Food delivery is one of those expenses that really adds up over the course of a month, so you want to be using the right cards to avoid leaving miles on the table.
Fortunately, this is a category that banks are all-too-happy to reward, with up to 6 mpd or 18% rebates within easy reach.
| 💳 What’s the Best Card for… | ||
| This guide forms part of the “best card” series. Check out other category specific guides below, or the overall guide here. | ||
| ✈️ Air Tickets (coming soon) | 💗 Charity | 🚗 Car Purchase |
| 🍽️ Dining (coming soon) | 🏫 Education | 🥡 Food Delivery |
| 🏥 Hospitals | 🏨 Hotels (coming soon) | ☂️ Insurance |
| ⛽ Petrol | 🚍 Public Transport | 🚰 Utilities |
What MCC does food delivery come under?
Ordering via food delivery platform
If you’re ordering through one of the major food delivery platforms, food delivery typically codes as MCC 5812, 5814 or 5499.
| Platform | MCC |
| Deliveroo | 5812, 5814 |
| foodpanda | 5812, 5814 |
| GrabFood | 5812, 5814 |
| Grain | 5499 |
| Oddle | 5734 |
| WhyQ | 5499 |
Do be careful with Oddle, however. Transactions used to follow the MCC of the underlying eatery, but more recent data points suggest it’s now MCC 5734 (Computer Software Stores, if you can believe that!).
If in doubt about the MCC, there’s two ways of looking it up before making a transaction:
- HeyMax (mostly reliable, very easy)
- DBS “block card” method (extremely reliable, slightly more complicated)
In any case, the exact MCC does not really matter if you’re using a card that offers a blanket bonus on all online transactions.
Ordering via restaurant
If you’re ordering through the restaurant directly, the MCC could be any of the following:
- MCC 5811: Caterers (Eatz, Neo Garden, Stamford)
- MCC 5812: Eating Places and Restaurants (Crystal Jade, Jumbo Seafood, Paradise)
- MCC 5813: Bars and Nightclubs (Brewerkz, Brotzeit, Harry’s)
- MCC 5814: Fast Food Restaurants (Burger King, McDonald’s, KFC)
- MCC 5441: Candy, Nut and Confectionery (Candy Empire, See’s Candies , TWG)
- MCC 5462: Bakeries (Bread Talk, Bengawan Solo, Four Leaves)
- MCC 5499: Misc. Food Stores (Crave, Famous Amos, Nespresso)
Is the transaction processed offline or online?
With food delivery platforms, your order will be processed online, end of story.
It can be slightly more confusing with restaurants. Most of the time, restaurants with website ordering systems should be processing the transaction online. However, you can’t rule out the possibility that they may capture the card details online and manually process the transaction offline.
A good rule of thumb is that if you have to enter an OTP, the transaction is processed online. That said, the absence of an OTP is inconclusive- I’ve encountered situations where transactions were processed online despite the lack of an OTP.
Again, the distinction is important because certain cards (e.g DBS Woman’s World Card, Citi Rewards) award 4 mpd on online transactions only.
What cards should I use for food delivery?
The simplest cards to use for food delivery are the ones which offer 4 mpd on all online transactions. This way, you don’t need to worry about specific MCCs.
| 🥡 Best Cards for Food Delivery (all MCCs) | ||
| Card | Earn Rate | Cap |
 DBS WWMCApply | 4 mpd | Max S$2K per c. month Review |
 Citi RewardsApply | 4 mpd | Max S$1K per s. month Review |
| C. Month= Calendar Month | S. Month= Statement Month | ||
| ⚠️ Citi Rewards: Don’t use in-app mobile payments! |
| Be careful not to use the Citi Rewards for in-app payments via a mobile wallet (e.g. Google Pay + Deliveroo). These transactions will only earn 0.4 mpd. |
Alternatively, you can use the following cards for 4-6 mpd, but you need to be a bit more careful with the MCCs and specific platforms supported.
| 🥡 Best Cards for Food Delivery (specified MCCs) | ||
| Card | Earn Rate | Cap |
 UOB Lady’s CardApply | 6 mpd1 | S$1K per c. month. Must choose dining as bonus category Review |
 UOB Lady’s SolitaireApply | 6mpd1 | S$3K per c. month. Must choose dining as bonus category Review |
 HSBC RevolutionApply | 4 mpd2 | S$1K per c. month Review |
 UOB Pref. Plat. VisaApply | 4 mpd3 | S$1.1K per c. month Review |
 Maybank HorizonApply | 3.2 mpd4 | S$4.3K per c. month. Min S$300 retail spend req. |
 AMEX KrisFlyer AscendApply | 3.2 mpd5 | S$200 per c. month Review |
 AMEX KrisFlyer Credit CardApply | 3.1 mpd5 | S$200 per c. month Review |
 KrisFlyer UOB CardApply | 3 mpd6 | No cap. Min S$800 spend on SIA Group in m. year Review |
| C. Month= Calendar Month | S. Month= Statement Month | M. Year= Membership Year 1. MCC 5811, 5812, 5814, 5499 2. MCC 5441, 5462, 5499, 5811, 5812, 5813, 5814 3. MCC 5811, 5812, 5814, 5499, 5441, 5462 4. MCC 5812 5. GrabFood only 6. Deliveroo, foodpanda, GrabFood | ||
In general, you should have no concerns about using the KrisFlyer UOB Credit Card, HSBC Revolution, UOB Lady’s Card or UOB Preferred Platinum Visa for all your Deliveroo, foodpanda or GrabFood needs.
