Looking for a fuel credit card? Citibank Indian Oil Credit Card might serve the purpose but only if you’re happy to fuel your vehicle with Indian Oil petrol pumps.
Its normal for Credit card companies to tie up with a single company and give some rewards for that. For example, ICICI and Amex has tie up with Hindustan Petroleum(HP). HDFC has tie up with Bharat Petroleum (BPCL).
Similarly, Citi bank has tie up with Indian oil and they promise to give about 5% value back, which is 2.5% surcharge waiver and another 2.6% cashback as points.
Overview
| Type | Fuel Credit Card |
| Reward Rate | Upto 2.6% |
| Annual Fee | 1,000 INR+GST |
| Best for | IOCL Spends |
| USP | Citi reliability & support |
I would never suggest fuel credit cards to anyone, however Citi may be an exception because of the customer support.
Joining Fees
| Joining Fee | 1,000 INR+GST |
| Welcome Benefit | 250 Points on first spend within 30 days |
| Renewal Fee | 1,000 INR+GST |
| Renewal Fee Waiver | On annual spends of Rs.30,000 |
Your joining fee is only partly offset by the welcome benefit. While that’s a disappointment, you maybe okay with that after looking into the rewards that this card has to offer.
Reward Points
While 2.6% as a inbuilt feature of a card appears nice, do note that they have an upper ceiling. Lets look into all the in & outs of the card.
- IOCL Fuel Spends: 2.6% cashback points (Citi Swipe machines only)
- Upper Cap: Rs.10,000 (or 267 Turbo Points) per transaction
- 2 Turbo Points on every Rs.150 spent at groceries and supermarkets [ capped to spends up to Rs.5,000 (or 67 points) per month ]
- 1 Turbo Point = Rs.1 worth of fuel.
Lets see the real life scenario. Most of us would fuel for about Rs.5000 and that would give us about Rs.132 worth of points for which you need to go through all tiny terms every single time. Moreover, Citi terminals are nowhere located out of metro cities. That means less acceptance of the card to get points. Also, too much of restrictions to earn too small points.
Will I take a card for earning Rs.132 a month? Never. I will rather stick to my other cards and use cash/e-wallet for fuel or use any of the other credit/debit cards with just fuel surcharge waiver.
Features
- Complementary Airport lounge access: Nil
- Foreign Exchange Markup fee: 3.5% + Service Tax
As you can see, its a decent credit card if you live in a metro city and just want one card for fuel, provided IOC pump is nearby your location. Else, forget it.
You can get far better value from your spends with other cards, considering Fuel expense is minimal for most of us.
- CardExpert Rating: 3.9/5
Looking for a better Fuel cashback credit card? Check out my latest list of 5 Best Fuel Credit Cards in India with full Reviews.
Whats your take on Citibank Indian Oil Platinum Credit Card? Holding it? why?
I have been using this card for past 5 years and it is best fuel card in india.
Precise Update Siddharth… I have got this card few months back and cancelled within a month… Searching for the IOC pumps and to insist them for the swiping in Citibank EDCs is big task in Gurgaon (Gurugram) itself.
Cancelling within a month is bad for your CIBIL score 🙁
How Sid? Can you please elaborate on this?
When you apply for a Card,
CIBIL report is requested by the bank, which puts your score down by 10-20 points.
Though, it gets back to normal when you use it regularly for 6 months or so.
So in your case, you’ve hurt your points and closed the card.
Oops… Thanks for the information… Will be careful from the next time…
(They have passed my credit limit from the Fuel card to Rewards card )
Dear Sid,
I want to get rid of my IOC titanium card and instead get an card which gives me fuel surchage and also 5 points on ever 150 rs spend?
Can you suggest me on this one? appreciate it
Happy new year man
Ramu,
Check out 5 Best Fuel Credit Cards in India
As said by Selvakumar, most of Indian Oil fuel stations are not accepting citibank credit card(Reward Points). They say the swipe machine is not working. From past 6 to 8 months I have used it only once.An year ago it was good but now many indian oil stations are not accepting, not just with one station I tried at multiple stations.
This is with respect to bangalore location. I dont know about other locaions.
