The Milelion is running a new series that aims to profile every credit card available in Singapore. Each week we will cover a different bank. The appendix below will be updated weekly with hyperlinks as more banks are added, allowing you to navigate between weeks seamlessly

Week 1- OCBC
Week 2- DBS
Week 3- UOB
Week 4- Citibank
Week 5- ANZ
Week 6- American Express
Week 7- HSBC
Week 8- Standard Chartered

Week 3: UOB

I’m going to come right out and say I think UOB has one of the best card portfolios in Singapore for earning miles. It’s got a solid general spending portfolio (UOB PRVI series), an excellent specialised spending portfolio (UOB Preferred Platinum AMEX for F&B, Preferred Platinum Visa for online, UOB Signature for overseas) and they pool your points from various cards together making it easier to redeem (a practice that DBS also follows, but Citibank does not)

Points/Miles Cards

UOB PRVI Miles Cards

• Annual Fee: $256.80 (AMEX, Visa, Mastercard) (First year fee waiver)
• Income Req: $80,000 (Singaporeans & Foreigners)
• Marketing Spiel: 1.4 miles per $1 of local spend, 2.4 miles for overseas spend, 3 miles for SQ/MI/Krisshop. 20,000 bonus miles with $50,000 annual spend
• The catch: High income requirement, although they’ve been known to look the other way if you’re off by a little bit. Airport limo benefit has been drastically devalued
• Sign up here for AMEX, here for Visa and here for Mastercard

Where to start? This is the series of cards that has consistently offered the best general spending earning ratios in Singapore for both overseas and local spend.

The main limitation of the portfolio used to be that it was only offered in AMEX, which suffers from a chronic lack of acceptance. When they launched the Mastercard version, it had a ridiculously high annual fee (upwards of $400 if i recall correctly- but remember that you should never be paying annual fees). That’s since been toned down to $256.80, on par with the AMEX version. Now that they’ve got the Visa and Mastercard versions with the same annual fee as the AMEX version, there’s really no point in having the AMEX version. I’d go with the Mastercard version, because (1) taxis do not take Visa and (2), the Mastercard version is a World Mastercard, which gives you SPG Gold status with a single stay at any Asia Pacific property

PRVI gives you 1.4 miles for local spend, 2.4 miles for overseas spend and 3 miles for spending with SQ, MI or Krisshop. They also used to have a limo benefit, but that’s been severely devalued now. You need to spend S$1,000 overseas within each qualifying quarter which entitles you to a S$45 limo rebate. That is, you spend the money first, get reimbursed later. Pass.

Until September, PRVI was having a sign up promotion that effectively let you buy miles at 1.7 cents each, which was a pretty tidy piece of business for you given the potential to redeem those miles at 4-5 cents each on business class travel. That promotion has since ended, but I’m sure it will soon reappear.

There’s an annual bonus of 20,000 miles if you spend $50,000 on the card. Whether or not this is worth it of course depends on your individual spending patterns, but if this is your general spending card it’s a nice bonus to have.

Yay or Nay: Yay, definitely

UOB Visa Signature Card

• Annual Fee: $214 (First year fee waiver)
• Income Req: $50,000 (Singaporeans & Foreigners) OR fixed deposit collateral of $20,000
• Marketing Spiel: 4 miles per $1 on overseas spend, Paywave spend and online spend
• The catch: Capped at first $2,000 spend each month, subject to $1,000 minimum monthly spend. Offer does not apply at merchants who issue SMART$. UOB’s interpretation of online transactions is not as generous as DBS’
• Sign up here

I only recently discovered this card, and although there are catches to the 4 miles per $1 of overseas spend spiel, I think I can make it work.

