UOB Absolute Cashback Card nerfs GrabPay top-ups

While GrabRewards has been nerfed into oblivion, there’s still one crucial use case for GrabPay: bill payments.

So long as your credit card earns rewards on GrabPay top-ups, you can use your GrabPay balance to pay bills via AXS and effectively earn miles or cashback on them. The vast majority of cards exclude GrabPay top-ups, but there’s still three contenders left.

Well, two from 15 January 2023.

UOB Absolute Cashback Card nerfs GrabPay top-ups

From 15 January 2023, the UOB Absolute Cashback Card will reduce the cashback on GrabPay top-ups to 0.3%, down from 1.7% currently.

If you were so inclined (and if your credit limit permits), you could do one final burst of fire by topping up S$10,000 and spending it on future AXS bills, earning S$170 cashback in the process (you can’t do the full S$30,000 in a month, because GrabPay has a S$10,000 top-up limit per month).

That probably doesn’t make sense from an opportunity cost point of view, especially with interest rates going up every month, but well.

It’s a shame this is happening now, because MAS looks set to raise the annual transaction limit for e-wallets from S$30,000 to S$100,000 in the near future (or maybe that’s why UOB’s decided to do it now). Imagine being able to score a 1.7% discount on up to S$100,000 of income tax, MCST fees, insurance premiums, education expenses, season parking, utilities bills and more…

Which other cards earn rewards for GrabPay top-ups?

With the nerfing of the UOB Absolute Cashback Card, American Express will be the only issuer still offering rewards for GrabPay top-ups, and even then, just on two cards. 

Since the AMEX HighFlyer Card is only available to owners of SMEs, most people will have to switch to the AMEX True Cashback Card from 15 January 2023. This earns 1.5% cashback on everything, including GrabPay top-ups. 

At least for now. American Express already tightened the rewards for GrabPay top-ups back in August 2022, so who knows whether we’ll pass through 2023 unscathed?

Conclusion

From 15 January 2023, UOB Absolute Cashback Cardholders will only earn 0.3% cashback on GrabPay top-ups, down from the current 1.7%.

I suppose we should be thankful that UOB didn’t exclude it altogether, but that’s more or less what they’ve done. There will be little reason to use the UOB Absolute Cashback Card for GrabPay top-ups when you can earn 1.5% cashback with the AMEX True Cashback Card.

For now.

(HT: CC Gong)