CIMB Travel Platinum Mastercard

Refined Points Metric (RPM): 5.9

Recommendation: Consider

Annual Fee

Annual Income

Airport Lounge Access

4X access per year
International Lounges
Supplementary Access
Spend conditions

RM24,000 per annum

Airline Miles Earn Rate

Local: 1 Airline Mile = RM6.25

Airlines: 1 Airline Mile = RM2.50

Overseas: 1 Airline Mile = RM2.50

Payment Network

Review | CIMB Travel Platinum Mastercard

CIMB unveiled its new line of travel-focused credit cards back in October 2022, as a result of no longer tied to a singular airline merchant, which was Enrich. For those who were unaware, CIMB had previously tied up with Malaysia Airlines to offer an exclusive line of co-branded credit cards for the past few years.

With the launch of the CIMB Travel credit cards, CIMB is no longer tied to an exclusive partnership with a particular airline, and you'll see shortly why that benefits you as a consumer more, although I reckon most users of the CIMB Travel Platinum Credit Card will still opt to convert their Bonus Points into Enrich Miles.

Nevertheless, let's dive in to explore CIMB's base travel credit card, which is likely to be a popular consideration amongst youngsters.

Air Miles Conversion

Let's jump right into the important metrics.

With the CIMB Travel Platinum Credit Card, you earn 2X Bonus Points for every Ringgit spent locally, and 5X Bonus Points for every Ringgit spent internationally.

In order to deduce whether the conversion is truly good, you will need to do conversions to Airline Miles first.

Given that CIMB varies the airline miles conversion rate based on the partner airline, this means that you need to pay close attention to which frequent flyer program you would generally use.

CIMB Travel Platinum Overseas Earn Rate:

Meanwhile, the Local Earn Rate for the CIMB Travel Platinum Mastercard is interestingly similar to that of other CIMB Travel cards, including the CIMB Travel World Elite which requires a minimum annual income of RM250,000.

Now, before we go any further, it's important to understand that the CIMB Travel Platinum Mastercard is an entry-level credit card. With a minimum annual income of RM24,000 per annum, it is literally catered to fresh graduates who are looking to enter the airline miles game. As such, it is extremely important that you continue to read onto the next section of this review, to better understand if the CIMB Travel Platinum Mastercard is right for you.

Special Deep Dive

I wanted to convey my additional thoughts into a separate section of this credit card review, and you'll see why shortly.

First, let's understand that if you're a fresh graduate or a minimum income earner looking to obtain the CIMB Travel Platinum Mastercard, it's very unlikely that you'll be able to accumulate enough Bonus Points or airline miles to redeem for destinations outside of the ASEAN region. This is not a bad thing in any way, it is simply a fact.

Let's take a One-Way ticket from KL to Singapore for example. In order to redeem a One-Way Economy Class ticket from KL to Singapore via Malaysia Airlines, you would need to accumulate 5,400 Enrich Miles.

Now, this doesn't sound like much, but understand that in order to obtain 5,400 Enrich Miles by swiping your CIMB Travel Platinum Mastercard, you'll need to spend a total of RM33,750 locally. Think about this for a second, because if you're earning around RM2000-3000 a month, you'll probably need several months or years in order to spend RM33,750 unless you're a huge spender, which in the case of credit cards, is not exactly positive for your credit score.

So why am I telling you this? The reason is simple. If you're someone that's earning around the annual income range of RM24,000, then you SHOULD NOT obtain the CIMB Travel Platinum Mastercard, because the time and money you need to sacrifice to accumulate those airline miles are simply not worth it!

In this exact case, you're better off obtaining a cashback credit card instead, which I have not covered in the scope of my blog, given my focus towards airline miles accrual.

Alternatively, you can use a combination of the CIMB Travel Platinum Mastercard and the Alliance Bank Visa Platinum credit card, which has excellent airline miles earning rate for local spend. I've covered the Alliance Bank Visa Platinum extensively, so do check out my review.

Who Then Should Obtain the CIMB Travel Platinum Mastercard?

So now you're probably wondering, what's the point of obtaining the CIMB Travel Platinum Mastercard if I simply can't earn enough airline miles to justify it?

Well, there are several reasons, and I'll cover these reasons in depth below:

You want additional airport lounge access passes
You work overseas (i.e.: Singapore, Bangkok, etc)

The first reason is for obtaining airport lounge access passes. I'll cover airport lounge access in depth below, but generally, if you are someone that has an annual income much higher than RM24,000, you can consider obtaining the CIMB Travel Platinum Mastercard to leverage on its 4X annual lounge access. However, you should be aware that the CIMB Travel Platinum Mastercard has a (terribly planned) minimum spend condition of RM3,000 for each lounge access pass.

The second reason is if you work overseas, and you're generally earning at minimum income level in that particular country, then the CIMB Travel Platinum Mastercard is excellent, since you'll be accumulating airline miles via the overseas spend category.

For example, let's say you are currently working in Singapore, and you earn an income of SGD3,000 a month. With this annual income, you perhaps wouldn't want to obtain the CIMB Travel Mastercard which requires a minimal annual income of RM100,000, but has an annual fee of RM554. Given the fact that most if not all of your spending is overseas, the CIMB Travel Platinum Mastercard is perfect for you.