If your job requires you to spend significant time overseas, you can engineer an easy 8,000 additional miles each month. Assuming you spend >S$1,000 per statement period, you can earn 4 miles per $1 on the first S$2,000 of overseas spend (after which you should switch back to a general spend card like the UOB PRVI Miles)

You also earn 4 miles per $1 for Visa Paywave transactions, but the fine print says that where UOB Smart$ are offered, this benefit does not apply. Quite a few Paywave merchants are also Smart$ merchants (eg Cold Storage), which limits the appeal of this somewhat.

Visa Signature is a higher tier of Visa, and owning this card makes you eligible for the UOB Visa Luxury Collection, a hotel booking portal which grants special benefits when you book through them, such as late check out, room upgrades, a US$25 F&B credit, free breakfast and wifi.

Yay or Nay: Yay, if your job lets you spend on your personal card overseas

UOB Preferred Platinum Card Account

• Annual Fee: $192.60 (First year fee waiver)
• Income Req: $30,000 (Singaporeans) & $40,000 (Foreigners) OR fixed deposit collateral of $10,000
• Marketing Spiel: 4 miles per $1 on dining spend both local and overseas
• The catch: Does not apply to hotel dining, and certain places you might think are restaurants aren’t really restaurants (eg Jones the Grocer). Only the AMEX version enjoys the bonus
• Sign up here

The marketing material trumpets the fact that you get 2 cards, but you really should just put the Mastercard in the drawer and never use it. Either that, or use it to balance a table or cut lines of narcotics. That’s because the Mastercard is absolutely pointless. The AMEX is the entire point of this product- that’s what gets you the beefy 4 miles per $1 for restaurant spending.

People complain that “it’s an AMEX and no one accepts AMEX”. But that’s sort of missing the point. Because no one accepts AMEX, AMEX has to offer better rewards just to get people to use it. You won’t find such a good offer with a Visa card (the Citibank Clear Platinum card gives 2 miles per $1 of dining but still that’s literally only half as good (I did not abuse the term “literally” here)) because they don’t have to. Everyone will use Visa anyway.

Remember that dining in hotels usually codes as “hotel” spend, so you won’t earn this bonus. There is a useful list here that lists down which restaurants people have successfully got the 4 miles per $1 spend at, and it’s well worth a read.

This card is positioned as an entry level card, which means that you only need the MAS-mandated minimum of $30,000 to apply for it. You’ll also earn 0.8 miles per $1 on general spend, which is the best rate you could get if you don’t qualify for a general spending card (eg the DBS Altitude Visa which starts upwards of $50,000)

Yay or Nay: Yay, definitely. The low income requirement means that if you can get a card, you can get this card. And all that dining spend will add up over the course of a year

UOB Preferred Platinum Visa

• Annual Fee: $192.60 (First year fee waiver)
• Income Req: $30,000 (Singaporeans) & $40,000 (Foreigners) OR fixed deposit collateral of $10,000
• Marketing Spiel: 4 miles per $1 on online shopping and entertainment or Visa payWave
• The catch: Capped at first $12,000 spend each year. Offer does not apply at merchants who issue SMART$. UOB’s interpretation of online transactions is not as generous as DBS’
• Sign up here

This card is positioned in the same way as DBS’ Woman’s World Card. The main difference is that UOB is much more narrow in its interpretation of what constitutes an online transaction. With the DBS Woman’s World Card, I’ve got the online bonus for things as diverse as paying parking fines (it happens), paying membership renewal fees, paying for translation services, using Paypal to send money to other people, paying for movie tickets, paying for airline tickets etc etc.

I’ve never used the UOB Preferred Platinum Visa but there’s a reason for that. If you read HWZ (and this useful online google doc link here), you’ll realise that UOB disqualfiies airline tickets, paypal, eBay, Foodpanda, GV, bill payments etc from getting the bonus. To be fair, UOB does state that only “online shopping and entertainment” qualifies for the online spending bonus, but those terms are vague in a way that benefits the bank. Am I not entertained by renewing my ICPAS membership?

So if you’re determined to get the card, I won’t stop you, but don’t expect to earn as much online as you would from the DBS Woman’s World Card.

