2024 Edition: Best Credit Cards for Weddings

Those planning their nuptials have many important questions ahead of them, but the most important quesiton by far is: how can you get the most miles out of your wedding? I mean, that’s all that really matters, right? 

In this article, I’m going to focus on the biggest expense of any wedding: the banquet. Even a medium-sized affair of 30 tables, assuming S$1,500 per table, will cost more than S$50,000 after service charge and GST. Assuming you can recoup most of that through hongbaos, however, it’s a great opportunity to mint some miles for your honeymoon. 

Premarital text

For this article, I’m going to make several assumptions.

1. Your banquet venue allows you to split the expense onto different cards (and there’s no reason why they shouldn’t, really)
2. Your banquet venue allows for instalment payments, which is the standard practice in most places. This is crucial for maxing out the monthly caps on specialised spending cards
3. Your banquet venue accepts in-person, contactless payments. The vast majority of places should by now, but it’s never a given.

You might be concerned that some of the cards mentioned below have elevated income requirements. The key thing to remember, however, is that anything above the MAS-mandated S$30,000 is essentially an arbitrary figure (income beyond S$30,000 does affect the credit limit that can be granted, but not approval for a card per se).

It means there’s no harm submitting an application anyway, especially for cards which are known for not enforcing their official income requirements (e.g. UOB Visa Signature). The worst they can say is no.

Max out your sign-up bonuses

A wedding banquet will be a big ticket expenditure, which mean an opportunity to clock some credit card sign-up bonuses.

Sign-up bonuses regularly change, so there’s not much point copying and pasting a static table that will quickly go out of date. Instead, do visit the Credit Card Sign-up Bonuses page, or look out for the monthly sign-up bonus roundup for all the latest.

But just in case you were wondering, at the time of writing, someone who qualified for every bonus could generate more than 366,000 miles from S$22,800 of spending. That’s a good way to start off your honeymoon!

A few general points to note about sign-up bonuses:

• While some cards may allow you to enjoy a sign-up bonus without paying the first year’s annual fee, most will require payment
• Most sign-up bonuses will only be available for new-to-bank customers, and you can enjoy a new-to-bank bonus only once for a given bank (i.e. if you apply for two cards from Bank A at the same time, you’ll only enjoy the bonus on the first approved card)
• “New-to-bank” typically entails not holding any of the bank’s credit cards (as a principal cardholder) now, or in the past 12 months. The exact definition may vary from campaign to campaign, so always refer to the T&Cs

You’ll also need to decide whether it’s better for you and your partner to each sign up for a card, or for one of you to sign up and then give the other a supplementary card. 

• If you’re confident that you and your partner can both hit the spending threshold, get one card each so you can double the bonus
• If you think you’ll have difficulty hitting the spending threshold, then get your partner a supplementary card so that his/her spending will pool with yours

Max out your category bonuses

After the sign-up bonuses are exhausted, you can then focus on maxing out the category bonuses offered by your cards. Unlike sign-up bonuses, these are evergreen features that can be enjoyed month after month, subject to a cap.

The most important thing to do is confirm the MCC of your banquet venue.

While I doubt your wedding coordinator will be able to answer this question, you can look up the MCC of a given merchant before spending using any of the methods below:

Given that this is a big-ticket item, I highly recommend using the Instarem or DBS digibot method to be extra sure.

There are two main possibilities:

• Your banquet venue codes as a hotel (MCC 3500-3999, 7011)
• Your banquet venue codes as a restaurant (MCC 5812)

If venue codes as a hotel

Card	Earn Rate	Remarks
💳 Income Req: S$30K
UOB Pref. Plat. Visa Apply	4 mpd (use mobile contactless)	Cap S$1.1K per c. month
UOB Lady’s Card Apply	4 mpd (choose Travel as bonus category)	Cap S$1K per c. month
💳 Income Req: S$50K
UOB Visa Signature  Apply	4 mpd (use contactless)	Min. S$1K, max S$2K per s. month
💳 Income Req: S$120K
UOB Lady’s Solitaire Apply	4 mpd (choose Travel as bonus category)	Cap S$2K per c. month
c. month= calendar month, s. month= statement month

If venue codes as restaurant

Card	Earn Rate	Remarks
💳 Income Req: S$30K
KrisFlyer UOB Credit Card Apply	3 mpd	Min. S$800 spend on SIA Group in m. year, no cap
Citi Rewards + Amaze Apply	4 mpd	Cap S$1K per s. month
UOB Pref. Plat. Visa Apply	4 mpd (use mobile contactless)	Cap S$1.1K per c. month
UOB Lady’s Card Apply	4 mpd (choose Dining as bonus category)	Cap S$1K per c. month
💳 Income Req: S$50K
UOB Visa Signature  Apply	4 mpd (use contactless)	Min. S$1K, max S$2K per s. month
💳 Income Req: S$120K
UOB Lady’s Solitaire Apply	4 mpd (choose Dining as bonus category)	Cap S$2K per c. month
c. month= calendar month, s. month= statement month, m. year= membership year

Regardless of whether your banquet is in a hotel or restaurant, here’s a few common points to note:

• All of the cards above offer first year fee waivers
• Don’t let the income requirements deter you; as mentioned earlier, income requirements for these cards are loosely enforced
• You can only get either the UOB Lady’s Card or UOB Lady’s Solitaire, and will need to select a bonus category (one for Lady’s, two for Lady’s Solitaire). If your banquet is in a hotel, choose “Travel”; if it’s in a restaurant, choose “Dining”
• The UOB Visa Signature and UOB Preferred Platinum Visa all require you to pay via contactless to earn the bonus:
  • For the UOB Visa Signature, tapping the physical card or adding it to your mobile wallet will qualify for the bonus
  • For the UOB Preferred Platinum Visa, you must add the card to your mobile wallet to qualify for the bonus
• You can’t use the Citi Rewards Card with hotels because the MCC falls under the general exclusion for travel

Breaking it up

In an ideal situation, both you and your spouse-to-be will get all the cards above, and then each month pay off your banquet in chunks.

