Nerfed: Citi Prestige card limiting lounge access, hiking annual fee

Citi Prestige Card has announced upcoming changes to some of its card benefits, with effect from 1 Jul 2025.

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Airport Lounge Access

At the moment, Citi Prestige principal cardholders can enjoy unlimited airport lounge access, plus 1 guest. From 1 Jul 2025, this will drop to 12 visits per calendar year, including guest visits.

Every cardholder will have 12 lounge entitlements from 1 Jul till 31 Dec 2025, and another 12 from 1 Jan till 31 Dec 2026.

Unused lounge entitlement will expire on 31 December every year.

Cardholders can track their history of lounge visits in the Priority pass mobile app.

Related: Best cards for free airport lounge access

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Annual fee

From 1 Jul 2025, the annual fee on this card will be revised from $545 to $651.82 per year (incl. GST). Cardholders will pay this new annual fee on their next card anniversary after this date.

The ~$107 increment of annual fee also comes with 7,000 more miles, which I value around the same. So, this shouldn’t be a big deal to most. At the moment, cardholders receive 25k miles every year for paying the annual fee. This will be revised to 32k miles (80k points) per year.

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Is the Citi Prestige card still worth keeping?

It’s really not difficult to calculate if this card is worth it to you.

Step 1: Calculate how much annual miles are worth to you

From 1 Jul 2025, Citi Prestige cardholders will receive 32k miles every year with annual fee payment of ~$652. The value of this depends on how much you value each Citi mile (which are ultra flexible):

  • 1 cent: $320
  • 1.2 cents: $384
  • 1.5 cents: $480
  • 1.8 cents: $576
  • 2 cents: $640
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Step 2: Find out the gap between annual fee and annual miles

As the new annual fee is ~$652, here’s the gap based on your Citi miles valuation:

  • 1 cent: $332
  • 1.2 cents: $268
  • 1.5 cents: $172
  • 1.8 cents: $76
  • 2 cents: $12
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Step 3: Check if Citi Prestige benefits outsize the gap

As I value Citi miles at 1.8 cents per mile, I know that I’d receive $576 in value every year without even using the card. While it sucks to lose unlimited lounge access, it’s not difficult for me to extract $76 worth of benefits from the card every year, based on my travel pattern.

For someone who values Citi miles at 1 cent per mile, the $332 gap can be too large to justify the annual fee.

Related: What Type of Traveller are you? Is your Travel Pattern a Good Fit for the Miles Game?

Other Citi Prestige benefits

Other Citi Prestige benefits like earn rates, non-expiring points and 4th night free on hotel stays remain unchanged. Here’s a quick look at the current card benefits.

💡 Click on the + Card Summary buttons below to view the key details of each card.

Citi Prestige

Unlimited free airport lounge visits for two, 4th night free on hotel bookings

+ Card Summary
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Frequently Asked Questions

Citibank shared the following set of FAQs regarding this change.

prestige-product-faq

Fai

Founder & Writer at Suitesmile

Suites and miles make me smile :)

1 thought on “Nerfed: Citi Prestige card limiting lounge access, hiking annual fee”

  1. Have you seen the amount of aircrew (SQ & Scoot) that abuse this privilege before and after flight? Atrocious. Now everyone suffers.

    Reply

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