The Citi Prestige Card is generally regarded as one of the better $120K cards, thanks to its unlimited lounge visits (with one guest), 4th Night Free benefit, airport limo transfers and World Elite Mastercard benefits.
Unfortunately, Citi has just announced a huge nerf to the lounge benefit, and paired it with a 20% annual fee hike, effective 1 July 2025.
The Citi Prestige card annual fee will be revised to S$598 (before GST). Upon card membership renewal and payment of the annual fee, you will be entitled to a renewal gift of 80,000 Citi ThankYouSM Points (equivalent to 32,000 miles).
Complimentary airport lounge access via Priority PassTM will be revised to 12 complimentary lounge visits per calendar year when you travel.
-Citibank
The FAQs for this change can be found here, and methinks there’s going to be a lot of unhappy Citi Prestige customers out there…
Citi Prestige cuts lounge visits to 12 per year
Principal Citi Prestige Cardmembers currently enjoy unlimited Priority Pass lounge visits, together with one guest each time.
From 1 July 2025, the number of free lounge visits will be cut to just 12 per calendar year.
For the avoidance of doubt, your usage of the lounge benefit prior to this date will not impact the number of lounge visits available for the rest of the year (e.g. even if you’ve utilised 12 lounge visits between 1 January to 30 June 2025, you’ll still receive 12 lounge visits come 1 July 2025).
Needless to say, going from unlimited visits to just 12 is a massive nerf, though given the way the perk was being utilised by some folks, it’s perhaps not surprising (Asian Street Kitchen must be doing a roaring merchandise trade).
| 💳 Airport Lounge Benefits (income req.: S$120K) |
|||
| Card | Lounge Network | Free Visits (Per Year) |
|
| Main | Supp. | ||
 HSBC Visa Infinite |
LoungeKey | ∞ | ∞ Up to 5 supp. cards |
 OCBC VOYAGE |
DragonPass | ∞ | 2 |
 UOB VI Metal Card |
DragonPass | ∞ + 1 guest | N/A |
| Citi Prestige |
Priority Pass | 12 | N/A |
 DBS Vantage |
Priority Pass | 10 | N/A |
 SCB Visa Infinite |
Priority Pass | 6 | N/A |
 Maybank Visa Infinite |
Priority Pass | 4 | N/A |
 AMEX Plat. Reserve |
N/A | N/A | N/A |
The only silver lining here, if you can call it that, is that you can now visit the lounge as a larger group and utilise multiple visits at a time.
For example, a family of four would be able to visit lounges three times in total. Under the previous system of 1+1, two members would have to pay each time.
Unused lounge visits expire at the end of the year, and do not roll over to the following year.
Annual fee increasing to S$651.82
Principal Citi Prestige Cardmembers currently pay a S$545 annual fee, which comes with 25,000 miles (awarded in the form of 62,500 ThankYou points).
From 1 July 2025, the annual fee will be increased by 20% to S$651.82, and the number of miles increased to 32,000 miles (awarded in the form of 80,000 ThankYou points).
| Till 30 Jun 25 | From 1 Jul 25 | |
| Annual Fee | S$545 | S$651.82 |
| Renewal Miles | 25,000 | 32,000 |
| Cost Per Mile | 2.18¢ | 2.04¢ |
If we were to view this strictly from a cost per mile perspective, the revised figure of 2.04 cents is more favourable than the current 2.18 cents. But psychologically speaking, it’s quite hard to swallow a nerf like the lounge benefit that comes paired with an annual fee increase.
Cardholders will not be required to top-up any difference for annual fees charged prior to 1 July 2025. The revised annual fee will be charged to renewals that take place on or after 1 July 2025.
For comparison, here are the annual fees for other $120K cards, together with the miles received for paying it.
| Card | Annual Fee | Miles | CPM |
 HSBC Visa Infinite |
S$662.15 (S$497.12 for HSBC Premier) |
35,000 miles | 1.42 – 1.89 |
| SCB Visa Infinite |
S$599.50 | 35,000 miles | 1.71 |
| Citi Prestige |
S$651.82 | 32,000 miles 🔁 Recurring |
2.04 |
 DBS Vantage |
S$599.50 | 25,000 miles 🔁 Recurring |
2.40 |
| UOB VI Metal Card |
S$654 | 25,000 miles 🔁 Recurring |
2.62 |
 OCBC VOYAGE |
S$498 |
15,000 miles 🔁 Recurring |
3.32 |
| AMEX Plat. Reserve |
S$545 | None | N/A |
| Maybank Visa Infinite |
S$654 (1st yr. free) |
None | N/A |
Conclusion
From 1 July 2025, the Citi Prestige Card will hike its annual fee from S$545 to S$651.82, and cut its lounge benefit from unlimited visits with one guest, to 12 visits per calendar year.
While the number of welcome and renewal miles will be bumped up from 25,000 to 32,000 miles, I suspect most cardholders won’t look on this change very favourably.
If you make full use of the airport limo and 4th Night Free benefit, I suppose this card still has enough in it to justify its annual fee, but this nerf certainly closes the gap with the rest of the $120K pack, which until now the Citi Prestige was comfortably leading.
Is Stand Chart Beyond not considered a $120k card?
definitely not. not only is its min income requirement $200k, its annual fee is 3x that of the $120k segment.
well that is me looking to drop this card
NOOOOO I JUST GOT THE CARD
HAHAHA
Oh no. I just paid my annual fee last month, thinking I would get 1 year of unlimited lounge visits. Turns out, I will only get 4 months of it. This leaves a very sour taste.
RIP those who cancelled plat charge to fall back on prestige
That’s exactly what I did, and now this…
this is me unfortunately, but still no regrets.
plat charge pp has no restaurant benefit
This is damn sad leh. The unlimited lounge was one of the main reasons besides the 4th night free that made me continue with this card. Since my renewal was just done, I will reconsider when 2026 comes along whether this card is still worth it.