Yay or Nay: Yay if your income doesn’t allow you to qualify for the DBS Woman’s World card, but that said even the standard DBS Woman’s Card offers 2 miles per $1 for online spend plus a generous interpretation of “online”

UOB Lady’s Card/ Lady’s Platinum

• Annual Fee: $128.40 for Regular (First year fee waiver), $192.60 for Platinum (First year fee waiver)
• Income Req: $30,000 (Singaporeans), $40,000 (Foreigners) OR minimum fixed deposit collateral of $10,000. Same income requirement for Platinum and Regular
• Marketing Spiel: 2 miles per $1 on taxis, department stores, overseas spend and online shopping
• The catch: Only females can apply,
• Sign up here for Regular, here for Platinum

Although nowhere as chio as DBS’ female offering, the UOB Lady’s Card has some redeeming value. Suppose you’re earning the bare minimum needed to get a credit card. The good general spending cards are not an option for you, given that they need income upwards of $50,000.

If you used the UOB Lady’s Card as a specialised spending card, you’d get 2 miles per $1 on taxi rides, local department stores, overseas spending and online shopping.

Which brings me to the confusing bit- UOB also offers the Lady’s Card in a Platinum version. While I’m sure the design is very fetching, I don’t see what difference exists between the two cards. They earn exactly the same bonuses on specialised spend, they require the same income (I thought they might be going the route of OCBC and saying hey let’s do a card that has a really high income requirement but offers shit benefits and people will still pay us because it makes them feel good!)

Like, seriously guys. I switch between tabs in chrome with the Regular version and the Platinum version open in 2 different tabs and the only thing that changes is the annual fee. So, ladies, UOB believes that you will be willing to pay $60 more per year (although you shouldn’t really be paying annual fees) for a card that says Platinum.

Note that unlike DBS’s egalitarian offering, the UOB Lady’s Card is only for female applicants.

Yay or Nay: Nay. DBS’s offering is way more attractive

Cashback/Co-branded Cards

UOB Delight Card

• Annual Fee: $85.60 (First year fee waiver)
• Income Req: $30,000 (Singaporeans) & $40,000 (Foreigners) OR fixed deposit collateral of $10,000
• Marketing Spiel: 8% rebate at Cold Storage, Market Place, Jasons, Giant, Guardian, 10% off house brands, 3% rebate on contactless payments
• The catch: You need to spend >=$800 on this card to qualify for the 8% SMART$ rebates, fall short and you’d earn only 3% or 0.3%. Earning SMART$ means no UNI$
• Sign up here

This card is squarely targeted at brands in the Dairy Farm Group, including Cold Storage, Market Place, Jasons, Giant and Guardian. Obviously, there’s no reason to use it outside these places because your rebate drops to 0.3%.  The catch (and there is always a catch with rebate cards), is that the rebate scales as follows

• Spend $800 or more per month you get 8%
• Spend between $400 and $799 and you get 3%
• Spend less than $400 and you get 0.3%

Note that this spending can be on anything- and that’s the catch. It’s unlikely you will spend $800 on groceries, so to meet that $800 you’re going to have to do some spend elsewhere, which attracts the pathetic 0.3% rebate. So UOB is giving with one hand and taking away with the other. Your actual rebate will be some blended figure between 0.3% and 8%, depending how you split that $800.

Again, this card is more for those who have decided that miles isn’t for them and are happy with cashback instead. You also get 2X bonus tapformore points when you use this card, but that’s arguably of limited use, as shown here.

Yay or Nay: Nay, unless you’ve decided miles aren’t for you

UOB One Card

• Annual Fee: $128.40 (First year fee waiver)
• Income Req: $30,000 (Singaporeans), $40,000 (Foreigners) OR minimum fixed deposit collateral of $10,000
• Marketing Spiel: “The most generous rebate card in Singapore”
• The catch: Only it’s not
• Sign up here

Cashback cards are, well, bad. Banks are loathe to part with cash, after all. So all cashback cards will have big catches that undermine their otherwise glossy brochures.

