The Mercury Drugstore co-branded Citibank Visa Credit Card *Updated July 2019

The Citibank Mercury Drug Visa Card

If you are somebody like me who spends a lot on maintenance medicine, you will be hard-pressed to find a better rebate/cashback credit card than the Citibank Mercury Drug Visa card. It offers up to 10% rebates on Mercury Drug and participating medical institutions capped at PhP9,600 per year (see the chart below for details), a 0.25% rebate for anything else, a free emergency ambulance assistance 24/7 worth approximately PhP10,000 (available only for Metro Manila residents once a year and is extended to 1st degree dependents via affinity or consanguinity - which is a fancy way of saying either by blood or by legal proceedings such as marriage or adoption). Do note that you will only be able to maximize the 10% rebate if you first spend PhP10,000 or more from other purchases (aside from Mercury Drug and partner medical institutions). I have made some rough calculations and given the amount of monthly spend I have on medication (diabetes is expensive people!), I can, in fact, get better perks from this card compared to any card I have in my wallet (yes including my free annual fee for life airlines co-branded credit card). So when I was reviewing and optimizing my credit card habits, I have decided to transfer all of my recurring spends on this card such as utilities, subscriptions, groceries, and dining. I still use my other cards from time to time but only when it makes sense to do so. I do not even think that I need these many cards and would rationalize having them in the near future (I will keep those that do not have any annual fees).

Take a look at the details of the perks of this card and see if it will suit your spend profile.

A snapshot of the benefits of the Citibank Mercury Drug Visa Card *source: Citibank Philippines website

Also at PhP2,000 annual maintenance fee, it has one of the lowest maintenance fees at least compared to the rest of Citibank's offerings.

Update: Citibank seems to have modified certain perks of this card that may or may not make it more attractive for my particular situation. It does have the potential to earn more rebates however as you will be able to see below.

I have received the following notice from Citibank:

To make it easier to compare with the previous perks, this new reward scheme is equivalent to the following: a 2.5% rebate on Mercury Drug purchases (capped at PhP320,000 spend); 1.5% on health, wellness, and foreign currency spend; and 0.5% rebate for any other spend. The good thing is that the monthly cap is now gone so it might even be a better scheme for others. Time will tell if my current spending profile is well suited to this new reward scheme (I will have a definitive answer when the new reward scheme kicks in on August 2019).

Strangely enough, the website still advertises the previous card benefits and perks. Somehow I think it is unlikely that the new rules only apply to me, but I will definitely make an inquiry to the bank's customer service.

Note that this is not a sponsored post and is purely based on my personal experience in using this credit card being offered by Citibank Philippines. I have not received any compensation from the aforementioned financial institution whether monetary or in kind.