Thanks for the heads up. Might be time to drop this card
[…] H/T: Milelion […]
Time to drop this card… I wouldn’t mind paying a higher annual fee if they kept the unlimited lounge visits, but nerfing it to 12 visits a year makes it a no brainer to switch to another card
Not only did I just get this card…it was after going through multiple rounds of document submission :-(. Time to cancel in 2026!
Unpopular view: unbridled use (dare I say, abuse) of the lounge benefits probably led to this.
Sure there will be those who will say “but Citi give unlimited, what” but it is exactly this growing min-maximalist application of what arguably was a fair usage intention that makes it unsustainable.
This is why we do not have good things.
Undoubtedly the case.
I think it is the degree of the nerf that is shocking, e.g. if it was unlimited +1, with a cap on visits per day (or time interval between visits)…that might still be palatable.
i dont think citi has the ability to set that kind of timeout period. only priority pass can do that, and so far they’ve not been willing to do so (unlike dragonpass)
Doesn’t take a genius to see this. What makes it especially annoying is that many of the min-maxxers didn’t seem to be actually obtaining that much value from doing so; e.g. there were those who were just grabbing ‘free’ substandard merchandise for… bragging rights?
I can understand a ‘make hay while the sun shines’ mentality, but seeing the benefit nerfed after the card’s been around for more than a decade is pretty annoying. Hope they’ve enjoy their ‘free’ t-shirts and tumblers.
If people were restaurant hopping (and terminals) with a guest, shame on you
how did this work again ? Had a CPMC which I cancelled 2 years ago.
I cancelled the card around March this year but I still have priority pass until end of the year. Will they bill me if I use priority pass until end of the year or can I still use it?
I tried this before, could use the unlimited visits for the rest of the year since it’s an annual subscription on the PP end. Never tried bringing guests after I cancelled the card though, since I wasn’t sure if the +1 guest was charged to the card but covered by Citi behind the scene.
With this nerf, you only have until 30 June to use the unlimited visits I guess.
Looks like I will switch to UOB Infinite for the unlimited lounge. As I travel a lot. I need this card because of unlimited lounge.
But seriously, for those frequent flyers, won’t you have the airline alliance status eg. Star alliance. More than likely, you should be in those lounges instead of the priority pass lounge. Priority pass lounge should be the last resort, and I thought the 12 pass is sufficient.
Not true. I fly every month, but on budget flights to neighboring countries for work. No airline status.
They could have at least introduced an additional entitlement mechanism for high spenders like for the limo benefit.
Now everyone suffers because of Scoot pilots using Wolfgang Puck as their staff canteen.
Not only wolfgang, also Asian Kitchen, TGM. We all go down together.
Of course no one likes a nerf. But they remain somehow still slightly better than most of the rest.
Maybe the MileLion has taught his followers just all too well how to game and optimize the system, so that the banks needs to adjust to keep it profitable. 🙂
I may be in the minority but I’m happy with this change because: 1. Lower cpm for AF and the table shows that Prestige has the lowest cpm for a recurring mile reward. 2. I use airline lounges for personal travel and on solo corporate travel. I have PP for myself and my family supplementary cards. Having 12 other PP visits to use at once is a plus in the rare instance I’m travelling with >1 workmate not in J, or with other relatives (but then I’d have redeemed J for relatives). 3. If others drop the card, maybe lower… Read more »
+1
Especially regarding being allowed to guest in more than one pax per lounge visit
And good point re the expenses cashback! 💡
Finally, Aaron keeps forgetting the golf benefit that comes with the card. And that only is worth quite a lot, not only in monetary terms, but that you’re able to access courses without being a member of the clubs behind them.
I’ve heard that aircrew have been spamming the PP $35 benefit at the Asian Street Kitchen before and after each flight (it’s not just meals apparently but anything sold there – is it?). Anyway I wouldn’t trade the $35 credit for the time taken to walk there but thanks to them (if this is true) the cpm for AF reward miles is now lower and with a greater quantity too. That’s a good thing for some of us.
Dont PP require boarding pass to give the benefit? Air crew should not have boarding pass when they work.
I don’t know how they do it as I’m not aircrew. See posts from Wee Lee and John above. I don’t use any PP benefit at all for myself so this change of 12 uses for anyone is an upgrade for me.
Most of the restaurants in Singapore Changi Transit area, don’t check for boarding passes
for “Aircrew” . They just key in a random flight for them. Scoot and SQ pilots treating ASK, TGM, WGP like their crew joint. Tabao before and after flight.
Just settled March annual fee.
With the Citi PayAll being lousy now, I will seriously reconsider keeping this card come March 2026.
I currently have unlimited Loungekey, 3 DragonPass and another card with 4 Priority Pass annually. And I travel on average 4x a year. So can terminate the Citi Prestige with soon to be 12 Priority Pass annually.
Citi, don’t be so certain you can increase card fee, cut benefits and people will just accept it.
Here’s the question, guys. How sure are we that other issuers with unlimited access (lounge key) won’t follow suit? After all, this move follows that of the Amex Plat nerf recently. For those who just renewed, take heart that you have another year to observe the situation.
I have been holding this card since 2018 and seriously, the value keeps getting lower and lower every year. I just tried booking a 4-night hotel over the conceirge and the policy is now even full payment of non-refundable deposit is not quantifiable under the T&C for the card, the conceirge said its a deposit, not full payment so the rate do not qualify for the 4N benefit. Its getting very ridiculous to be honest… and I am seriously considering canceling it for once.
If I apply now before start of July, I will still be charged the increased annual fee yes? Saw that Citi only charges annual fee on anniversary card issue date, not sure if i’m right