For example, if your wedding is in a hotel, the monthly payment plan would look something like this.

🧾 Monthly Banquet Payments
	🤵 Him	👰 Her
UOB Pref. Plat. Visa Apply	S$1,110	S$1,110
UOB Visa Signature  Apply	S$2,000	S$2,000
UOB Lady’s Solitaire Apply	S$2,000	S$2,000
Total Spend	S$5,110	S$5,110
Total Miles	20,440	20,440

You’d be looking at 40,880 miles for S$10,220 of spend each month, which is a very tidy return.

If your wedding is in a restaurant, the main difference is that you can add the Citi Rewards + Amaze pairing, and also bring in the KrisFlyer UOB Credit Card. By spending at least S$800 on SIA Group transactions in a membership year (SIA, Scoot, KrisShop), you’ll get an uncapped 3 mpd on dining (remember: only 1.2 mpd is awarded upfront, you’ll need to wait up to two months after the end of the membership year for the remaining 1.8 mpd to be credited).

How does the KrisFlyer UOB Credit Card’s Accelerated Miles feature work?

In that sense, it’s “better” (from a miles-earning perspective at least!) to have your wedding banquet in a restaurant, since you can tap an uncapped 3 mpd with the KrisFlyer UOB Credit Card instead of dealing with the monthly limits you’ll encounter with hotel venues. 

What if you can pay online?

If your banquet venue provides you with an online payment link, the first thing to do is make a dummy transaction with a blocked Amaze/DBS card to check the MCC. Do not assume that an online payment link provided by a hotel/restaurant will code as a hotel/restaurant transaction!

Assuming the MCC checks out, you can bring in two more cards into the picture: 

Card	Earn Rate	Remarks
💳 Income Req: S$30K
HSBC Revolution Apply	4 mpd (online only)	Cap S$1K per c. month. Excludes MCC 7011
💳 Income Req: S$80K
DBS Woman’s World Card Apply	4 mpd (online only)	Max S$1.5K per c. month

A few more points to note about online payment links:

• You won’t be able to use the UOB Visa Signature, as it does not award any bonuses for online transactions (unless they’re in foreign currency)
• You can still use the KrisFlyer UOB Credit Card if your wedding venue codes as a restaurant, for an uncapped 3 mpd
• You can still use the UOB Preferred Platinum Visa if your wedding venue codes as a restaurant, for a capped 4 mpd 
• You can still use the Citi Rewards Card if your wedding venue codes as a restaurant, for a capped 4 mpd
• You can still use the UOB Lady’s Card or UOB Lady’s Solitaire, so long as the MCC falls within the bonus whitelist

Extra 9 mpd from Kris+

S$5 for new Kris+ Users

Get S$5 (in the form of 750 KrisPay miles) when you sign-up with code W644363 and make your first transaction

If you’ve been eyeing Andaz Singapore or the PARKROYAL COLLECTION Pickering as your wedding venue, Kris+ users can earn an extra 9 mpd from Kris+ for wedding banquet payments.

	Andaz Singapore	PARKROYAL Pickering
Earn Rate	9 mpd	9 mpd
Customer Cap	First 50 bookings	N/A
Payment by	30 Sep 2024	31 Dec 2024
Payment Cap	S$30,000	S$20,000
Wedding by	31 Dec 2025	Not stated

Andaz Singapore

Here’s what we know about the Andaz Singapore wedding banquet offer:

• Valid for the first 50 weddings signed by 31 July 2024
• Maximum payment via Kris+ is limited to S$30,000 nett per package, and for F&B spend only
• A maximum of S$20,000 nett can be paid via Kris+ each day
• Payment must be made by 30 September 2024
• Wedding must be held by 31 December 2025
• Payments via Kris+ will not be eligible for World of Hyatt Honeymoon Bonus points

Andaz Singapore allows you to split your payment into up to three transactions. This is an important clause, because it means you will be limited in terms of the maximum number of cards you can use. A wedding banquet deposit is almost certainly going to bust the bonus caps on specialised spending cards, so you should go with two capped cards and one uncapped card (most likely the KrisFlyer UOB Credit Card).

Interested parties should contact the Andaz Singapore wedding team at GetMarried.sg@andaz.com

PARKROYAL COLLECTION Pickering

Here’s what we know about the PARKROYAL COLLECTION Pickering wedding banquet offer:

• Maximum payment via Kris+ is limited to S$20,000 nett per package, and for F&B spend only

Unfortunately, PARKROYAL doesn’t provide any additional details beyond this, so you’ll need to get in touch with their team for more information.

Conclusion

The wedding banquet will likely be the most expensive component of your wedding, but can also be a great source of miles. It does pay to sit down and plan when your instalment payments are due, when you’ll need to apply for each card, and how you’re going to split the amounts between cards.

It may take some doing, but it’s far from rocket science. And hey, wedding planning is a one-time exercise right?

Right?