I have been using this card for almost 9 years and gives good rewards on fuel. I stay in Delhi and the card works at almost all Ioc outlets. It works as good as cashback card since I can use points to buy fuel which I had bought anyways. I spend almost 4-5 lakes every year giving me 7000-8000 worth of fuel every year which is substantial.
One of the biggest IOC bunk removed citibank pos due to higher transaction charges. I put fuel more than Rs. 10000 per month over there but since there is no citi pos, I didn’t get this card.
Finding Indian Oil outlet is little tedious an i earned very little rewards point with it. Planning to change the card type to Citibank Rewards Card.
the biggest challenge with this card is that whenever you go to Indian oil filling station & swap this card, they said machine is not working for rewards sale options, this happened most of the time. like I have visited to Sher Singh service station at Pankha Road Janakpuri , New Delhi & found most of the time their swap Machine it doesn’t work for reward sale option
Need a petro card for fuel
Hi, I have Citibank Rewards (4years old and CL – 90K only) and Citibank Indian Oil credit card card (4 months old CL – 1.8L). I’m planning to close the Citibank rewards card and combine the limit of above cards to my Citibank Indian Oil credit card (CL- approx 2.7L). Is this the correct decision ?
Hello Friends, Does this card not gives 0.75% cashback on fuel purchases? I recently got this card and did one fuel transaction on Indian Oil on CITI Bank POS. I got the reward points but the usual cashback of 0.75% is not appearing in the statement which used to appear in my other cards. Anybody experienced this?
Anyone had similar experience?
I am getting. It takes some time 15-20days.
I too noticed this. But I guess this is mandatory.
2011, this was my 1st credit card ever. No loan history, nothing. Got it LTF when I joined a new company. Salary was 30K and surprisingly Citi gave 1.5L limit. Gradually salary increased, provided income docs from time to time for limit increase but denied everytime. Finally after 7years they doubled the limit. Everyone knows 1 RP = 1 Rs fuel. First card always has special place in heart 🙂
Only on MakeMyTrip website, mobile site and app
International Offers :
Up to 21000 on International Flights
25% cashback up to 30000 on International Hotels
Domestic Offers :
15% cashback up to 1500 on Domestic Flights. Min. transaction 3000
50% cashback up to 5000 on Domestic Hotels Min. transaction 2000
Promo code : MMTCITI
VALIDITY
12th – 14th Sept, 2018
Sid sir
I’m using HDFC regalia first card for past three years and not getting any cashback when points are redeemed.Can I upgrade to regalia?
Please suggest me.
Hi Sid
Could you please let know if this offers any turbo points for wallet recharges, insurance payments, utility payments?
I was not able to find this on the Citibank India website
Thanks!
Ram
Is there a card where cashback is possible on purchase of 3 to 4 Lakhs worth of fuel every month?
Hi,
The maximum transaction value that can be done in this card for cash back and surcharge wavier is ₹10,000 per transaction.
I’m not sure if they wil give a limit of 4 lac on this card.
Cheers,
Kiran
Effective 12-Oct-2019, purchase transactions performed on below merchant categories will be excluded from the rewards programme
Merchant Category
Codes (MCC)*
Merchant Category
4111 Transportation & Tolls
4121 Transportation & Tolls
4131 Transportation & Tolls
4784 Transportation & Tolls
4900 Utilities
5960 Insurance
6300 Insurance
8211 Educational Institutions
8220 Government Institutions
8241 Educational Institutions
8244 Educational Institutions
8249 Educational Institutions
8299 Educational Institutions
9211 Government Institutions
9222 Government Institutions
9311 Government Institutions
9399 Government Institutions
9402 Government Institutions
9405 Government Institutions
Please note,
– 0.75% fuel cashback has been discontinued by Govt
– Now, Indian oil Citibank CC can be swiped over any bank’s POS machines. No need to hunt exclusive citibank EDC at fuel stations. Same 4x rewards can be accumulated. May be due to recent launch of dedicated fuel CC by Axis & HDFC bank. Enjoy!!
This card has become useless after recent changes of swiping on any machine instead of citibank. I only received 1 point for RS.150 instead of 4. If you go to their site there is list of petrol pumps which is not exhaustive. Will talk to customer care and update.
