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The 'Best credit cards for KF miles accrual' master thread

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Old Oct 31, 2014, 6:05 am
FlyerTalk Forums Expert How-Tos and Guides
Last edit by: lifeonthego_k
I'm going to update this first post as more info flows in to create a 'master list' of all credit cards that offer a decent way of accruing miles - so please help out!

If you know of and/or use any other cards (or the ones already mentioned), please share your thoughts.

***ALL VALUES BELOW IN SINGAPORE DOLLARS (SGD)***
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In no particular order (apart from personal preference in terms of good-mileage opportunities):
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1. UOB PRVI Miles VISA, MasterCard, AMEX

VISA:
http://www.uob.com.sg/personal/cards...iles_visa.html
MasterCard:
http://www.uob.com.sg/personal/cards...astercard.html
Amex:
http://www.uob.com.sg/personal/cards...amex_card.html
http://www.uob.com.sg/personal/cards...ard/microsite/



Mileage accrual:
The earn rate will be 1.4 miles for every $1 spent in multiples of S$10 (every multiple of S$5 gives 6 to 7 miles due to 3.5 UNI$ rounding off, every S$10 gives 14 miles), and 2.4 miles for every $1 spent OVERSEAS (every $5 gives 12 miles).

Requirements: min. income $80,000 (not strict).
Cost: First year free, then S$256.80 for main, first two supplementary always free. Annual fee waiver for Amex card if you charge $50,000 or more in a year.
Miles conversion fee: $25 per conversion. UNI$ are combined in 1 cardholder's name/FIN Number/NRIC together for all UOB cards which earn UNI$.

Pros: Best mileage accrual rates for overseas spend only. 20,000 bonus miles and annual fee waiver with spend of $50,000 per year (both only for Amex card). $45 1-way airport transfer voucher for $1,000 overseas spend in a given quarter (Amex only).
Cons: AMEX not always accepted by merchants. Points allocated on every $5 spent, rounded down to next $5. Transfer in blocks of 5000 UNI$ points = 10,000 miles. Points are valid for 2 years (transfer before expiry and they will subsequently be valid for a further 3 years from the date of transfer to KrisFlyer).

2. UOB Preferred Platinum Visa


http://www.uob.com.sg/personal/cards..._platinum.html
http://www.uob.com.sg/personal/cards...visa_card.html


Mileage accrual: Earn 4 miles for every $1 spent using ONLY MOBILE CONTACTLESS every $5 gives 10 UNI$ which equal 20 miles). Same incredible mileage-earning ratio for internet shopping with certain restrictions (travel-related, utilities, etc.). Earn 0.4 mile for every $1 for regular, signature-based payments AND ORPHAN SPEND DUE TO $5 ROUNDING OR EXCEEDING THE BONUS U$2000 SPEND (every $5 gives 1 UNI$ which equal 2 miles).

Earning 4 miles/$ is limited to the first S$1110 spent during the per calendar month (via Mobile Contactless). 2,000UNI$ refers to the extra 9UNI$ and does not include the normal 1UNI$.(Stop when you notice you earn 3UNI$ (1 + bonus 2) for the last S$5 transaction. ($1110/5)x9=1998UNI$, hence the last S$5 transaction will earn 2 bonus UNI$. The total bonus UNI$ awarded to you from qualifying spend on Selected Online Transactions and Mobile Contactless Transactions is capped at UNI$2,000 for each calendar month. THE CAP IS ON THE 9 UNI$ BONUS NOT 10UNI$ TOTAL YOU GET WITH BASE OF U$1 PER $ SPEND

Keep in mind that some merchants offer different, non-mileage accruing awards with UOB cards which are called SMART$. Some popular merchants include Cold Storage, Guardian and Giant Supermarket, ToastBox and Starbucks. A full list of merchants where Mobile contactless transactions will NOT earn miles can be found here:
http://www.uob.com.sg/personal/cards...smartclub.html

Requirements: min. income $30,000 ($60,000 for foreigners).
Cost: First year free, then $192.60 for main and $96.30 for supplementary. Annual fee waived off easily.
Miles conversion fee: $25 per conversion, in blocks of 5000 UNI$=10,000 miles. UNI$ are combined in 1 cardholder's name for all UOB cards.

Pros: Incredible mileage accrual rates for Paywave transactions (not all merchants - some give SMART$ instead which are different rewards!) as well as internet transactions (some restrictions apply).
Cons: Points allocated on every $5 spent, rounded down to next $5. Transfer in blocks of 5000 UNI$ points = 10,000 miles. Points are valid for 2 years (transfer before expiry and they will subsequently be valid for a further 3 years from the date of transfer to KrisFlyer).

