Citibank Cash Back Platinum Card

photo source: http://www.citibank.com.my/

The Citibank Cash Back Platinum Card is the latest cash back credit card released by Citibank. Unlike other banks, it offers cash back on all days, with the preset %, based on the different categories. However, as always, there is a cap on the petrol spending. For this card, Citibank is offering a maximum RM600 per month, which equals to maximum cash back of RM30 per month. Good news is that there is no stipulated cap on the cash back for other categories!!

The card offers 2% for pharmaceuticals at Guardian and Watsons, 2% for groceries at all the major hypermarkets in Malaysia (namely Tesco, Giant, Carrefour & Cold Storage), 2% for phone bills from Maxis, Digi & Celcom. For everything else, the cash back is only a meager 0.3%. I guess this is the trade off with the higher % for other categories.

Also coming with the card are some other perks, i.e. Retail Protection Plan and Healthcare privileges. For the RPP, items that are lost, damaged or stolen will be reimbursed, up till 50%, but to a maximum of RM10k per item and RM15k per occurrence. This is only limited to eligible purchases, but I don’t have much info on what will be considered ‘eligible’. For the Healthcare part, you will get to enjoy a 30% discount on all Executive Screening Packages and also a 15% discount on all walk-in hospital room. These health benefits are only available in KPJ Healthcare’s participating hospitals.

To apply for this card, you will need to earn RM48,000 in a year or have an existing credit card (minimum 6months-1year) with a credit limit of RM10k. According to Citibank’s published annual fees, the principal requires forking out RM195 while supplementary costs RM100. This doesn’t really matter, as most Citibank cards’ annual fees can be waived with a phone call to their Customer Service. The only thing is that the card needs to be used somewhat actively for them to waive the annual fees.

My verdict: this is one of the better cash back card there is in Malaysia, although you may need to do some tracking of your petrol spending to not exceed the set limit. Remember that there is no bonus points once the cap is exceeded, so spend wisely (on petrol, since there is no cap on other spending)..another cash back card that may be able to compare is OCBC’s Titanium Card, but that will be another blog..