Citi Cash Back VS Citi Cash Back Plus Card: Differences Between These Cards & Which You Should Choose?

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When it comes to cash back cards, the Citi Cash Back card is one of the best card you can get in Singapore. The card promises cardholders with a cashback of up to 8.0% on dining, groceries and petrol with a minimum total spend of $888 each month.

Optimising the cash back you earn on the Citi Cash Back card requires users to understand how it works and to pay attention to how they use it.

Restricted Categories: For a start, the bonus cashback (7.75%), which is what makes this card attractive, is restricted to dining, groceries and petrol spend. If you use the card for other kinds of spend (e.g. shopping, booking your holiday), you only receive the base cash back of 0.25%.

Minimum Spend: At the same time, you need to spend a minimum of $888 each month to qualify for the bonus cash back. If you don’t spend the minimum required, you only receive a base cash back of 0.25%.

Cap On Bonus Cash Back: Though the 7.75% cash back is exceptionally attractive, there is a monthly cap of $25 for each category. For example, even if you spend $1,000 a month on dining, you will only receive $25 cash back for the category, and not $77.50.

Read Also: Miles Or CashBack? Which Type Of Credit Cards Should You Go For In Singapore?

When It Makes Sense To Use The Citi Cash Back Card

The best example of how to use the Citi Cash Back card is if you intend to charge a moderate amount of spend each month to the three categories that give you the bonus cash back.

For example, if you spend about $300 a month on groceries, $300 on dining and $300 on petrol, you will spend $900 each month. This gives you a base cash back of $2.25. (0.25%). You also qualify for the bonus 7.75% cash back since you have spent more than $888 for the month. This allows you to earn a cash back of $23.25 (7.75% of $300) for each category.

In total, you will receive a cash back of $72, which gives you an effective cash back rate of 8%.

Limitations Of The Citi Cash Back Card

While the scenario above shows a savvy way to be using the Citi Cash Back card, the card isn’t without its weaknesses. Here are three examples where you will not optimise the cash back on the card.

# 1 You are unable to spend more than $888 each month: A credit card shouldn’t be forcing you to spend more than what you naturally need to. If you are only able to spend $700 each month, the card will only give you a cash back of 0.25% ($1.75) which isn’t great.

# 2 You tend to spend a lot more each month on the three categories: If you have a big family and tend to spend more on dining, groceries and petrol, charging all your spending to your Citi Cash Back Card only doesn’t allow you to optimise for your cash back.

For example, if you spend $1,000 a month on dining, $1,000 a month on groceries and $500 a month on petrol, you will only receive a cash back of $81.25 each month. This is just slightly higher than our previous example where despite spending only $300 in each of the categories, we got back $72 in cash back.

# 3 You don’t spend much in the bonus categories: If you are someone who tend to spend on shopping, holiday trips or service products only, then you won’t be able to earn the bonus cash back for the Citi Cash Back Card.

So, spending $2,000 each month on just shopping and other service-related products (e.g. telco bill, subscription services) won’t allow you to earn much of a cash back.

Introducing The Citi Cash Back Plus Card

To complement the Citi Cash Back card, the bank also offers the Citi Cash Back+ Card.

Some simple features for this card.

– 1.6% cash back on your spend, regardless of categories.

– No minimum spend required. No cap on how much cash back you can earn each month either.

For example, if you spend $5,000 a month on the Citi Cash Back+ Card, you will receive $80 cash back for the month. For those who only spend $700 a month, you earn $11.20 in cash back, as compared to just $1.75 if you have used your Citi Cash Back card.

For those who do not spend much on dining, groceries or petrol, the Citi Cash Back+ card will be a better option, as compared to the Citi Cash Back card, since it allows you to earn higher base cash back of 1.6%, as compared to 0.25%.

Citi Cash Back With Citi Cash Back+: Enjoy The Best Of Both World

Rather than choose one card over the other, you can, of course, enjoy the best which both cards can offer you.

For example, you can choose to clock in about $320 in spend for each of the category (dining, groceries, petrol) using the Citi Cash Back card while keeping any other spend, or spend beyond $320 in dining, groceries and petrol to the Citi Cash Back+ Card.

Here’s an example.

If you want to apply for either cards or both these cards, you can apply through SingSaver, where you enjoy exclusive welcome offers such as cash, free vouchers and rebates. Deals are updated continuously so you can apply here for the Citi Cash Back card and the Citi Cash Back+ Card to check out what’s the offer today.

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