You need to be a bit more careful with the Maybank Horizon Card, because it only awards bonus points on MCC 5812- and as we saw earlier, it’s hard to tell whether your particular delivery will code as 5812 or 5814.
Likewise, the AMEX KrisFlyer Ascend and AMEX KrisFlyer Credit Card only earn bonus miles on GrabFood transactions.
Limited time: DBS yuu Card
 |
| foodpanda x yuu |
Even though we’re focusing on miles in this article, I feel it’d be strangely amiss not to give a shout out to the DBS yuu Card and its 36 yuu points per S$1 spent on foodpanda, equivalent to an 18% rebate.
| Points | Remarks |
| Base 10 points per S$1 spent |
|
| Bonus 26 points per S$1 spent |
|
This requires a minimum spend of S$600 (which can be on any retail transactions, not just foodpanda), and the 18% rebate is capped at S$78 per calendar month.
On top of this, by linking your yuu ID to foodpanda, you’ll earn:
- 3 yuu points per S$1 spent on your first order after linking your yuu account
- 1 yuu point per S$1 spent subsequently
| ⚠️ Exceptions |
| You will not earn yuu Points on dine-in transactions, pandago orders, orders on corporate accounts, and top-ups on pandapay wallet. |
Now, for 4-6 mpd to trump 18% rebates, you’d need to value a mile at 3-4.5 cents each, and I don’t think that’s a reasonable figure by any means.
Other ways to save
If you really want to eke out every cent from your spending, consider buying Deliveroo and foodpanda vouchers on the ShopBack mobile app. This codes as MCC 5812, so you can use the Citi Rewards Card, DBS Woman’s World Card or one of the other cards mentioned above to earn up to 6 mpd on your purchase.
ShopBack will give you 3-9% cashback (the rates frequently change; check the app for the latest). It’s particularly useful for Deliveroo, because you can stack account credit with bank vouchers and Deliveroo Plus free delivery when making an order.
Conclusion
There’s still plenty of ways to earn up to 6 mpd or 18% rebates on food delivery, with further stacking via ShopBack also possible.
SingSaver and HWZ keep a running list of monthly promo codes for food delivery, so be sure to bookmark those pages too.
My Citibank rewards MC doesn’t give me 10X points for Foodpanda, Deliveroo and Redmart. Every month I have to call and argue with the CSO for point adjustments even though they have already done it many times before. And the bank says they can’t fix this because for some reason the online apps MCC are not Online. Really frustrating for me, I’m considering to cancel this card. Anyone else experiencing the same issue?
ah yes, the Citi rewards MC problems. i’d better put in something to point that out.
does it still have this issue?
I’d counter with “Don’t pay the food delivery company directly”.
My way to go:
Shopback (1-4%) -> Shopee -> Foodpanda 12% off (or Grab 15% off but their delivery fees are all over the place) -> 4mpd CC (=7.2%)
Vouchers are issued instantly for a total of 20-25% off. Works with the OCBC card for 8mpd as well, but I haven’t pulled the trigger yet 🙂
That’s exactly what I did for most of the time unless there is a good discount voucher to use.
thanks for the tip!
nice!
I have been using the shopee > Grabfood voucher for 8mpd. You can also use this for Grab rides. Since using your ocbc titanium card on Grab directly won’t earn you 8mpd.
You get a bigger discount on Shopback for food delivery vouchers 8-10%
How about the unicorn card?
Anyone has experience paying for online delivery via the Getzpay mode? Is it considered an online transaction? Thinking of using Dbs women world
Aaron, if there is a problem with Citi Rewards MC for deliveroo, food panda, etc. in getting 4 miles per dollar, does it happen to DBS WWMC too since it is also a MC version?
no, it doesn’t. hence the confusion.
Based on DBS virtual assistant, I found out the following (as of 8 July 2020) with WWMC:
Deliveroo & Grabfood – MCC 5814
Foodpanda – MCC 5812
My recent transactions on Grabfood & Foodpanda earned 10x on CRMC. Seems like there are different outcomes for different people using CRMC for these merchants.
For Odddle, would DBS Womens card get 4mpd, as it is processed via stripe online or would HSBC Revo be the better one?
both should be fine (caveat: haven’t tested)
I’m not sure if there has been changes to the MCC recently, but WWMC does not award 4mpd for WhyQ. The CSO claims that it is under professional services.
that’s…odd. let me see what i can find out about this.
so i asked DBS about this, and they said that WhyQ should be coded under dining MCC. if that doesn’t happen, you can ask the CSO to file an appeal and they will take a look at the case.
Thanks for checking. The last I used was in Aug 2020. Prior to that, I had to appeal every month and finally in Sep 2020, they claimed it was coded under Professional Services and refused my appeal. From then on, I stopped using WWMC for WhyQ.
What about HSBC revolution?
OCBC 365 is now processing orders placed via Oddle via MCC 5734 and no longer under the MCC of that particular restaurant (usually 5812). This means cardholders no longer qualify for dining rebates.
Anyone experience similar issues with Oddle transactions?
I just gotten the same response from Citibank. A recent Sept Oddle transaction is processed as MCC 5734 and no longer counted as dining.
Do take note of the above!