Received an email Today regarding the 5X reward points on Airtel Broadband bill payments with Citi Credit Card. Not sure if this is a Targetted offer but, here are the details:
Offer Details: Get 5X reward points for Airtel broadband bill payments via the Airtel Thanks app with Citi credit cards except for Citi Corporate Credit Cards, Cashback cards and PayTM First Cards
Avail this Offer: On Airtel Thanks app
Offer Applicable: Citi Credit Cards except Corporate Cards, Cashback Cards, and PayTM First Cards
Validity: From 24th April 2020 till 23rd May 2020
Since the last few changes of swipe on any machine i have noticed that i am not getting 4 point per Rs150. This card has become useless now. Better to use other cards for fuel purchases. I wil definitely stop using it and instead again start using the icici amex HPCL card.
Hi bro. After reading few comments i checked my last 3 statements and calculated, i think they r still giving 4 points per 150 spent at ioc . Coz in one statement i saw i just used card for filling fuel worth rs 2373 and total points which i got in that month was 63.
Spend based offer received today on this card variant from Citibank – 1000rs Amazon Voucher on spend of 7500rs.
Good to see such offer after very long time from Citibank.
Better than spend based offers from HDFC as spend amount is very less against voucher value, spend period 2 months Dec & Jan. But I think offer is sent to customers who hold Citibank account as well as per TnC.
Earlier they used to charge only the amount spent on refueling. Now a days they charge 1% fuel surcharge and then reverse it in the statement. Another charge is also there which is reversed only when you call their customer care. It is very inconvenient to call their cc every time for reversal of extra charges. I have therefore stopped using this card.
“…in the statement. Another charge is also there which is…”
What other charge?
I’m holding on to this card just because this was my second ever card and was LTF.
It’s becoming way too difficult to find Citi POC’s in IndianOil Pumps and even if it’s available thy don’t swipe on that machine.
Secondly unlike other banks Citi charges the additional transaction charges on fuel purchases and never reverses it so I basically find this card to be almost useless except for Citi Online offers.
Yes I have also seen this, had been using the card for a long time but now there are some additional charges on the statement, and we need to call cc to reverse it.
I asked CC for LTF Citi rewards card swapping to LTF Indian oil card on 20th August.
Will update if Citibank process it.
They would do it pretty easily , I had done the same a few years back.
I recently took a gamble to try redemption on non-Citi machine. To my surprise, it worked! How? Just use Citi IO card to pay at IO outlets. After you pay, you will receive an SMS, to convert the payment to points and voila! I am not sure whether this would work on IO outlets that are not on Citi’s list of IO outlets on it’s site.
Have been using this card only for fuel expenses for a couple of years now. My fuel expenses average around 11k per month and since I have an IOC bunk on my route to the office; this card has been quite convenient for me.
Some of the changes that happened around 2 years back:
– A Citibank POS machine is not required to accrue 4 on 150 Turbopoints for fuel expenses
– Not all IndianOil bunks are covered under the Turbopoints criteria – there is a list on Citibank site somewhere that provides addresses for all such outlets in states/cities.
If you fill up at other filling stations not IOC, will they reverse the surcharge?
Yesterday visited one ioc petrol pump at kochi based on latest Citibank website information for redemption of rewards points. But they told me they have no connection with citi and they refused for redemption of rewards points.
You need to redeem the points through Citibank’s online portal. They are adjusted as a statement credit.
I am also facing issue to use the indian oil card for sweeping, Petrol pumps has not available machine.. so it’s very worst card.
Hi Siddharth
I have an infinia credit card which i have been using as my daily driver. While it is a superb CC for all retail spends, it doesnt offer any specific fueling advantages. Would you suggest going for an additional fuel credit card, choosing one of the CCs from the analysis and comparison you have presented in above writeup?
Why not go with HP Pay for fuel?
Explore it a bit, there are some sweet spots. 🙂
The blocker towards going for HP is that i only refuel at indian oil pumps with their XP95 petrol, as that is the only true 95 octane petrol currently available (and recommended for my vehicle) along with abundant availability of their stations in bangalore.
SC Super value titanium card can get same cash back as ICICI HPCL supersaver or Citi bank Indian oil card, but at all petrol pumps.
Hi Siddharth,
I am not understanding how to redeem my Citi IOCL reward points. I do not get any SMS too regarding redemption. When I login to Citi portal, I can see that I have reward point balance but not sure how to redeem them. Please help!