UOB caps 10X bonus points on dining with Preferred Platinum AMEX

The UOB PPA was a great card for dining, but with the demise of the HSBC Advance it didn’t have any real competition in town. Offering 10X points, even on a highly discretionary category like eating out, isn’t sustainable in the long term and it seems like UOB has decided to call time on this. It’s been a long time coming.

UOB sent out an SMS today to all UOB PPA cardholders stating the following:

To summarise, starting from 10 October 2017, the maximum UNI$ you can earn on dining transaction is capped at UNI$12K per calendar year. This translates into S$6K of spending, either on overseas or local dining, per calendar year. 

The T&C attached further clarify that the “counter” starts from 10 October. Up to 10 October, you can spend as much as you want on overseas and local dining and still earn 10X points, without cap.

After 10 October, you’re limited to S$6K for the rest of the calendar year (31 Dec 2017). Subsequently, the S$6K annual cap will apply again for 1 Jan-31 Dec 2018. If you spend more than S$6K in a year, you will earn 2X points, or $1= 0.8 miles. This is the regular earn rate for the UOB PPA.

Implications

The S$6K cap won’t hit people that hard for what’s left of the year, in that you have slightly under 3 months from 10 October till year end. And unless you are what the young kids refer to as “flying like a private passenger jet”, it’s going to take a lot of effort to reach that threshold.

But what about in 2018? Is S$6K annual spending on dining a lot? It depends on your circumstances- those of us fortunate enough to be able to expense company dinners on personal cards, or sociable/shameless enough to say “let me!” when the bill comes when dining out with friends may find the limit restrictive.

So you’re going to want to ration your S$6K cap. Here are some suggestions

• Use your UOB Visa Signature (if you have it) when you dine overseas– this will earn you 4 mpd (min S$1K max S$2K per statement period) and won’t burn up your S$6K PPA cap
• If the restaurant you’re dining at takes Paywave, use your UOB Preferred Platinum Visa (max S$1K per calendar month)
• Wherever a restaurant accepts both AMEX and Mileslife, consider using Mileslife. This of course depends on what rate Mileslife is offering with the restaurant, but remember you earn miles from both your credit card and Mileslife. You can also use your Krisflyer Blue card to earn double the miles on Mileslife till end October 2017
• Get a Maybank Horizon Visa Signature card as your backup dining card- with 3.2 mpd on dining (min S$300 spend per month required, on any category) and a very high cap of S$4,285 per month, it’s a good option to have
• Dining out is so overrated- why not order Deliveroo or Ubereats and convert your dining into online spending? You’ll get 4 mpd with your DBS Woman’s World Card + UOB PPV

We know the ground for dining cards in Singapore is getting increasingly thin, but with some smart planning you can continue to maximise the miles you get when you eat out.