3. Citi PremierMiles MasterCard

https://www.citibank.com.sg/credit-cards/travel/premiermiles-card/?ecid=PSGONSGCCAENPM

Mileage accrual: Earn 1.2 miles for every $1 spent. Earn 2 miles for every $1 spent OVERSEAS. 10,000 bonus miles for each annual membership renewal.

Requirements: min. income $50,000 for VISA. Principal cardholder must be at least 21 years of age.
Cost: First year free, then $192.60 for VISA main, supplementary always free. Annual fee waiver available in exchange for forfeiting the 10,000renewal bonus.
Miles conversion fee: $25 per conversion.

Pros: Decent all-rounder, good for overseas spend. Points never expire. Bonus miles for annual card renewal. 11 frequent flyer programs & 3 hotel programs to choose from, including EVA Air - only 25,000 miles for 1 way Business Class within Asia!!
Cons: No miles awarded for EZ-Link & Transitlink transactions. Miles awarded per S$1. Cents not included. 1.2 miles/S$1. Transfer in blocks of 10,000 miles.

4. DBS Altitude VISA/AMEX

http://www.dbs.com/sg/personal/cards...e/default.aspx
http://www.dbs.com/sg/personal/cards...e/default.aspx



Mileage accrual: Earn 1.2 miles for every $1 spent (every $5 gives 3 DBS points which equal 6 miles). Earn 2 miles for every $1 spent OVERSEAS.

Requirements: min. income $80,000.
Cost: First year free, then $180 for main and $90 for supplementary. Annual fee waiver if you charge $25,000 or more in a year.
Miles conversion fee: S$26.75 per transfer, redeem 1700 DBS points to waive off.

Pros: Points never expire. No rounding down transaction amount to nearest $5 (calculation is done as follows: DBS points = 'transaction amount' divided by 5, multiply by 3, after that round down to nearest whole number. Minimum spend is S$1.67. Each DBS point = 2 miles). Earn 3 miles per S$1 spent on all online Flight and Hotel transactions (capped at S$5,000 per month). 10,000 miles renewal bonus if you have to pay card renewal fees.
Cons: All local spend now down to 1.2 miles/$ (since Dec 1, 2013). AMEX not always accepted by merchants. Transfer in blocks of 5000 DBS points = 10,000 miles (on the plus side points don't expire). Per transfer of S$26.75, redeem 1700 DBS points to waive off.

5. Maybank Horizon Platinum Visa

http://info.maybank2u.com.sg/persona...visa-card.aspx



Earn 3.2 air miles (8X TREATS Points) with every dollar spent on dining, petrol, taxi fares and hotel bookings at Agoda.com/horizon
Earn 2 air miles (5X TREATS Points) with every dollar spent on air tickets, travel packages and foreign currency transactions, with a minimal S$300 in a calendar month

Earn 0.4 mile for every $1 spent elsewhere (1 mile for every $2.50 spent).

Requirements: min. income $30,000 ($80,000 for foreigners).
Cost: $150 for main, supplementary always free. Unsure of any annual fee waiver conditions.
Miles conversion fee: In blocks of 5,000 points to 2000 Asia Miles or KrisFlyer. S$26.75 fee applies.

Pros: Great for ticket purchases and overseas spend. Complimentary access to selected VIP airport lounges when you charge a minimum of S$400 in a single transaction on air tickets or travel packages to your Card 3 months prior to the date of travel.
Cons: Great ONLY for ticket purchases and overseas spend. Points are valid for 1 year only, expire either on 30 June or 31 December of the same year if not Rewards Infinite member.

6. Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer Ascend AMEX

https://www.americanexpress.com/sg/s...nd-credit-card



Mileage accrual: Earn 1.2 KrisFlyer miles for every S$1 spent on all your eligible purchases with your Card

Earn 2 KrisFlyer miles for every S$1 equivalent in foreign currency spent overseas on eligible purchases during June and December

Requirements: min. income $50,000 ($60,000 for foreigners). Principal cardholder must be over 21 years of age.
Cost: First year free, otherwise $256.80 for main, 2 supplementary cards always free (more available at $80.25 each). Annual fee cannot be waived unless you spend alot.
Miles conversion fee: None - your KrisFlyer miles are transferred to your account directly with no conversion fees or charges.

Pros: None, except for welcome offers (4 complimentary airport lounge access vouchers, one complimentary night with Millennium Hotels and Resorts).

Cons: Simply nothing special - there are better cards available for all types of purchases, including flight tickets, even with all of the bonuses above applied. AMEX not always accepted by merchants.

7. Citibank Rewards Card

http://www.citibank.com.sg/gcb/credi...CACRENCCHOCALM



Earn 10X Rewards (10 Rewards Points or 4 Miles for every S$1 spent) when you shop for clothes, bags and shoes or at departmental stores or online shopping websites, including SingTel & M1 online bill payment!

