Back in October 2021, Standard Chartered launched the somewhat unimaginatively-named Smart Credit Card, which had a surprisingly solid value proposition: Up to 5.6 mpd on fast food, streaming entertainment, and SimplyGo.
This 5.6 mpd rate was positioned as a limited-time offer, set to lapse on 31 December 2022. Standard Chartered has now extended the rate until 31 December 2023, giving you a further year to enjoy upsized miles on these categories.
SC Smart Card extends bonus earn rates for 2023
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| Apply | ||
| T&Cs | ||
| Income Req. | Annual Fee | FCY Fee |
| S$30,000 | None | 3.5% |
| Regular Earn | Bonus Earn | Cap |
| 0.46 mpd | 5.6 mpd on fast food, streaming, SimplyGo | S$818 per statement month |
First, a brief recap of how the no annual fee Smart Card works.
Cardholders normally earn a very underwhelming 1.6 points per S$1 spent (equivalent to 0.46 mpd) on all spending.
However, if cardholders spend on fast food, streaming entertainment or public transportation (no min. spend required), they’ll earn:
- the regular base rate of 1.6 points per S$1 (0.46 mpd), and
- a bonus of 17.6 points per S$1 (5.10 mpd)
This means a total earn rate of 19.2 points per S$1 (5.57 mpd), capped at S$818 per statement month.
| Category | Merchants |
| ๐ Fast Food |
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| ๐บ Streaming |
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| ๐ Bus/MRT |
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For comparison, the best alternative cards would earn “only” 4 mpd on such transactions (e.g. UOB Preferred Platinum Visa for mobile payments at fast food merchants, or the Citi Rewards Card for monthly streaming subscriptions).
I suppose the question is: how much can you realistically spend on these three verticals each month? Unless you’re a KFC addict (and believe me, they do exist), it’s unlikely you’ll max out the S$818 cap.
It helps that Standard Chartered has a wide variety of transfer partners, making its points more valuable than most other banks.
| Frequent Flyer Programme | Conversion Ratio (SC Points: Partner) |
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3,500:1,015 |
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2,500: 1,000 |
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2,500: 1,000 |
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2,500: 1,000 |
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2,500: 1,000 |
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3,000: 1,000 |
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3,500: 1,000 |
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3,500: 1,000 |
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3,500: 1,000 |
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5,000: 1,000 |
I’m personally a fan of cashing out SC Rewards Points to ALL, especially since they’ve got a 50% transfer bonus ongoing now. With this promotion, 5,000 SC Rewards Points becomes 1,500 ALL points, worth โฌ30.
Put it another way, the Smart Card is letting you get an effective rebate of ~16% on your bonus spending, assuming you take those ALL points at face value.
Sign-up offer for Smart Card
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| Apply |
| โ New-to-bank Definition |
| New-to-bank customers are defined as those who do not currently hold a principal Standard Chartered card, and have not in the 12 month period before application. Debit cards, supplementary cards and corporate cards do not count. |
If you don’t hold any Standard Chartered cards at the moment, SingSaver is offering S$350 cash to new-to-bank sign-ups for the Smart Card who spend S$500 in the first 30 days. For context, this is the largest offer we’ve ever seen- previous ones maxed out at S$300.
For the full details, including definitions of eligible spend, refer to the post below.
Biggest-ever offer: S$350 cash with a new Standard Chartered Smart Card
Conclusion
Standard Chartered has extended the Smart Card’s bonus earn rate on fast food, streaming entertainment, and SimplyGo till 31 December 2023.
If these are big categories for you, then it’s a card you can consider getting- especially if you’re eligible for the S$350 cash offer that SingSaver is currently running.
Hey Aaron, have you seen the amount of airline partners convertible from ALL points? What do you think?
No point. Save your all points for hotel stays
Does the pts have an expiry?
24.7. 360ยฐ Rewards Points awarded are valid for 3
years from the date of opening of the credit card
account to which the points are credited to (Initial
Period). 360ยฐ Rewards Points awarded after the
Initial Period will be valid for a further period of 3
years from the date the Initial Period ends (Further
Period). Thereafter, subject to clause 15.2.4 and
clause 18, any 360ยฐ Rewards Points that remain
in the 360ยฐ Rewards Points balance after the Initial
Period or Further Period will expire automatically. All
360ยฐ Rewards Points that have expired cannot be
reinstated
may i asked for the merchant that qualify, is it only what they have listed? for eg. VIU also considered streaming, but will i get to earn miles for that?
Hi Aaron! just login-ed to check on SC cc redemptions, didnt manage to find Krisflyer listed.
The rest of the FFP are still present on it, just without KF….
Any idea about that?
https://milelion.com/2019/12/17/no-scb-hasnt-removed-krisflyer-miles-transfers-and-other-misconceptions/
Hi Aaron, do you know when the base and bonus 360 rewards points from the Smart card will be awarded? I spent about $81 at the eligible merchants for this statement month but only earned 272 rewards points in this statement.
They are awarded the following month as a lumped amount. However I’m quite certain there are issues with their tagging of eligible transactions. See my other comment
Data point submission – the way the transactions are determined for bonus point eligibility is dumb as rocks. Through trial and error of my past two months’ statements I’ve deduced that it’s a basic word filter! Which means transactions with “McDonald’s” in the description are eligible and “McDonalds” (which is written like this when ordering through the McD app) are not!
P.S. not to mention the SCB customer service is painfully slow at replying to the in-app emails
have received similar feedback from other cardholders as well. i’m looking into how the points are calculated
I’ll update here too if I get a definitive answer from them.
Reply from SCB CS
“Please be informed that we have credited bonus 17.6 points for the shortfall.
This issue has been fixed on 6 Jan 2023 to award the 17.6 bonus points. Should you require further assistance or clarification you may wish to contact us by visiting our website and click Services followed by Get In Touch With Us. Thank you for banking with Standard Chartered.”
This was 5 days ago but I’ve not seen the shortfall points hit my account. This plus the unpooling of 360 points with VI.. sigh so tiring