In the case of the UOB One card, rebates are given each quarter. There are 3 targets you can hit- $500, $1,000 and $2,000. If you spend a minimum of $500 each month, you get 3.33% cashback on the $1,500 you spent during the 3 month period.

If you spend a minimum of $1,000 per month, you get 3.33% cash back on the $3,000 you spent during the 3 month period.

If you spend a minimum of $2,000 per month, you get 5% cash back on the $6,000 you spent during the 3 month period.  In all cases, you need to make a minimum of 3 transactions per month. The maximum cashback you can get per month is $100.

This interacts with the UOB One Account to give you up to 3.33% interest on savings. I can’t be bothered to work this out, suffice to say I think the OCBC 360 is still a better proposition.

Look, the fact of the matter remains that cashback cards suck and their marketing is downright misleading (the online calculator for UOB One rebate asks you to input your monthly spend by category, then shows you your annual savings, only noting in small print that those savings are annual). For those reasons alone I’d say stay far away, you can do better.

Yay or nay: Hell nay

Singtel-UOB Platinum Card

• Annual Fee: $192.60 (First year fee waiver- free card if you charge your Singtel bill to it)
• Income Req: $30,000 (Singaporeans) & $40,000 (Foreigners) OR fixed deposit collateral of $10,000
• Marketing Spiel: Up to $360 cash rebate on Singtel bills, Singtel vouchers worth up to $300 each year, 12 free Dataroam passes, no annual fee for Singtel customers
• The catch: Like all things Singtel, the card promises much and delivers little. Put it one way- to enjoy those amounts promised in the marketing spiel, you’d have to spend a ridiculous amount on your phone bill
• Sign up here

I have a hatred for Singtel that burns with the fury of a thousand blazing suns. It could be because they signed me up for that stupid colour-me-tones without my consent, and said “enjoy your free trial! by the way we’ll start charging you $4.28 a month after 30 days unless you opt out”. That is a colossal dick move, even for Singtel. And, by the way, was also illegal.

It could be because they had the cheek to produce this Rome-a-phobe video, mocking people who were scared of using roaming and conveniently overlooking the fact that people were afraid of this because telcos like Singtel would gouge you for every second you used your phone outside the country. And yes, they made fun of people who had the common sense to buy a local sim in order to save money.

Kiss my ass, Singtel.

Anyway, on to their awesome card. It offers cash rebates on your phone bill of “up to $360 a year” omgwtfbbq11one!.  That is, if your monthly phone bill is $500 and up. I don’t know about you, but if my phone bill each month is $500 and up you can bet I’d be worried about a lot more than cash rebates. If your phone bill is in the much more reasonable $50-$100 range, you get $1. Yup, $1. Don’t spend it all at once!

Next, Singtel will give you Singtel vouchers depending on your total annual spend with the card. That sounds amazing, and generous, I hear you say. How much would they offer?

Well, an annual spend of $12,000 gives you $100. And $24,000 gives you $300. That works out to be a 0.83% to 1.25% rebate, which again can only be used with Singtel.

But wait! What’s this? Singtel offers you free Dataroam passes. Dataroam is Singtel’s way of saying “hey! Why bother to get a local sim card which gives you local calls + data when you can pay us $15 to $30 a day to get a Dataroaming plan (and by the way we’ll still charge you full price on calls kthxbye)”

If you spend $800 in a calendar month, you get 1 free pass worth $15. Which means that if you go to any country in the $30 bracket (eg the UK, the UAE, the USA, Spain) , you’ll still be out of pocket by $15. You’d really be so much better off getting a free sim card before you go.  But you’d really hate being called a romeaphobe wouldn’t you.