Pros: Transfer to 11 FFPs & 3 Hotel programs in blocks of 25,000 points=10,000 miles; S$25 fee.

Cons: Points awarded per S$1 spend. Cents not included. Cannot combined Thank You Points across cards.

8. DBS Woman's World MasterCard® Card

http://www.dbs.com.sg/personal/cards...astercard-card



10X Rewards for Online Retail Purchases
T&C Here: https://www.dbs.com.sg/iwov-resource...s_card_tnc.pdf

Pros: Men also can get this card!! DBS points are combined in 1 cardholder's name. No rounding down transaction amount to nearest $5 (calculation is done as follows: DBS points = 'transaction amount' divided by 5, multiply by 10, after that round down to nearest whole number. Minimum spend is S$1. Each DBS point = 2 miles).

Cons: DBS points are valid for 1 year based on card anniversary date. The additional 9X DBS Points for online retail spend in a calendar month will be awarded on the 16th of the next calendar month. If the above days are not working days, the Points will be awarded on the next working day. The additional 9X DBS Points are only applicable to the first S$2,000 online retail spend every calendar month.

9. OCBC Titanium Rewards Card

https://www.ocbc.com/personal-bankin...astercard.html

10x OCBC$ on your shopping Local & Overseas Shopping Transactions, Local & Overseas Department Store Transactions and Local & Overseas Online Transactions.
The remaining 9 OCBC$ will be posted to the Card Account by the end of the next calendar month

https://www.ocbc.com/assets/pdf/card...ons.pdf?rand=1
10,000 KrisFlyer miles requires OCBC$ 25000, For each conversion of OCBC$ to KrisFlyer miles a fee of S$25 will be charged

10. UOB Lady's Card
https://www.uob.com.sg/personal/card...ard/index.page

============

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The 'Best credit cards for KF miles accrual' master thread

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Old Jul 4, 2018, 2:01 pm
  #7471  
 
Join Date: Jan 2016
Location: Singapore
Programs: KF, Marriott Gold, Hilton Gold
Posts: 182
Originally Posted by carrotjuice
Interesting problem I have. Was planning to spend a whopping US$30,000 on TheRealReal. It accepts Apple Pay. But I also know from previous purchases that it awards 10X on my Citi Rewards card. So unlikely to be awarded 20X under current Apple Pay promo.

If I use the same Citi Rewards card via Apple Pay, will it still give me 10X rewards without cap?

Or will it cap me at 1X rewards since I have spent close to S$12,000 already this membership year? If so, what’s the best alternative card to use?
If you have exceeded 12k on the visa version, you can apply for the MasterCard version and spend another 12k on 10x merchants.
spk307 is offline  
Old Jul 23, 2018, 12:53 am
  #7472  
 
Join Date: Jul 2014
Location: Singapore
Programs: SQ KF Gold, HHonors Gold, SPG Plat
Posts: 300
Saw an ad in today's papers for the BOC World Elite Mastercard - awesome earn rates (2mpd on local spend, 5(!!!)mpd on overseas spend til 31 Dec 2018). Anyone hold a BOC-issued card and whats your experience with them?
elleana is offline  
Old Jul 24, 2018, 2:32 am
  #7473  
 
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Anywhere
Posts: 6,576
Originally Posted by elleana
Saw an ad in today's papers for the BOC World Elite Mastercard - awesome earn rates (2mpd on local spend, 5(!!!)mpd on overseas spend til 31 Dec 2018). Anyone hold a BOC-issued card and whats your experience with them?
Terrible. They are very slow in approving the card - my last experience was 4-5 weeks by which time I had lost patience and called them to cancel the application. A few days later the cards arrived, and I had to call them AGAIN to cancel. I get the impression they are a somewhat primitive bank that is mired in manual paper logged processes.
carrotjuice is offline  
Old Jul 24, 2018, 10:15 am
  #7474  
 
Join Date: Mar 2017
Location: Singapore & Globe trotting
Programs: QR Gold, ITA Club Executive, Hilton Gold, GHA Titanium, Taj Gold, Accor Gold, Marriott Gold Elite
Posts: 425
Originally Posted by elleana
Saw an ad in today's papers for the BOC World Elite Mastercard - awesome earn rates (2mpd on local spend, 5(!!!)mpd on overseas spend til 31 Dec 2018). Anyone hold a BOC-issued card and whats your experience with them?
I had the BOC family card. No issue in applying. It did take BOC longer to process the application and issue the card, but whatever, I waited and got it. The BOC World Elite MC seems like a great miles earner. I'll gladly wait and just use another card till it arrives.
lifeonthego_k is offline  
Old Jul 24, 2018, 7:58 pm
  #7475  
 
