Citi Rewards Review (2025): Still Worth Using After Instarem Amaze Nerf?

Last Updated: 24th July 2025

For the better part of the past 3 years, the Citi Rewards card has almost become synonymous with Instarem Amaze. It was a match made in heaven — Citi Rewards gives its 10X points earn rate on online transactions while Instarem Amaze converted offline transactions into online ones.

The combo became a lot less attractive after a nerf earlier this year, with Instarem adding a 1% fee on all SGD transactions with a S$0.50 per transaction minimum. Not only is the combo costlier to use, it has become cost prohibitively expensive at smaller transaction amounts because of the minimum fee.

Through no fault of its own, Citi Rewards has become a lousier card as a result, but is it still worth using?

An online card with a few offline categories

On its own, Citi Rewards is a card predominantly for online transactions, but it also works for some offline categories. Aside from online transactions, its 10 ThankYou Points per dollar earn rate (equivalent to 4 miles per dollar) is also given on departmental and clothing stores with the following Merchant Category Codes (MCC):

While clothing-related spend is a relatively narrow category, the coverage for online spending is very wide. Instead of whitelisting (selecting only certain categories to award its 10X points on), Citi Rewards works on a blacklist basis, excluding specific transactions from getting the bonus points. Aside from mobile wallet and travel transactions as well as a usual list of common exclusions like AXS transactions, insurance etc., most other things are fair game for Citi Rewards’ 10X points earn rate.

The Amaze-sized elephant in the room

Because of the online category of Citi Rewards, Instarem Amaze had been a popular tool to use with Citi Rewards. When users add their Citi Rewards card to Instarem Amaze and charge transactions to the Amaze card, transactions become online ones, getting Citi Rewards’ 10X points earn rate even for in-person transactions.

This still works, by the way, though there is the 1% fee charged by Amaze. Because of the S$0.50 minimum fee imposed per transaction, the fee becomes inordinately expensive for smaller transactions:

Transaction Size	Fee	Percentage
S$5	S$0.50	10%
S$20	S$0.50	2.5%
S$50	S$0.50	1%

You should hence avoid using the card for smaller transactions, with the threshold to look for being S$50. Any transaction amount lower than S$50 generates more than 1% fee and you probably want to avoid that.

At 1% fee, is it still worth it? I will explore this later in the article.

Other apps can convert transactions to online ones too

The ability to turn in-person spend to online transactions is not unique to Instarem Amaze, and a few other wallet apps can do the same. The downside is that retail shops and restaurants have to specifically accept such payment methods, so keep your eyes peeled for the following payment methods at your favourite stores:

App	Referral Code
Atome	Use link
FavePay	FAVEJUNYI2
ShopBack Pay	CsgtbD

Make sure you add your Citi Rewards card details to the apps above and charge directly to it instead of using Apple Pay or Google Pay. This is because Citibank specifically excludes mobile wallet transactions from earning 10X points. If you’re wondering why Kris+ is absent from the list above, it is because Kris+ only charges cards through Apple Pay or Google Pay which does not earn 10X points on Citi Rewards.

On top of the above wallet apps, you can also further the “offline” capability of this card with vouchers from places like ShopBack or Heymax.

Of course, these apps aren’t accepted everywhere and thus are far from the perfect replacements for Instarem Amaze’s ability to be used at anywhere that accepts credit card payments. The good old days of getting 4 miles per dollar practically anywhere with Citi Rewards is no longer the case and we have to evaluate it accordingly.

Points cards aren’t just for miles…

Most points cards are very quickly labelled as miles cards, and the Citi Rewards has indeed been a favourite for miles chasers. The 10X points per dollar earn rate is equivalent to 4 miles per dollar, and that is about as high an earn rate you can get for miles. Citi Rewards is hence often used almost exclusively by people gunning for miles.

Points, however, have always been a versatile and flexible form of currency, and you can also the ThankYou Points earned by Citi Rewards to offset your bill to a tune of 1 point for 0.227 cents. This means that a 10X points earn rate is roughly about 2.27% cashback. It’s not a fantastic rate, of course, but it is surely better than the 1.5% cashback cards some people still use.

If you were to trade your points for vouchers, your rebate percentage goes up depending on what you are redeeming for. I picked a few items after a cursory look through Citi Rewards’ reward catalogue:

Item	Points	Cent Per Point	Citi Rewards’ Earn Rate
NEX S$20 vouchers	6,720	0.298¢	2.98%
Starbucks S$10 voucher	3,360	0.298¢	2.98%
Harvey Norman $50 voucher	15,950	0.313¢	3.13%
Sheng Siong S$10 voucher	3,740	0.267¢	2.67%

With the 10X earn rate, you can get around 2.5% to 3% in rebates if you were to exchange your points for vouchers available for redemption. I’m not recommending anyone to do this, but I think it’s worth showing that the card is at least better than using a 1.5% or even 2% cashback card.

… but do use Citi points for miles

Nonetheless, Citi Rewards is best used as a card for miles. When you use Citi Rewards for its 10X points earn rate, you are earning Citi ThankYou points which are one of the most versatile currencies around when it comes to airline miles. Citi features many airline partners, allowing you to convert your Citi points to a variety of airline frequent flyer programmes:

• Asia Miles
• British Airways Executive Club
• Etihad Guest
• Eva Air Infinity Mileagelands
• Flying Blue
• IHG Rewards Club
• Qantas Frequent Flyer
• Qatar Airways Privilege Club
• Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer
• Thai Airways Royal Orchid Plus
• Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles

The list includes Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer, of course, as does virtually every points-earning card in Singapore. But do consider looking beyond transferring your Citi points to KrisFlyer by default, even if you like Singapore Airlines.