Yay or Nay: Nay. MyRepublic cannot become the 4th telco quickly enough

Metro-UOB Platinum Card

• Annual Fee: $192.60 (First year fee waiver)
• Income Req: $30,000 (Singaporeans) & $40,000 (Foreigners) OR fixed deposit collateral of $10,000
• Marketing Spiel: 20% off in your birthday month, 10% savings otherwise, 5% Metro$ Rebates
• The catch: If you’re an occasional department store shopper you’d be much better off with the Citibank Rewards Card
• Sign up here

Another department store-bank tie up, the Metro card goes up against other cards like the OCBC Robinsons or the DBS Takashimaya. Which one you shop at more will dictate which side you take in this fight, but as for me, I’m sticking to the Citibank Rewards Card, which gives me 4 miles per $1 spent at any of these stores.

Yay or nay: Nay

UOB Professionals Platinum Card

• Annual Fee: None. Perpetual fee waiver.
• Income Req: $30,000 (Singaporeans) & $40,000 (Foreigners) OR fixed deposit collateral of $10,000
• Marketing Spiel: The card tells people you have an above-average level of education
• The catch: The card is also completely worthless
• Sign up here

This is quite possibly one of the most amusing cards ever, because I can’t figure out what the point is. This card is positioned at members of

• Alumni Association
• Institute of Singapore Chartered Accountants (ISCA)
• Law Society of Singapore
• Singapore Medical Association (SMA)
• The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA)

If you fall into one of the above categories, I salute you. You’ve clearly done great things in your life. And you deserve a better card than this.

Apart from offering a perpetual fee waiver, this card does absolutely nothing. Nothing. Zilch. Nada. It’s quite telling when the best the marketing material can come up with is “enjoy UOB dining privileges” and “earn UNI$” (at a rate of $1=0.4 miles), things you could do with any UOB card.

Yay or Nay: Nay, unless they offer a Stonecutters version.

UOB UnionPay Platinum Card

• Annual Fee: $192.60 (First year fee waiver)
• Income Req: $30,000 (Singaporeans) & $40,000 (Foreigners) OR fixed deposit collateral of $10,000
• Marketing Spiel: 2 miles per $1 on overseas spend
• The catch: 2 miles per $1 only if you spend a minimum of $2,000 per month
• Sign up here

I was unconvinced about the value proposition of a UnionPay card until I went to China and found that some places, amazingly, wouldn’t take Visa even.

If you travel a lot to China it can be useful to have a UnionPay card. Obviously if China’s not on your map then skip this card entirely. There is a bonus on overseas spend but it’s subject to a minimum of $2K spending per month, and you could do much better with the PRVI Miles cards.

Yay or Nay: Potentially yay if you travel to China a lot, but use it only because of its greater acceptance, not for overseas earning bonuses

UOB JCB Platinum Card

• Annual Fee: $64.20 (First year fee waiver)
• Income Req: $30,000 (Singaporeans) & $40,000 (Foreigners) OR fixed deposit collateral of $10,000
• Marketing Spiel: 5% rebates at Medi-Ya, Muji and UNIQLO, 3% department store rebate, special Japan-related promotions
• The catch: If you’re not a big Japanophile this won’t be of much interest to you
• Sign up here

I don’t know an awful lot about JCB, but I imagine they are to Japan what UnionPay is to China- an alternative to the AMEX Visa Mastercard trifecta.

The rebates of 5% are decent at UNIQLO, Muji and Meidi-Ya, if you shop there enough for this to be worthwhile. 3% rebates at all “major department stores” is probably less attractive, circumvented by the much more attractive Citibank Rewards Card with its 4 miles per $1 offering.

You can double your SMART$ at certain merchants like Coffee Bean, Bengawan Solo, Sephora, EpiCentre, Caltex and Cathay. Remember that earning SMART$ disqualifies you from receiving UNI$.

Yay or Nay: Personally, lya desu. But YMMV