Join Date: Jul 2014
Location: Singapore
Programs: SQ KF Gold, HHonors Gold, SPG Plat
Posts: 300
Originally Posted by carrotjuice


Terrible. They are very slow in approving the card - my last experience was 4-5 weeks by which time I had lost patience and called them to cancel the application. A few days later the cards arrived, and I had to call them AGAIN to cancel. I get the impression they are a somewhat primitive bank that is mired in manual paper logged processes.
That was my fear. Ugh. Now to decide if dealing with all that is worth the insane earn rate.
elleana is offline  
Old Jul 24, 2018, 9:59 pm
  #7476  
 
Join Date: Aug 2012
Location: SIN
Posts: 84
Planning to make a 3-5k camera purchase from a store, any recommendation which card I should use, would Citi Rewards give the 10x?
Traflying is offline  
Old Jul 24, 2018, 11:31 pm
  #7477  
 
Join Date: Jul 2017
Posts: 53
Originally Posted by Traflying
Planning to make a 3-5k camera purchase from a store, any recommendation which card I should use, would Citi Rewards give the 10x?
if they have a contactless machine and allow you to make multiple payments (since theres supposedly a cap for contactless payments at 200 per transaction), you can earn 20x up till 31 July via applepay, provided the purchase is not made at a department store.

if youre buying the camera from a dept store you can earn 10x with citirewards

otherwise ocbc titanium might be your best bet for electronics
hairhooks is offline  
Old Aug 31, 2018, 8:35 am
  #7478  
 
Join Date: Aug 2008
Posts: 542
Hello All, never flown Singapore and now looking for several possible flights to Asia. Also in need of a new credit card that will earn me the most KF miles. Please enlightend whats my best choice at this moment? Dear Husband has Amex plat but we never booked flights with memberhsiprewards points. Is it easy to redeem to Singapore fligthts in J?
Green_eyes is offline  
Old Sep 7, 2018, 2:20 am
  #7479  
Original Poster
 
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Singapore, Warsaw, Surfers Paradise
Programs: KrisFlyer Gold>>>Silver>>>Blue, Finnair Silver, Royal Caribbean Diamond
Posts: 5,174
Redeeming in J is quite ok as long as you are redeeming just for one person. It can get tricky - and you will have to be flexible in terms of dates - if you want 2 biz seats on the same flights. But it certainly is possible and I have booked just redemptions for my parents on multiple occasions.

What's new in terms of KrisFlyer-accruing cards in Singapore? Anything stand out as the must-have card nowadays?
aster is offline  
Old Dec 10, 2018, 7:56 pm
  #7480  
 
Join Date: Aug 2012
Location: SIN
Posts: 84
Anyone knows when do DBS WMMC points expire?
Traflying is offline  
Old Dec 11, 2018, 5:19 pm
  #7481  
 
Join Date: Jan 2016
Location: Singapore
Programs: KF, Marriott Gold, Hilton Gold
Posts: 182
Originally Posted by Traflying
Anyone knows when do DBS WMMC points expire?
one year from the month they were credited to dbs account.
technically, it’s at the end of the quarter when the 12 months are due.
spk307 is offline  
Old Dec 11, 2018, 7:29 pm
  #7482  
 
Join Date: Aug 2012
Location: SIN
Posts: 84
Originally Posted by spk307

one year from the month they were credited to dbs account.
technically, it’s at the end of the quarter when the 12 months are due.
Thank you!
Traflying is offline  
Old Jan 7, 2019, 4:42 am
  #7483  
Original Poster
 
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Singapore, Warsaw, Surfers Paradise
Programs: KrisFlyer Gold>>>Silver>>>Blue, Finnair Silver, Royal Caribbean Diamond
Posts: 5,174
Anyone know exactly how UOB allocates points for spend using the UOB PRVI Amex card?
aster is offline  
Old Jan 7, 2019, 3:56 pm
  #7484  
 
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Anywhere
Posts: 6,576
Originally Posted by aster
Anyone know exactly how UOB allocates points for spend using the UOB PRVI Amex card?
Just as I thought this thread was loooong dead!

Please clarify your question what is meant by “how UOB allocates points”?
carrotjuice is offline  
Old Jan 7, 2019, 9:36 pm
  #7485  
Original Poster
 
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Singapore, Warsaw, Surfers Paradise
Programs: KrisFlyer Gold>>>Silver>>>Blue, Finnair Silver, Royal Caribbean Diamond
Posts: 5,174
I had to dig it out in fact - people don't like CCs any more?

My question referred to the exact way UOB calculates the number of points it gives you per transaction. Is it round-down to the nearest $5 and then multiply by 3.5?
aster is offline  


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