In particular, I have been very fond of EVA Air miles because of the ability to book quite a few Singapore Airlines flights for fewer miles. You can read more about it here, and because of this I value Citi points at a premium compared to most other bank points. Many cards offer “4 miles per dollar”, but some miles are better than others.

Similar to many other banks, you need to pay S$27.25 of conversion fees (GST included) and redeem in blocks of 10,000 miles. It’d be nice to see smaller redemption blocks, but Citibank doesn’t even pool points across its cards so I don’t expect them to become more customer-friendly when it comes to points management.

Is it worth paying Amaze’s 1% fee for Citi points?

Since Citi points can get certain flights at significantly fewer miles, is it worthwhile paying the 1% fee to continue using Citi Rewards through Amaze as an offline card?

If we look at a business class redemption to Japan, this is what we can expect:

Card	Miles Required (Business Class, Japan)	Spend Required
Citi Rewards (via EVA Air)	40,000 miles	S$10,000
4 Miles Per Dollar Card (via KrisFlyer)	52,000 miles	S$13,000

Citi Rewards is arguably about 30% better than another 4 miles per dollar card whose points transfer exclusively to EVA Air. For this specific redemption, that effectively makes Citi Rewards a 5.2 miles per dollar card. Paying a 1% fee for an additional 1.2 miles per dollar is, in this case, a pretty good deal.

That said, HSBC Revolution’s recent time-limited buff changes the equation. As the only other 4 miles per dollar card whose points can be transferred to EVA Air, HSBC Revolution offers a short window where you can earn 4 miles per dollar on in-person spending without paying any fees. Outside of HSBC’s promotion, Citi Rewards paired with Amaze still makes sense as long as you’re not sticking solely to KrisFlyer (and that your transactions are at least S$50 and up), since there are plenty of other 4 miles per dollar cards available for that.

For now, I’m using Citi Rewards as an online-only card and will see how it goes with HSBC Revolution after its promo ends on 31st October 2025.

Other odds and ends

Quick crediting of points
Citi Rewards credits bonus points very quickly – as soon as the transaction is posted, which usually takes a few days after your actual transaction.

Aside from quick gratification, having your bonus points in early serves a few tangible benefits: you could be short of points for a particular redemption, and having your points come in quickly allows for your redemption to be done quickly. Two, you might have some reservations whether a particular type of transaction gets the 10X earn rate, and nothing confirms it better than seeing the bonus points being credited so you can have more assurance in making a subsequent transaction.

Citi PayAll
Citi PayAll’s promos used to be a plus point for this card. Unfortunately, they haven’t been good of late so it is hard to count this as an upside for the card.

Citi points do not pool
As mentioned earlier, points earned by its different cards are kept in individual silos and not pooled together. Because there is a minimum number of points to redeem for stuff, and miles redemption requires a conversion fee, this poses a couple of issues.

You could have earned 23,000 miles worth of points in your Citi Rewards card, and 17,000 miles worth in your Citi PremierMiles card. For banks like UOB and DBS, such points can be redeemed together, and you would pay $25 of conversion fees to get 40,000 miles in your airline account. With Citi, however, you can only redeem 20,000 miles from your Citi Rewards, and 10,000 miles from your Citi PremierMiles. This leaves 3,000 and 7,000 miles worth of points left in both accounts, and on top of that, you would have to pay the $25 conversion twice since each account has to be converted separately from the other.

Watch for how Citi Rewards point expire
Unlike most other cards whose points expire one or two years after they are earned, Citi’s way of dealing with points expiry deserves a post on its own.

Points earned at the start of your 5-year window have a really long shelf life, while points earned towards the end would expire really quickly. In this way, it’s neither really a pro nor a con, but something you should take note of.

The Verdict

With points that credit quickly and can be transferred to many frequent flyer programmes aside from KrisFlyer, the card should remain one of the top choices for online spend. For offline spend, the card is not completely useless, though other cards may prove more useful if your spend is mainly done in person.

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Seth Wee was a licensed financial adviser representative from 2009 to 2025, with over 16 years of experience in Singapore’s financial advisory industry.

He started Sethisfy.com in 2019 to share practical insights on credit cards, banking products, and miles strategies, helping readers identify financial products that deliver the best value. Seth has been featured in CNA, Channel 8, Today, and a host of other publications. In 2025, he was also part of a panel at CPF’s Ready For Life festival.

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Disclaimer: I may receive an affiliate/referral fee when you sign up for services/products on this site, and such fees keep the site running. I would only recommend services/products I would personally use or recommend to my own friends and family, but I do not provide any warranty or guarantee for the quality of these services/products. Thank you for supporting my site!

Please exercise due diligence when signing up for any service/product as I will not be liable for any personal loss, financial or otherwise. Content published here are my sole views and personal opinion, and none of the information here constitutes personal financial advice nor represents the views of my employer(s).

Seth Wee was a licensed financial adviser representative from 2009 to 2025, with over 16 years of experience in Singapore’s financial advisory industry.

He started Sethisfy.com in 2019 to share practical insights on credit cards, banking products, and miles strategies, helping readers identify financial products that deliver the best value. Seth has been featured in CNA, Channel 8, Today, and a host of other publications. In 2025, he was also part of a panel at CPF’s Ready For Life festival.

Subscribe to the channel for free updates!

Disclaimer: I may receive an affiliate/referral fee when you sign up for services/products on this site, and such fees keep the site running. I would only recommend services/products I would personally use or recommend to my own friends and family, but I do not provide any warranty or guarantee for the quality of these services/products. Thank you for supporting my site!

Please exercise due diligence when signing up for any service/product as I will not be liable for any personal loss, financial or otherwise. Content published here are my sole views and personal opinion, and none of the information here constitutes personal financial advice nor represents the views of my employer(s).