2025 Edition: Best Credit Cards for Electricity & Utilities Bills

Earning miles on utilities bill gets harder each year, with more and more banks excluding this category from earning rewards.

Last year alone saw Standard Chartered and the UOB Reserve/Visa Infinite Metal Card pulling the plug, with the UOB Absolute Cashback Card nerfing its earn rate to just 0.3%. 

That said, it’s not completely impossible to earn rewards for utilities, but only with very select cards, or if you’re willing to pay an admin fee for the privilege.

What MCC do utilities bills code as?

There are two ways an electricity retailer can bill you:

• Direct
• via SP Group

If the electricity retailer bills you direct, you’ll receive two utilities bills: one from your electricity retailer, and one from SP Group (for water and waste).

If the electricity retailer bills you via SP Group, you’ll receive one utility bill that covers electricity, water, and waste.

Regardless of whether you pay direct or via SP Group, the transaction will code as MCC 4900: Utilities- Electric, Gas, Heating Oil, Sanitary, Water.

If you’re uncertain about the MCC, there’s three ways of looking it up before making a transaction:

And because I get so many questions about this, I should probably state that telco bills are not utilities. I get that the phone company can be seen as a utility, but it’s nothing of the sort- those code under MCC 4814, and are generally eligible for rewards. 

What cards should I use for utilities payments?

Earning miles on utilities bill has long been excluded on Citi and OCBC cards, and in recent times we’ve seen American Express, Bank of China, DBS, HSBC and UOB follow suit.

As of 2025, only Chocolate Finance and Maybank still reward this category.

Card Issuer	Awards Miles for Utilities?
	✕
	✕
	✓
	✕
	✕
	✕
	✓
	✕
	✕
	✕

This leaves the following cards as options.

Card	Earn Rate
Maybank Manchester United Card Apply	2 mpd + 3% cashback  (on days where Man Utd win) 0.4 mpd + 1% cashback (otherwise)
Maybank Visa Infinite Apply	1.2 mpd
Chocolate Visa Card Apply	1 mpd (capped at 100 miles/month)
Maybank World Mastercard Apply	0.4 mpd
Maybank Horizon Visa Signature Apply	0.16 mpd

The Chocolate Visa Card will be the easiest option for most people, awarding 1 Max Mile per S$1 spent, though capped at just 100 Max Miles per month for all bill payment categories.

Otherwise, the next best choice will be Maybank credit cards, in particular the Maybank Visa Infinite or the Maybank Manchester United Card (assuming Manchester United win on the day you spend!).

Cashback alternatives include the AMEX True Cashback Card (1.5%), UOB Absolute Cashback Card (0.3%), or UOB One Card (cashback varies depending on your monthly spend).

Bill payment services

If you don’t have any of the abovementioned cards, but still want to earn miles on your utilities bill, then the only option remaining is a bill payment platform.

These platforms allow you to earn miles when paying utilities and other bills with your credit card, in exchange for a small admin fee. 

Provider	Fee
	2.25% (code: OFF225) 1.79% fee for first payment with code: MILELION
	2.6%

Do note that CardUp does not support payments to SP Group.

Whether it’s “worth it” to buy miles at his price all boils down to how much you value a mile. The gold standard is of course to earn miles for free, though if banks keep cracking down, this may be the only option left.

Conclusion 

Just like education and insurance, it’s getting harder and harder to earn miles on utilities. However, both Chocolate Finance and Maybank still offer rewards for this category of spend. 

If you don’t have these cards, then it’s still possible to earn miles on utilities if you’re willing to pay a fee with a platform like CardUp or Citi PayAll.