Using the same example above, if you wish to accumulate 5,400 Enrich Miles to redeem a One-Way Economy Class ticket on Malaysia Airlines from KL to Singapore, this means that you'll need to spend RM13,500 overseas instead of RM33,750 locally. Now, RM13,500 is equivalent to around SGD3800 with an exchange rate of 1 SGD = RM3.50, so this means that within 3-4 months, you could easily earn enough Bonus Points to justify having this card.

Of course, it's important to note that when using your credit card overseas, you are inherently paying additional fees for currency conversion, whereby in this case, is from Mastercard. So there are always pros and cons, and it's important to make sure that you can justify this before deciding on whether to obtain this credit card or not.

Airport Lounge Access

Banks are generally not so generous when it comes to airport lounge access, with many banks imposing certain spend conditions or other funny business. CIMB's approach is pretty and non-straightforward unfortunately, and for those who don't read the fine print, I'm pretty sure there will be tons of CIMB Travel Platinum cardholders stuck at the lounge receptions.

Anyway, let's start with the good news. Each cardholder is granted 4X access to the Plaza Premium network of lounges annually. The quota of four entries is shared between principal and supplementary cardholders.

Plaza Premium's network of lounges is pretty vast, so you'll have access to a lounge in every major city across the globe. For an entry-level card, this is pretty mind-blowing. On top of that, Plaza Premium lounges are generally more upscale and exclusive than your typical contract lounges especially in Western countries. You can access the full list of lounges here.

Now, let's get down to the bad news.

Despite the 4X access granted to cardholders annually, the access is split between each quarter. This means that you'll have access to ONE LOUNGE per quarter.

To make matters worse, CIMB imposes a spend condition of RM3,000 each quarter to be eligible for lounge access. If you do not spend more than RM3,000 in a particular quarter, you will not be granted any lounge access.

It's obvious that CIMB thinks this is a pretty good idea to ensure people do not simply apply for the card "just for another lounge access card". But to put into perspective how ridiculous this policy is, here are a few scenarios that you might find yourselves in:

If you're travelling with your partner and have spent RM3,000 in that quarter to meet the spend condition, you can enter the lounge, but your partner will be left outside.
If you've spent RM3,000 on 31st December, you won't be able to enter the lounge on 1st January, since that's a completely new quarter and you haven't met the spend condition.
If you've spent RM3,000 on 31st March, you will be able to enter the lounge on the same day (31st March), but won't be able to do so on 1st April, as the access is not carried over to the new quarter.
If you're about to depart for a holiday overseas where you'll already have plans to spend more than RM3,000, you still won't be granted access to the lounge prior to your trip, since you haven't met the spend condition.

Of course, in many instances above, you can simply charge the access to the lounge back to your credit card (i.e: pay for your partner's access to the lounge), but you'll obviously won't be reimbursed by CIMB.

Overall, I find this policy to be completely ridiculous, and I find it hard to mince my words, considering there are plenty of other spend criteria that can be undertaken that makes more sense. For example, Ambank's lounge policy is to ensure the customer spends RM500 before or after access to the lounge at any given time.

Not just that, even an unheard of credit card like the Aeon Big Visa Gold has a more sensible lounge access policy than CIMB! The Aeon Big Visa Gold requires that you spend a minimum of RM500 before or after the lounge visit within 30 days.

So if anything, CIMB's approach to this lounge fiasco is just plain nonsensical. I can't seem to fathom how someone could come up with this approach and think that it's a good idea, when reasonable alternatives actually existed in the first place.

Final Thoughts

CIMB has introduced its latest line of Travel credit cards, moving away from its exclusive partnership with Malaysia Airlines. This change is arguably beneficial for consumers.

On a positive note, the airline miles conversion rates are commendable. For overseas spending, you earn 1 Enrich Mile for every RM2.50, making the conversion rate notably competitive. As you've read my long explanations above, I strongly recommend that you DO NOT obtain the CIMB Travel Platinum Mastercard if you are mostly spending in Malaysia, given the extremely lackluster local airline miles earn rate.

If you truly wish to obtain a credit card that offers the best airline miles conversion rate, do check out the Alliance Bank Visa Platinum credit card. This credit card has a similar annual income requirement of RM24,000 per annum, and you earn 1 Airline Mile for every RM1.875 spent locally.

However, the airport lounge access is a letdown. While the card offers 4X annual access to the global Plaza Premium lounge network, the conditions attached are downright absurd.

Access is bizarrely split into one lounge per quarter, with a mandatory spend of RM3,000 each quarter to avail this access. Several scenarios illustrate the impracticality of this policy, such as a partner being left outside if the cardholder meets the spend condition, or not being able to access the lounge due to the change in quarters.

Comparatively, other banks offer more reasonable spend criteria for lounge access. It's hard to comprehend CIMB's rationale for such an unreasonable policy, especially when sensible alternatives are available in the market.

Be sure to check out my Ultimate Guide, KrisFlyer Ultimate Guide and Asia Miles Ultimate Guide for comparisons on the airline miles earning rates for various credit cards.