
Miles Received	2,640 (4 miles per dollar)	858 (1.3 miles per dollar)
Effective Price	S$594	S$506.17
Winner		⭐️ S$87.83

After taking into consideration using ShopBack together with a 4 miles per dollar card, it costs an effective S$594 booking through an OTA site.

This assumes a 6% cashback rate from ShopBack, although do note that the cashback excludes tax so the cashback rate is likely to be a little less than the figure stated above. It also takes each mile to be 1 cent each so that we take into account the fact that we can use 4 miles per dollar cards on OTA websites.

Within these parameters, Citi Prestige gave me a very convincing savings of S$87.83.

Roaders Hotel Taipei

My next hotel was booked for my recent trip to Taipei:

	OTA	Citi Concierge
Hotel Name	Roaders Hotel Taipei	Roaders Hotel Taipei
Price	S$687	S$780.23
ShopBack Rate (5.5%)	(S$37.79)*	–
Citi Prestige 4th Night Free	–	(S$168.88)
Miles Received	2,748 (4 miles per dollar)	1,014 (1.3 miles per dollar)
Effective Price	S$621.73	S$601.21
Winner		⭐️ S$20.52

From what I know, Citi changed their booking system from Expedia to something else in late 2022, and they now take rates directly from the hotel’s website. This is quite unfortunate as booking through the hotel is usually more expensive than going through an OTA website in my experience.

Nonetheless, Citi Prestige eked out a small savings of S$20.52.

Taipei Fullerton Hotel – Fu-Xing South

Another hotel I managed to chance upon on an OTA site was Taipei Fullerton Hotel – Fu-Xing South. The OTA was having a really good deal – prices were quite heavily discounted, for some reason, and I incidentally chanced upon ShopBack’s 15% upsized cashback.

	OTA	Citi Concierge
Hotel Name	Taipei Fullerton Hotel – Fu-Xing South	Taipei Fullerton Hotel – Fu-Xing South
Price	S$550.64	S$865.28
ShopBack Rate (15%)	(S$71.51)*	–
Citi Prestige 4th Night Free	–	(S$187.29)
Miles Received	2,200 (4 miles per dollar)	1,124 (1.3 miles per dollar)
Effective Price	S$457.13	S$666.75
Winner	⭐️ S$209.62

There is essentially no contest here, not when the OTA and ShopBack were both having a great sale. I booked through the OTA and got my ShopBack’s 15% cashback tracked – although it is worth noting that ShopBack’s cashback can sometimes take forever to become withdrawable.

Upcoming hotel

Another hotel I wanted to book for an upcoming trip was essentially the same price as it was going for on OTAs, and when prices are roughly equal we can be quite confident that Citi Prestige’s 4th night free perk would give us good value:

	OTA	Citi Concierge
Hotel Name	To be disclosed	To be disclosed
Price	S$1,084	S$1,081.83
ShopBack Rate (5.5%)	(S$59.62)*	–
Citi Prestige 4th Night Free	–	(S$245.87)
Miles Received	4,336 (4 miles per dollar)	1,405 (1.3 miles per dollar)
Effective Price	S$981.02	S$821.91
Winner		⭐️ S$159.11

That was indeed the case here, with Citi Prestige giving me S$159.11 of savings.

Conclusion

My personal experience is that while the perk doesn’t make sense all the time, especially when the OTA website or ShopBack has good promotions, it does result in savings the few times I’ve tried to use it. The amount saved can also be pretty substantial with low to mid range hotels, and it is likely that more expensive properties can generate even better savings.

As a relatively frugal traveller, my real savings from my Bali workcation and upcoming trip amount to almost S$250 – a decent chunk off the S$535 annual fee (now S$540 due to GST) I paid.

The annual fee itself, of course, is almost paid for by itself with the miles from the sign-up promo and Citi Prestige’s other perks, so having the hotel benefit yield this much savings makes the card even better for my usage. In fact, it is very probable that I renew the card for a second year despite the renewal miles being only 25,000 rather than the 48,000 miles new Citi Prestige customers get (regardless whether they have other Citi Cards).

If you can qualify for the card’s income requirements and travel at least once or twice a year, I think it’s a great card to make your travels more comfortable with free airport rides, unlimited lounge access, and hotel savings.

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