| ⚠️ Update: In an updated set of T&Cs published on 4 April 5.08 p.m, Maybank has amended section 2.2 to remove all references to donations, bill payments, hospitals, education, PayPal and Grab services. I guess this means we’re back to status quo? |
Maybank has published a new list of rewards exclusions for its TREATS programme, which took effect from 1 April 2023.
While some of these have been a long time coming (donations, education, hospitals), others are nebulously-defined (bill payments), and others make no sense at all. For example, Maybank now excludes all PayPal transactions, as well as all Grab services, including Grab rides and GrabFood!
Maybank’s new rewards exclusions
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| Maybank TREATS |
Here’s links to the old and new TREATS programme T&Cs:
For ease of comparison, I’ve uploaded both copies to Draftable, where the changes have been highlighted.
I want to zoom in on the changes to the rewards exclusions section at 2.2, where the following have been added:
- Money transfer (MCC4829)
- Bill payments (recurring or otherwise, inclusive of medical or hospital bills)
- Payments to educational institutions
- Payments to all Grab platforms (e.g. Grab Rides, Grab Pay, etc.)
- Online payment gateway transactions (e.g. Paypal, Skrill and Bidpay etc.)
- Any donations
- (For Cardmembers holding personal Cards) any transaction deemed by Maybank at its sole discretion to be beyond personal consumption or of a business and/or corporate nature
- Any other transactions that Maybank may determine from time to time without prior notice
Which exclusions make sense?
Let’s start with the exclusions that I more or less understand.
Money transfers (MCC 4829, e.g. TransferWise) are really no big shocker, since pseudo-cash transactions have always been on the blacklist.
Likewise, even though it’s sad to see Maybank excluding points for charitable donations, education and hospital bills, the fact is these categories were always living on borrowed time. Most banks excluded these a long time ago, and if anything, Maybank should get kudos for how long they kept them around.
The clause about business or corporate transactions may sound strange at first, but most banks have something to that effect. It’s not uncommon for directors or employees at SMEs to use personal cards instead of corporate ones, either for better rewards or to avoid additional paperwork. By right this isn’t permissible, but by left, banks usually close one eye because of how difficult it is to prove. If you don’t raise red flags by spending tens of thousands of dollars on Google or Facebook ads or regularly maxing out your credit limit, I tend to think you’ll be left alone.
Which exclusions don’t make sense?
Unfortunately, other exclusions are vaguely-defined, and raise more questions than answers.
For example, Maybank says they’ll be excluding Bill payments (recurring or otherwise, inclusive of medical or hospital bills).
The hospital bit is understandable, but what exactly is a bill payment? Maybank doesn’t provide any MCCs, so how are we to read this term? Does it mean that CardUp spending no longer qualifies? What about utilities? Rental?
Then there’s Online payment gateway transactions (e.g. Paypal, Skrill and Bidpay etc.)
Goodness me, this is poorly drafted. If Maybank really meant what they were saying here, then all e-commerce transactions would now be excluded, since every time you buy something online (whether it’s Amazon, Lazada, Qoo10 etc.), your transaction has to go through an online payment gateway.
I’m going to assume that’s not what they meant and focus on PayPal specifically. While I can understand excluding P2P money transfers, excluding PayPal as a whole is just absurd– there are plenty of legitimate retail transactions that take place through the platform. Many blogshops and SMEs use PayPal to accept credit cards, and it’s almost as if someone at Maybank doesn’t know the difference between a personal and business PayPal account.
Maybank, incidentally, is not the first bank to try and exclude PayPal transactions altogether. Back in August 2018 Citibank unveiled a new rewards blacklist which excluded all PayPal transactions, but by the time it went into effect in October 2018, PayPal had been quietly removed. I guess they realised that even though some PayPal transactions can be pseudo-cash transactions, many are not (and there’s ways of distinguishing the two on the back-end).
And we haven’t even talked about the strangest exclusion of all: Payments to all Grab platforms (e.g. Grab Rides, Grab Pay, etc.)
Again, it’s understandable that GrabPay is excluded (it always was; this just makes it explicit), but all Grab platforms? GrabPay has long been the black sheep of the Grab family, but banks have always treated Grab Rides or GrabFood just like any other taxi or food delivery service.
It’s tempting to say that this isn’t what Maybank intended, but the fact that Grab Rides are explicitly listed is hard to ignore. And to make matters more confusing, the Maybank Horizon Visa Signature’s T&Cs still list Grab as an example of a taxi transaction that earns 8X TREATS points!
So yeah, this is kind of a mess.
Maybank now uses $5 earning blocks
As a reminder, Maybank adopted S$5 earning blocks from 1 January 2023, which means that all transactions are now rounded down to the nearest S$5 before points are awarded. For example, a S$19.99 transaction will earn the same number of points as a S$15 transaction, and a S$4.99 transaction will earn no points at all.
It’s a decidedly customer-unfriendly practice, though sadly they’re not the first to do this- OCBC and UOB have similar policies (but not DBS, contrary to popular belief).
 Maybank Visa Infinite |
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| Local Spend | Till 31 Dec 2022 | From 1 Jan 2023 |
| S$4.99 | 15 pts / 6 miles (1.20 mpd) |
0 pts/ 0 miles (0 mpd) |
| S$12.99 | 39 pts / 15.6 miles (1.20 mpd) |
30 pts / 12 miles (0.92 mpd) |
| S$16.99 | 51 pts / 20.4 miles (1.20 mpd) |
45 pts / 18 miles (1.06 mpd) |
| S$24.99 | 75 pts / 30 miles (1.20 mpd) |
60 pts /24 miles (0.96 mpd) |
Conclusion
Maybank’s expanded list of rewards exclusions kicked in on 1 April 2023, and while donations, education and hospital bills are expected (if regrettable), excluding PayPal and the entire Grab ecosystem is a head-scratcher.
If it’s any consolation, Maybank cards would hardly be anyone’s first choice anyway, but still…
Can anyone make sense of Maybank’s latest rewards exclusions?
What about transactions via Fave?
Insurance payments still earn reward points?
yes, maybank cards are one of the few that still award points for insurance payments, up to a certain limit.
Just called into Maybank priority hotline and was informed they are not aware of these new exclusion categories!!!