Is it time to earn miles on ERP and parking?

EZ-Link announced a couple of days ago that it would soon be possible to pay ERP and parking charges without a cashcard in your IU. Instead, charges will be billed directly to your credit card.

This system, called EZ-Pay, will be rolled out first to Citibank card holders, before being opened up to DBS/POSB cardholders next year.

What’s great about this is that

(1) There is no fee involved

(2)Citibank has explicitly said that rewards points will be awarded as per normal on EZ-Pay transactions.

I’m struggling to see what is in it for them, really, given that there is no transaction fee charged to the customer. I suppose they must be hoping to gain from increased card signups and/or a cut from EZ-Link itself.

In any case, you can sign up for this service here. There is an ongoing promotion from now till 30 Sept where the first 5,000 customers to register and activate EZ-Pay will get up to S$20 cash credit.

The T&C can be found here.  You basically earn a cash rebate of whatever EZ-Pay transactions you incur until 30 Sept, capped at a maximum of S$20.

I’m not saying this is an amazing way of earning a lot more miles, but every little bit helps. Citibank Premiermiles would be my natural choice for EZ-Pay (I’m assuming this doesn’t count as online spend for the purposes of the Citibank Rewards card but would love to be proven wrong. That would make things very interesting…)

Options for non-Citibank cardholders

There were already two cashcard-less solutions for ERP payment on the market but neither of them were free, and neither allowed you to pay your carpark charges without a cashcard.  I believe both options allowed you to earn rewards points as per normal with your credit card, but I can’t confirm this. (EDIT: People have reported receiving points as per normal for this)

MotorPay

DBS offers  MotorPay in conjunction with the LTA and charges $1.07 a month per vehicle. Every time you pass through a gantry, the charge is billed to your DBS credit card.

VCashCard

VCashCard  allows you to use Mastercard and Visa cards from DBS/POSB/OCBC/UOB and SCB to top up a virtual cash card. When your card balance drops below $10, it is automatically topped up. You can only top up in intervals of $50, and a $0.50 transaction fee is charged per top ups except for UOB cards.

VCashCard says payment at carparks is “coming soon”

Summary

The potential game-changer here is the ability to use your credit card to pay for parking, because I imagine the average driver’s outlay on parking is much higher than his or her outlay on ERP. Of course the usefulness of this in actuality depends on how many carparks adopt this new technology, but I’m always for anything that leads to more mile earning opportunities.

Now, if only I had a car…

Aaron Wong
Aaron Wong
Aaron founded The Milelion to help people travel better for less and impress chiobu. He was 50% successful.

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Simpledom

Hi ! Vnetscashcard top ups via UOB Visa Platinum attracts 10x points, aka, 4x miles.

Simpledom

Sorry, its the UOB Preferred Platinum Visa

June

Hi Aaron, yes I get miles for ERP payments charged to DBS via motorpay that is counted as local spend. For parking, I depend on Netsflashpay auto top up which used to be counted as online spend when tied to Women’s card, now I just clock it as part of local spend And tie it to another card as its no longer recognized as an online spend. Also in the process of terminating my motorpay as citibank option does not incur additional charges.

Peter

According to the GoogleDocs sheet, using DBS WWMC on EZLINK Tap and Top or topping up via the mobile app gives 4miles/$. However there is a transaction fee. If CitiRewards also gives 4miles/$ without any transaction fee, then it would be good to switch. Otherwise DBS WWMC with Top & Tap may still come up top for now.

Peter

Just to update that CitiRewards only gives 1X points for EZ-Pay transactions.

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