Citi Ultima Card review: Luxury private island access, supercar drive … – AsiaOne

There's 1 Citi credit card that 99 per cent of us will never even see in real life, much less hold in our hands. The odds of meeting a Citi Ultima Card are about as high as the odds of meeting Oscar-winning actress Michelle Yeoh, who was a fireside chat guest at the Citi Ultima Gala Dinner earlier this year.

If you haven't already guessed, the Citi Ultima Card is for Citi's ultra-high net worth clients. We're talking at least $500,000 in annual income, or a few cool million worth of assets stashed away with Citibank. It's not a card anyone applies for-not even the most affluent of folks, because it's a by-invitation only credit card.

The likes of you and me probably won't be getting an invite anytime soon, but we can kaypoh. Here's a glimpse into the luxury, exclusiveness, and privilege that the Citi Ultima Card offers-from luxury private islands access to supercar drive experiences on racetracks around the globe.

Citi Ultima Card ReviewIs it MoneySmart?

Overall: Two starsBest for: Ultra-high net worth clients who value exclusive luxury and bespoke privileges.

Earn categories

See our credit card ranking rubric to find out how we rank credit cards.

The Citi Ultima Card is as far from an entry-level card as you can get. It's right up there with the AMEX Centurion Card, UOB Reserve Card, and DBS Insignia Visa Infinite Card as an ultra luxury, super premium credit card for the most affluent members of high society.

You don't apply for the Citi Ultima Card-you get invited. In fact, a previous iteration of their website marketed the card as joining the "Club of One". That website is now defunct, but the principle of the Citi Ultima Card is the same-to make the cardholder feel ultra privileged and super special.

Before we dive into more details about the Citi Ultima Card, I want to add twodisclaimers: Firstly, luxury credit cards like this one can be pretty mysterious. Not all of the Citi Ultima Card's benefits are published, and probably never will be in their entirety. These privileges are so exclusive that even information about them is restricted.

Secondly, Citi recently launched theCiti Ultima's latest iterationwith a whole host of exclusive privileges, but haven't explicitly confirmed that the card's other stats are unchanged. For example, the Citi Ultima's earn rates. In this article, we're assuming that they'll most likely remain the same as before, and do state where we make these assumptions.

The first question you might be wondering is: Who are these people walking around zipping past in their limousines with the Citi Ultima Card in the first place?

It goes without saying that the card is only for Citi's highest net worth clients. It falls under the category of luxury credit cards for Citigold Private Clients:

As you might have noticed, there's no "find out more" for the current iteration of the Citi Ultima Card. Even their latest Citi Ultima press release doesn't reveal the exact income requirements or minimum asset value you need to have to score an invite.

We can only guess from previous iterations of the card that one needs a minimum annual income of $500,000. Alternatively, having at least $2 millionassets under management (AUM) and spending a minimum of $20,000 a month might also do the trick.

As we said earlier, the Citi Ultima Card is on the complete opposite end of the spectrum from the friendly entry-level credit cards we know-some of which can even come with a $0 annual fee.

Citi Ultima cardmembers can expect to pay $4,199.04 (including eight per cent GST) a year in annual fees for the Citi Ultima, and no-this fee is not going to be waivable. On the plus side, at least your supplementary cards come free.

The Citi Ultima Card isn't here to earn its cardmembers miles. I mean, it does, but its earn rates pale in comparison to the exclusive privileges and luxuries it affords its cardmembers. Still, let's take a quick look at the rates, based on the last iteration of the card:

How do these compare with other cards? Here's a look at how the Citi Ultima's mile earn rates compare with entry-levelmiles cards:

Currently, the Citi Ultima Card has the highest local miles earn rate in the market, coming in at 1.6 miles per dollar (mpd). The next highest local earn rate is 1.5mpd, belonging to cards such as the DBS Vantage Visa Infinite Card.

However, the Citi Ultima's 2mpd for foreign spend is pretty lacklustre, especially for a card that comes with a four-figure annual fee and $500,000 annual income requirement. You can get 2.4mpd on overseas spending with the HSBC TravelOne Card and UOB PRVI MASTERCARD Miles Card, both of which are entry-level cards with a standard $30,000 annual income requirement. As mentioned earlier, the Citi Ultima Card is not a card known for its earn rates. Its clientele is looking for service, not miles or reward points.

We talked about the Citi Ultima Card's earn rates in terms of miles, but that was for easy comparison with other credit cards. Citi will actually give Ultima cardmembers ThankYou points.

Trick question! There is no one answer. Citi's ThankYou points have gotten a bit of a rep for being almost random in their validity periods. That's because when your ThankYou points expire depends on the card you earned them on. For example, ThankYou points earned on the Citi Rewards Card expire in fiveyears, while ThankYou points earned on the Citi Prestige Card never expire.

The aforementioned Citi Prestige Card is actually a fellow luxury credit card for Citigold Private Clients, but is one(big) level below the Citi Ultima. Since the Citi Prestige's ThankYou points don't expire, it only makes sense that neither do the ThankYou points earned on the Citi Ultima Card.

Another plus point: Conversion fees are waived for the Citi Ultima Card. For a $4,199.04 annual fee, they better be!

This is where the Citi Ultima Card truly packs a punch. The latest iteration of the Citi Ultima Card boasts fourareas of privilege, each with their own fancy names. Here's a summary of the privileges, with my own translation of their fancy schmancy category names:

Having a dedicated agent from Citi you can bother directly, while the rest of us call their hotline and get put on hold. Specifically you'll get a dedicated Ultima Lifestyle Relationship Manager.

Lifestyle experiences worldwide. These can be pretty crazy-private island access or supercar racetrack experience, anyone?

Basically, food. This is all about dining privileges as high-end as you can get, so that means:

This is all about health and wellness. Citi only writes "exclusively curated Wellness retreats", so we're expecting luxurious spa treatments and the like.

While the press release unveiling the latest iteration of the Citi Ultima Card doesn't promise any sign-up promotion, the last iteration of the card gave cardholders 375,000 ThankYou points (150,000 miles) when they paid the annual fee each year. We can expect something similar this time around too. It works out to paying $4,199.04 for 150,000 miles, or about $28 for 1,000 miles. To give you an idea of how far miles can get you, a return trip on SIA from Singapore to London is about 10,142 miles.

What if you really want the ultra exclusive, high-end luxury the Citi Ultima Card offers, but you haven't been invited for it?

If you're already a Citigold Private Client, you stand a chance of scoring an invite. You might want to contact your Relationship Manager and put in a request to be considered.

Should Citi still not invite you to be an Ultima cardholder, there are fourother luxury credit cards with exclusive privileges that are worthy of being compared to the Citi Ultima's-the AMEX Centurion Card, UOB Reserve Card, DBS Insignia Visa Infinite Card, and OCBC Elite World Card. The latter has the lowest minimum income requirement, at $250,000 per year. Read more about these other super premium credit cards.

In case you're wondering, here's how we decide on our credit card rankings.

Exclusivity: We dock one to twostars if there is/are another category/categories that make the card exclusive and very specific to a certain clientele.

We count the number of benefits and award between 0.5 to twostars for each, depending on how good the perk is.

ALSO READ:Ultimate list of credit card reviews

This article was first published in MoneySmart.

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Citi Ultima Card review: Luxury private island access, supercar drive ... - AsiaOne